Hullo, Forgetful's stopped being an ass and is actually writing! Woah, I know, slow down. Anywho, here we go. 3 MONTHS AFTER I WAS ASKED TO DO IT! OMG I am so sorry….

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no way jaso. Um, jose. XD Although I'm a MAJOR AU fan, so a lot of my stories will be set in other places than Amestris. This lot below are mine, but they aren't well developed characters or anything. :D

Metal and Fire

Chapter 2 – Break Away

The crowd cheered and roared, a circle of grinning faces staring into the centre of the ring, anxiously awaiting the next daring stunt. Elephants topped by dancers had twirled and leapt, acrobats had contorted themselves into impossible shapes and trapeze artists had finished swinging from the circus rafters. In a few moments it would be his turn.

Behind the star-studded curtains, Edward felt the familiar flutter of nerves settle in his stomach. It always came before his call, butterflies twisting up his last meal. Or maybe it was the threat of a beating should he make a mistake.

Now the bright lights made his stage make-up melt and itch despite the heavy hood, and the jeers of the crowd throbbed in his ears. He was pushed from behind.

"You'll miss your cue if you just stand there gawping all day boy, move. Now." The manager took him roughly by the elbow and shoved him towards the light of the ring. Edward snarled and pulled his arm away.

"I can walk." He affirmed. Behind him, the manager grumbled and muttered furiously, but Ed couldn't hear him. Plastering on a showman's smile, he strode into the ring to a shower of applause.

The ring master -a thin man dressed like a jester- grinned at him, but it didn't reach his eyes. It never reached any of their eyes, Edward was only there for the audience after all.

As the audience hushed to hear him, he wordlessly drew back his hood. The spectators made no reaction, it was, after all, just a young man in a cloak. But they remained silent, because surely after the marvels of the shape-shifter and the water nymph this boy would do something remarkable. When he tore of the rest of the cloak to reveal shining metal limbs, the crowd 'oohed' and 'ahhed' respectively.
"A clockwork boy!"

"Steel limbed!"

Edward ignored them. His unfortunate arm and leg were not his act, they merely worked up the crowd. It was the manager's idea and one he didn't enjoy performing. Dropping the cloak in the sand, He moved forward and drew a large circle with his foot, filling it with intricate swirls and turns. The squiggles were lost on the onlookers, and just as Edward felt their concentration waver he bent down and pressed both hands into the earth.

A blinding blue light filled the tent, and a wind roared up out of nowhere, tearing at the flimsy cloth. His hair whipped around him, and out of the stone floor he pulled a birdcage and a live dove. The audience, finally realising they had nothing to fear, clapped and whooped appreciatively. Opening the cage, he forced the bird out and it circled the tent above heads, searching for an escape. Finding one, it flapped hastily outside and into the night.

That was the end of the show, to be wrapped up by Florin the jester-cum-ringmaster still, but basically finished. Thankfully they'd finished on time, something vital for that evening's plans.

Edward walked through dark caravans covered with painted patterns towards a bonfire in the middle of their camp. Circus folk danced and gossiped, swigging beer in bottles and flasks. He moved swiftly through them and ignored the party. His destination was the large caravan of the manager in the centre of the camp.

Inside was a long table, and a group of cirquies stood around watching the manager pick at his fingernails with a small flick-knife. As Ed came in, he rose gracefully and thrust the knife into the tabletop.

"Now we are all assembled, I have gathered you here to make sure everything is set up. I know how useless some of you can be and I know the rest of you are just plain stupid, so, I'm going to do a check up and go through the plan of attack one more time. Clear?" Grumbles followed his words around the room but no-one complained.

"Gromjo, the bombs have been set?" A considerably well dressed cirquie nodded.

"Yessum, tested one from each batch Sir. All worked perfectly. Set up now to the directions on your map."

"Good, including the guardhouse?"

"Especially the guardhouse."

"Right, then that's sorted. Now, Stanze, what about you?" The manager went around the group, checking on things like rifles and schedules. Edward waited patiently throughout.

