Chapter 24
March 19th – March 21st
March 19th – Train 12, In Transit To White Mountain
"Just out of curiosity, how did you manage to snag this many tickets?" Winry asked Mustang, looking around.
The entire carriage had been booked out, and everyone was relaxing comfortably.
"I'm the Fuhrer," Roy said loftily. "I pulled the 'military business' card."
"Speaking of military business, couldn't you have rustled up a larger force than this, considering you're Fuhrer and all?" Ed commented, stretching out on the seat.
"Probably."
"So why didn't you?"
"Quite simple, the more people we have, the greater the chance of being detected in our trek up the mountain. Once we get over thirty people, it would be almost impossible to make it to Mangeli's lab without everyone knowing we were coming. And if you take Winry's people, our people, and of course, ourselves, that makes it about twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven people here – we're pushing our luck as it is."
"Right," the alchemist's head rested contentedly in Winry's lap, and Ed's eyes closed as she began to play with stray strands of his hair.
Roy smirked, and opened his mouth...
But whatever teasing comment he had been about to make was lost in the strangled gasp he emitted as Riza's heel crashed down onto his foot. He barely managed to stifle a yelp of pain, and turned a baleful glare on his lieutenant. Riza quirked her eyebrows, her stern gaze telling him to behave – or else.
Winry and Ed remained blissfully oblivious. Both had their eyes closed, Winry resting her head against the window, one wing half-resting on Ed's chest and the other against the wall, Ed's head on her lap as her fingers ran gently through his bronze locks. Ed's breathing slowed and gradually evened out, and Winry's fingers relaxed, then ceased altogether moments later.
Both were fast asleep.
oooooooo
March 19th – Train Station, White Mountain
"So, where are we heading?" Roy asked as he and everyone else around Winry struggled into thermal clothing.
"Up," was all Winry said, pointing to where White Mountain disappeared into the low-hanging clouds.
Unlike the others, thermal clothing wasn't an option for her – it wasn't like the jackets came with wing-warmers. So Winry decided to wrap herself in her white fire, and radiated so much heat that as they began their hike, the snow melted around her, clearing the way for the others.
"Call me crazy, but...won't Mangeli notice that?" Ed asked, pointing to the trail she was leaving in the snow.
"Low hanging cloud, remember?" Winry pointed at the grey mass above their heads. "White Mountain's known for them – we'll be well hidden, trust me."
oooooooo
March 19th – White Mountain, Amestris
The scream behind Winry was her only warning. She spun around, seeing the snow cave in around Joseph, leaving him teetering on the edge of a ravine. His arms windmilled frantically, trying to keep his balance, his hands reaching forward as others tried to help him.
But they were too late. Joseph tilted, then started to fall...
Only to find himself caught in strong arms as Winry flew from the cliff to snatch him from the air.
"That's why I want you to stay on the path I'm making," Winry warned as she set him back on solid ground. "At least that way, you can see what you're about to fall into."
oooooooo
March 19th – White Mountain, Amestris
The sun was beginning to sink in the sky, casting shadows on the snow as they continued onward. The snow was getting deeper, needing more of Winry's powers to melt it away.
"Are you okay?" Ed asked her in a low voice when he noticed her wiping her forehead, where beads of sweat had formed despite the arctic environment.
"Fine," Winry forced a smile.
"You're sweating and breathing hard," Ed pointed out.
The fake grin dropped off Winry's face. "My powers don't exactly drain me, but...I've been using them for about eight hours straight, and it's...tiring."
"Well, I think that's a cave coming up," Ed squinted into the distance. "Maybe we can rest there."
oooooooo
March 19th – White Mountain, Amestris
It was indeed a cave that Ed had spotted. When Winry reached it, she was immediately impressed by its size – they could probably fit the lot of them in it. Though there were still several hours to go until sunset, Winry didn't think it was wise to pass this up – the chances of them finding such a suitable shelter again were very remote. So that only left the problem of making sure they had enough heat.
The entrance was partly blocked with snow, creating a windbreak, and Winry attached her white fire to a snow-covered branch she stole from a tree. It took long minutes of concentration, but Winry finally managed to tweak the pale flames so they only barely illuminated the cave, but radiated heat like a miniature oven.
When Al asked why she did that, Winry explained the less light it gave off, the less chance of their presence being detected.
Dinner came in tins – mainly a watery liquid trying to pass itself as soup. Again, Winry was responsible for heating them, touching the outside of the can and instantly heating the contents. The meal was a sombre affair, most of their minds on the upcoming battle.
When she lay down on the ground, curled close to Ed, Winry knew sleep would be a long time in coming. Ed – with his uncanny ability to sleep anywhere and under any circumstances – was out within moments, but Winry remained alert and aware.
She watched as people slowly dropped off to sleep around her. She hid a smile when Roy took a sleeping Riza's hand when he thought no one was looking.
"Winry?" Al whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Will...will everything be alright...tomorrow?" Al sounded scared.
But then, Winry could empathise. She felt scared herself. It was Mangeli who had kidnapped her, Mangeli who had held her prisoner, Mangeli who had tortured her. Father had been a distant figure – someone she knew of, but didn't really know – but Mangeli was different. Father had just been someone she needed to defeat, but Mangeli was the bogeyman of her nightmares...deep inside, some part of her was still terrified of him.
"It'll be fine, Al."
"Winry..." Winry got the distinct feeling that if Al had a body, he would be biting his lip. "Winry...why are you so determined to go after him? You say it's to stop him, but there's...more to it, isn't there?"
Winry gave a shuddering sigh, then eased one hand over to grasp Al's gauntlet. The chill of his armour sent a reflexive shiver through her body, but she didn't remove her hand.
"I can't explain now," Winry told him, her eyes begging Al to trust her. "It will make sense, I promise, but I...can't explain now."
Al nodded. But then again, Winry hadn't really expected anything less from him – Al was probably the most understanding person on the planet.
"Okay..." Al said, "But Winry, you're not going to...get hurt, are you?"
Winry's heart melted. She loved Al like the little brother she never had, and at times, that was exactly how he acted.
"I'll be fine, Al, trust me."
Outside, no one noticed the glittering eyes in the dark, and no one heard the steady beat of leathery wings. And no one noticed the bat-chimera turn in it's flight, winging back to Mangeli to report their presence.
oooooooo
March 20th – White Mountain, Amestris
It didn't take much. Since she couldn't fly them up to the laboratory one by one, Winry decided to bring the laboratory to them.
Her white fire wrapped around the pillar of black shadow, eating at it like acid. The pillar collapsed in on itself, and the laboratory plummeted to the ground. The impact made the earth beneath their feet tremble, and Winry shielded the others from the blast with her white fire.
Winry had thought that their attack would have the element of surprise, but from the way the chimeras swarmed from the doorway, she realised she had grossly underestimated Mangeli.
Totally unprepared for the first wave, Winry flew into the air and rained white fire down on them in an effort to keep them away from Ed, Al, and the others.
It didn't work.
A large, bat-like creature tackled her to the ground, talons ripping at her face and neck. Winry yelped as she felt her skin open, but simply metaled-up, and dealt the chimera a blow that would have knocked a train from its tracks.
The chimera went flying, but there was another to take its place...and another...and another.
Realising they would be brought down by sheer weight of numbers, Winry began to panic. She hadn't planned for this, hadn't prepared for this!
'Stupid!' she berated herself. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid! Arrogant, cocky idiot!'
Winry looked around, to find most of those around her were already being held immobile by the chimeras. With a chill, she realised they were being held, not killed. Mangeli obviously had plans for them.
She opened her wings, preparing to take flight once more, when she heard a shout from behind her.
"Winry look out!"
She started to spin, but had only just managed to turn her head when it hit her.
A thick net, seemingly made entirely out of black shadow. Winry went down, and it instantly anchored in the earth, trapping her beneath its fibres. Winry reared up, her wings trying to beat, struggling to free herself from the net's tangles.
But she couldn't break free. The net tightened around her like a living thing, crushing her wings against her body and fouling all her attempts at flight. She summoned her white fire, but as soon as it touched the black net, poisonous violet lightning streaked through her body.