Finally, when he was satisfied that everything was at last in order, the manager pulled up a map. He jabbed at it with a pointy finger.

"We strike here; the heart of the special forces. The major training unit for the most elite soldiers…Soldiers who have probably murdered at least one of our brothers already. They won't know what's hit 'em and we'll have earned back the pride of our people. This will end all our payback," he sneered as though tasting something foul. "for that so called 'war' they waged on our kind. Edward!"

Ed looked up from picking at a loose thread in his coat.

"Hmm?"

"Are you ready?"

"Nothing to prepare for." He said quietly, shrugging.

"Right then. We leave in two hours. Be ready."

X

Roy heard the thud as his opponent hit the hard earth.

"You twisted too sharply. I only had to push forward to unbalance you completely." He held out a hand to the young blushing student to help him up. "Try again, only this time don't try all those fancy moves, you have the basics already." Positioning himself, Roy smiled and watched the boy pull a face of concentration, waiting to lunge forward with his blade and try his hand against the combat tutor again. He pounced quicker than Roy expected him too, so he parried a little more forcefully than perhaps he ought to have. The boy winced but held fast, pulling back to slice at his exposed left leg. Roy blocked this too, but looked up at his ill-matched opponent. "Better, good. You're beginning to notice blind spots, ah!" He caught the swing at his head just in time. It was unnecessarily vicious on the student's part. "There. You've got it." He dropped the tip of his sword to the dusty floor and turned to the rest of the students, addressing various pairs of boys locked in different states of combat. "Twenty minute break, free time! Make sure you get a drink, I don't want anyone dehydrating on me." The students were already chattering amongst themselves, ignoring him in favour of shady trees in the sun's midday heat.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Opening his water bottle over his head woke him up a little, but the heat was tiring and his students were wearing him down both physically and mentally. They'd liked him well enough when he'd first come to the academy. He was fun, and younger than most of the professors. He knew the latest sports scores, teased kids about their crushes and cut them all a little slack.

But then he discovered that the city wasn't ready for someone so new.

Seycomb was a lazy city of heat and dust. Its people were courteous and far ahead by means of technology, but they had strict social restrictions. You didn't help the beggars, even the nuns went around with their noses up as they passed the slums. Anyone different was either a novelty or a strange demon which could be blamed on witchcraft and Devil-Worship. Youngsters were supposed to know their place and everyone was supposed to recognise their own class. Roy had come along with visions from the capitol city, a more equal and accepting society. He found the strange, backward views of Seycomb troubling, and more-fool-he, had tried to change them.

From then on he'd been called many things by parents, ranging from 'bad influence' to complete 'Heathen brainwasher'. The children had picked up on it immediately. There'd been cries for him to be forced from the school, but there was no-one to replace him and the school board hadn't excused him yet.

Still, it didn't stop the stares on the streets or the attitude he had to face in every class. And it didn't help that hormonal teenagers could take it out on him physically either.

He decided to find some shade of his own away from the gaggle of boys. He left the elaborate training courtyard and as he rounded the corner of the hedge-maze he saw a student looking slightly lost.

"Can I help you?" The boy jumped and turned to face him. Corn-golden hair framed eyes of molten fire, and his skin was honey and milk.

Edward had been scouting the area before the attack. It was an overly extravagant town of carvings, boarding schools and a huge cathedral. And now this exotic stranger was asking him if he needed assistance? What a strange place it was. Even the confines of the circus weren't as disconcerting as this.

"With what?"

"It's just that you looked a little lost." Roy followed the blond to the shade of a nearby wall and watch a gloved hand fan the boy ahead of him.

"I'm…new here." Roy laughed. "What? Is it that obvious?" Edward asked indignantly.

"Quite. You don't really fit with the typical theme of the place." Roy looked him up and down to indicate his meaning, and Ed supposed that his bright red alchemy cloak was outstanding compared to the conservative dresses and practical tunics of the townsfolk.