Winry screamed in pain and fell limp, panting heavily. She grasped the net with her hands, trying to hurl it from her, but it constricted like a snake, as though determined to crush her. Held so tightly that the breath wheezed from her lungs, she could barely move her fingers, let alone throw the net away.
She could hear Ed screaming, Al yelling, but all Winry's attention went to the booted feet that stopped beside her head.
"Subject Delta..."
Winry's blood turned to ice water in her veins. She knew that voice. Looking up, she saw the face of the man who had haunted her nightmares.
Mangeli.
A feral snarl burst from her throat. Winry fought the net savagely and nearly won, but then the purple electricity ripped through her once more, leaving her collapsed and shaking on the ground.
"Stay away from her!" Ed bellowed, twisting against the arms of his animalistic captor.
Mangeli paid him no more attention than an annoying fly. He was examining Winry's wings.
"Oh, yes," he purred. "Undoubtedly my greatest work...magnificent...unparalled..."
Winry waited until he was leaning in so close his nose was inches from her right wing. Then she thrashed, just managing to smash her wing into his face.
Winry saw his mouth twist in a snarl as he grabbed the net. This time the electricity was far worse, and she writhed to try and escape from the source of her pain. Blind panic flooded her system as the world went dark, and the last thing she heard was Ed's voice screaming her name.
oooooooo
March 21st – Mangeli's Laboratory, White Mountain
Ed pounded his fists against the wall of their cage, yelling at the top of his lungs.
He, Al, Roy, Riza, and everyone else had woken in a cell, their weapons gone, their alchemy disabled. His pocket watch told him they'd been out for over twelve hours, and what was worse...
He couldn't see Winry.
Everyone else was in various cells alongside theirs, but Winry was nowhere to be seen. Which meant she was being held somewhere else, probably with Mangeli...and Ed's stomach twisted at the thought of what might be happening to her.
While his current activities were hardly comfortable for his cellmates, all Ed wanted was to attract the attention of Mangeli. And then, he had a chance of finding out what happened to Winry.
He took a deep breath, and began yelling again.
oooooooo
March 21st – Mangeli's Laboratory, White Mountain
Winry came awake slowly, but kept her eyes closed and her breathing even in case she was being watched. She could hear someone – probably Mangeli – moving around, muttering to himself about impossibilities of nature and alchemy. Subtly, she tried to shift, only to find she was strapped onto a metal exam table, her wings jammed under her body and her limbs spreadeagled.
Well, sneaking away was out. She'd have to blast her way out.
Winry didn't waste a second. She metaled-up, using her white fire to smash her restraints to pieces as she flew into the air.
Mangeli only had time to half-turn towards her before a blast of white fire sent him into the wall. But Winry didn't press her advantage, instead she took off through the corridors, flying at top speed, trying to reach her friends.
oooooooo
March 21st – Mangeli's Laboratory, White Mountain
Ed's incoherent ranting broke off when the door at the end of the corridor was blasted apart, and Winry flew into the hall.
"Winry!"
"Hey," she greeted, waving at them.
She landed in front of their cell, grasped the bars, and with a sudden effort, bent them so they could escape. Winry repeated the action for every cell in the hall, slowly freeing them all. Ed tried to use his alchemy to help her, and when his efforts proved fruitless, Winry concentrated hard, fighting Mangeli's rein on their alchemy.
She won, and managed to not only free the others to use their alchemy, but also disable Mangeli's in the process. When he found out, she had no doubt he'd be furious.
"Now," she began, speaking rapidly. "I kinda blasted Mangeli into a wall, which will probably piss him off like crazy, and since I also disabled his alchemy, it's only a matter of time before-"
"Get them!" Mangeli bellowed, standing at the head of a pack of chimeras.
"Too late!" Winry yelped, and launched herself into the air.
A bat-chimera lunged after her, but Al seized it by the foot and tossed in to the floor so hard the tiles cracked.
Mangeli's eyes widened as Winry smashed into him, her arms wrapping around him in a bear hug, her momentum carrying him backward and into the corridor. They struck the floor heavily and Winry concentrated, trying to tear the daemon from him.