"Yeah well, neither do you." Roy was dark where most others were fair or muddy brown. He had sun-browned skin and dark onyx eyes. Something even Ed's travels with the ever-moving circus hadn't shown him.

"Well, I'm new too. But I know my way around. Where are you trying to get to?" Edward shrugged.

"Anywhere really. I want to see everything. Although, I don't really know what 'everything' is." Roy gestured to the manor house that was the academy behind them.

"Well that's the Academy of arts and combat for young gentlemen." Edward raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Yeah, I thought that too. Um, you know, I've got twenty minutes free from my class. I could…show you around, if you like. My name is Roy."

"Edward. I…I would like that." Ed couldn't fight the smile that flew to his lips. Here was one of the inhabitants of the town they were about to declare war on, and he was willing to show Ed around the exact spots he needed to blow up. The irony.

They passed through the school grounds and Ed looked in on classes of young ones learning their early literacy. Roy took him through the path by the lake and the wagon where the gypsies read palms and showed little children puppet shows. The bank and the City hall and the Palace of Justice passed and soon it got to the dreaded subject.

"So, where are you from?" He knew he shouldn't answer, or at least should lie. But Roy was kind to him, treated him like an equal. It wasn't often that someone spoke sincerely to the circus' strange magician's apprentice. Everyone would end up knowing anyway, what did it matter?

"I'm here…with the circus." He waited for the sudden uneasiness.

"That's extraordinary, what a way to make an introduction. What do you do? Are you an acrobat?" Roy's eyes sparkled with interest and excitement, and Edward's heart flipped. No-one had ever thought he was something extraordinary before.

"No I…" Ed decided it would be easier to show him rather than to explain. "Follow me and I'll show you." He took Roy's hand suddenly and pulled him through winding backstreets to the very outskirts of civilisation.

Finally allowing them to stop, Ed collapsed on an overturned crate.

"My father was the circus magician. He died a long time ago, but not before teaching me some things. I think it runs in the family, I taught myself."

"That's quite a feat." Roy responded, unfazed by their sudden dash through the suburbs.

"No." Ed shook his head. "I had to otherwise they'd have abandoned me. You have to pay your way in the circus."

"I see. So, what sort of tricks do you do?"

"No tricks." Edward smiled. "Only equivalent trade." Roy made a puzzled expression and Ed stood up and turned the crate over with a bang and an explosion of dust. In the dirt on its base he scrawled a transmutation circle, and tentatively he touched both hands to it. The familiar blue light welled up around them both and the box shuddered and writhed as Edward forced its very atoms to change.

As the light faded, they were left with a door in place of the crate, set into the ground. Roy remembered he had to breathe to stay alive.

"That was…frightening, and yet…" Edward watched him uneasily. Had it been a mistake to show his abilities to this familiar stranger? "That wasn't magic, was it? That was alchemy. I'm sure."

"But…But how do you…?" Roy reached into one pocket and pulled out a glove. On it was inscribed a black transmutation circle for sparks.

"I was trained to use it in the army, but I quit. I don't fight with these any more." He pushed it back into the confines of his pocket, and walked over to the door with a smile. He reached down and hauled it open to reveal baked earth beneath. "You are incredibly talented." Ed went red, but Roy frowned. "We need to return this to normal, and you should never use alchemy outside your circus."

"Why?" Ed asked, watching his door being slowly closed once more. Roy shook his head.

"The people of this city are twisted. They're quite happy to watch these things for entertainment, but among their homes and families…You would not be safe." Edward frowned. The audience had always applauded, and were never appalled. Still, Roy said it with such conviction and concern, he decided to take his word.

Not that he could avoid showing the townsfolk anyway, considering his job for that evening.

He hoped Roy wouldn't be close to the buildings and people he had to destroy. Was Roy a friend? He'd heard of friends, but had never been in one place long enough to make any. Perhaps Roy was, and if that was the case he certainly wouldn't want to kill him just for the sake of the manager's stupid vendetta.

But still…After all his exploring and Roy's tour, he still didn't know exactly what he was supposed to attack. He hadn't seen any elite army training hall anywhere.

Clapping his hands absentmindedly, he returned the door to a crate.

Roy watched with fascination. A transmutation without a circle! Impossible. The boy was worth his weight in gold, a walking miracle. He was about to say something when he heard shouts and screams from around the corner.

"Blue shadows! I saw blue shadows!" The shouts of men joined the woman's screeching. Footsteps thundered towards them. Roy grabbed Ed and they ran.

In a few moments he hurtled out of the alley, with the blond in tow, towards the main town centre. They dodged the market stall, ignoring the strange looks they got from normal peasants, Lords and Ladies, and sped through the streets. They span around people and knocked the basket out of a woman's hands. Through the winding paths of the city they rocketed, until finally they were in a place that couldn't even be called the outskirts.

Edward was released, flushed and panting.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for that…"

"It's fine. It was worth it to see you do what you did, you're really…" He laughed, unable to find the right word. "…amazing." He settled on.

"I have to go." Edward said quietly.

"Oh." Roy sounded dejected, and Ed found himself reluctant to leave as well. He wanted to do something…anything. What was it his father used to do? Ah yes. That.

Leaning forward, he took Roy's arms gently and stood on tiptoes, quickly giving him a kiss on velvet lips.

Roy was astonished.

But he had no time to protest or acquiesce. Ed was gone into the long grasses and thick green leaves, back to the circus. Back to his manager's plans.

X

The night was dark; the darkest, longest night of the year. Picked especially for atmosphere and espionage, it provided the perfect cover for the cirquies to creep in.

Edward was stationed in front of the library, next to the manic manager.

"Which building am I targeting?" He whispered, hearing the occasional thump of the other cirquies in the background.

"When the time comes, I'll show you. Now be quiet and watch that door like I told you to, waif."

Suddenly a resounding bang thundered in the distance, and bright flames shot up to lick at the black night sky. Shouts filled the air and windows were thrown open to reveal men and women in nightgowns.

Ed was propelled through the streets at an alarming rate on the promise of being led to the final bombardment of the night. In a blur he found himself in front of a group of buildings; large, elaborate, overdressed. All the silhouettes looked the same in the blank black that surrounded them all like ink.

"That one first." The manager hissed at him, pointing to a large, square structure. Ed nodded and stepped forward with determination, clapping his hands together. He slapped the wall with both palms, and light whipped around him like snakes.

Within moments, the bricks and mortar of the structure were sand and dust, and inside were screams and drowning cries as people floundered in the sudden flood of desert. Ed moved on to the next building.

As more bombs and explosion bloomed around him, Edward methodically reduced the complex to ash. Change the sate of one building, ignore the screams, walk to the next solid wall. Repeat.

Half way through, he stopped before a window and clapped his hands together for the millionth time. A light blinded him, not the blue of a transmutation, but the flicker of a sudden gas lamp. The window in the wall opened and a little girl stuck her head out.

"Oh, oh Mister!" She called. Edward eyed her warily. What is a child doing in a military training facility? "Mister, the place is on fire. You should get inside. Don't you see the smoke? My Mummy says that's from essplosives. You can come in with me if you want." Edward looked around for his manager, but the strange man was nowhere to be seen.

"Nina, close that window this instant! Didn't I tell you it isn't safe? Come now, we made you a bed up in the basement with the other children, you…oh. Child, what are you doing outside?" Edward jumped, startled by the new voice. A woman came into view and she turned down the gas lamp.

"I'm…Helping with the fires." He replied to the motherly figure in the window. It wasn't exactly a lie. He was helping the fires…start.

"It's too dangerous for one your age. Your mother will be having fits. What's going on out there young man? We heard explosions."

"I don't know." He lied. "I got lost in the dark. Where is this place?"

"This is the Primary School House, in fact you're in the schooling district. Most of the trouble is that way." She pointed in the direction Ed had come from, and his path of destruction a few streets away.

Ed looked at her horrified. He'd been killing in the suburbs?

That meant…those screams hadn't been soldiers and murderers. It'd been children and teachers and pupils asleep in their beds. He'd slaughtered to get revenge for a slaughter.

He felt dirty and sick.

Nodding vaguely, he turned towards the loudest disturbance, walking away from the woman's cries for him to come back and wait it out with them. He wasn't going to kill any more. No-one deserved to die in Seycomb, and as he'd thought, there wasn't even a military base there to destroy. It was mindless killing. He was a mindless tool.

He broke into a run, heart and feet pounding in rhythm. Heat surrounded him and he realised the fires had caught up with him, or the other way round…He couldn't remember which way he had run. People rushed about in various degrees of panic. Blood and screams and the stench of burning flesh filled the air, and smoke choked his lungs.

"Edward!" He carried on running. If the cirquies knew there was no base then he would be forced to continue, whether or not he willed it.

"Edward! Damnit!" He was caught around the middle and pulled to a stop. "Thank God, I thought they might have got to the circus as well."

"Roy?" The man was covered in soot and bathed in the firelight of burning homes, and yet he still managed to look composed…In control.

"Are you alright?"

"I…" Edward felt the tears well up, but he willed them down. He would not cry, he would not… "I didn't know." He whispered, burying his face in Roy's shirt. He felt a hand cup the back of his head.

"What?"

"I didn't know I was killing them." He felt Roy stiffen, and got ready to feel the sting of a punch.

It didn't come.

"Edward…You were the one who…?"

"I didn't know!" The tears came as he pushed Roy from him. "I didn't know it was children, or whoever…I…

…They told me it was a military centre of soldiers who had targeted our homeland. That It was payback for the murder and rape of our women and children…and that if I killed them they wouldn't be able to hurt…anymore." Ed choked on a sob, burying his face in his hands and feeling the tie holding his hair start to slip loose. "I didn't know, I swear! I wouldn't have…I never meant…Oh God."

Arms held him again.

"I believe you." With those simple words came such a relief. He would hate himself for what he'd done, the world could stone him and shun him and send him to hell, but Roy believed him. And that made the guilt something purer to bear. "I believe you." Edward gripped him like a lifeline, burying a soot-stained face in a solid shoulder.

"I can't let them find me. They'll make me reduce this town to rubble. I have to leave…To run."

"Follow me."

Roy took him past the flames and the screams and the shouts of men putting out numerous fires. More than once Ed pulled him into the shadows to avoid one cirquie or another, each one making Ed's heart stop. But they weren't stopped once and slipped through the clutches of fear tat gripped Seycomb. The town and the rubble was eventually behind them. Entirely another world.

"Where will you go?"

"Anywhere."

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere that'll take me." There was a silence. Roy looked at the boy in front of him, so frightened, poised for flight. A golden boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He wanted nothing more than to hold him till the trails of tears that marred his face were nothing but memories. "I'm going. Goodbye…Roy. Thank you." He turned on his heel and began to walk down the abandoned road. He thought it reminded him of the mythical road to nowhere.

"Wait!" Behind him, Roy caught his shoulder. "I'm going with you."

"What about your job? Your home?" Ed didn't want Roy to come. He shouldn't. it was elfish and wrong and he didn't deserve Roy with him after that night…But oh did he want him to stay.

"I can leave them. This town hates me, I hate it. I have no home here, it's time we both broke away." Edward considered him in silence, staring ahead at his empty road to nowhere.

"Alright, we'll break away."

Perhaps the road would lead somewhere after all.

I'm sorry folks. There wasn't a lot of fluff because this story will be CONTINUED (As I might with a few of the one-shots that I do, I'm a stickler for longer stories) in chapter 12: Rainbow.

At about 3,500 words I was REALLY ready to stop. BUT I promised JumpinPopTarts I'd post today. So I continued to 4, 176.

I am SO So SO sorry to her…you…Um…yeah.

:Cries:

I'm such an ass. Gomen. Gomen Nasai.

Review loads to make her feel happy and not hate me? PWEASE?

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