But Mangeli reached up, and black shadow shot from his hands, driving Winry through the roof and into the sky outside. Her wings opened, catching the air as she hovered in place. Then she angled her body and dived back through the hole she had created like an arrow, slamming Mangeli to the floor with such force that, had the laboratory had still been resting on its pillar of black shadow, it surely would have crumbled.
What surprised her, however, was that Mangeli's black shadow had been sheer, concussive force, not the acid-like blows that Father had dealt. Was that some new trick Mangeli had learned?
It would seem so, for when Mangeli grabbed at her face, Winry could feel her flesh bubbling and melting away like one of Father's blows. She released him, backing away hastily before he could blind her.
For a moment, they faced each other without moving, as though each were sizing the other up. The only sounds were the noise of the battle behind them as Mangeli's chimeras clashed with the others. Winry spared a momentary prayer for the safety of her friends.
Then, suddenly, the lab walls dissolved around them, sinking into the earth. Winry yelped in surprise, and Mangeli staggered back, looking around in astonishment.
Winry risked a glance back, to see Ed wink at her as they worked on drawing the chimeras away. And Winry understood – they wanted to give her a clear shot at Mangeli, so Ed dissolved the laboratory walls to give them all a more open battleground.
If a little more chilly – Winry shuddered as a cold wind bit into her.
But now that she had more room to move, Winry was able to use her wings as a real advantage.
She shot into the sky, neatly dodging the black shadow blast that followed her. She let loose with a rain of white fire, like she had used on Father, in an attempt to set him running. But Mangeli clapped his hands, and black shadow sprang between them, extending in front of him as he opened his arms like a shield. Winry's white fire hit the shield, and both fizzled out in a small burst of smoke.
Winry cursed colourfully as black shadow wrapped Mangeli's body like a cloak, and his fists clenched. She dived out of the way as a blast scorched the tree behind her.
She poured her white fire down on him like hot oil. He screamed, and for a moment, Winry could have sworn the caustic power of her attack reduced him to bare skeleton for a split second.
But then she was hit with an equally ferocious attack from him, and the pain of flesh and muscle crumbling away wiped her mind blank of anything else. Her feathers melted from her wings, and even as she regenerated, Winry was falling. Realising she had no way of avoiding the impact, Winry relied on her now-metal flesh to sustain and survive it.
When she hit the ground, it knocked the breath from her lungs, and was fairly certain she felt more than one rib break. She flipped to her feet as fast as she could, just in time to fend off another attack from Mangeli.
Winry was desperately worried about her friends, but didn't dare take her eyes off Mangeli for even an instant.
Mangeli cupped his hands, allowing a ball of black shadow to pool in his hand. When he threw it at her, it opened like a net. But this time, Winry shifted her fingers into claws and slashed it apart.
'Why don't I know those kinds of tricks?' she thought to herself, even as she attacked again. 'Still, I guess that explains the net he caught me with in the first place...'
For a while, the battle went back and forth like a game of table tennis. Mangeli attacked, and Winry retaliated. Back and forth, back and forth, neither landing any really disabling blows.
But Winry had a strategy. Each attack brought her closer to him, and when she judged she was close enough, she lunged.
Again, she tried to yank the Daemon from him. But this time, she encountered a resistance that she hadn't found in Father...as though Mangeli was physically holding the Daemon in his body.
Mangeli smirked at her bewildered expression. "Surprised?"
He grabbed her by the shoulders, and hurled her away. Winry rolled as she struck the ground, but Mangeli was on top of her, seizing her wings in his hands, twisting and tugging as though determined to rip them from her body.
Winry howled in agony as her bones splintered beneath his cruel grip. Realising she had to throw him off her before he literally tore her wings out, Winry reached back with hands that smoked with white fire.
She grabbed the first thing she could – Mangeli's face and neck – and held.
Mangeli screamed, releasing her wings as he scrambled backwards, desperate to get away from the pain. Winry spun around, ignoring the harsh grating in her wings as the joints realigned and repaired themselves, and she leapt on top of him, using her weight – rather considerable when she metaled-up – to drive him into the ground.
And in an instant, a flash of inspiration hit Winry. Her white fire seemed to barely damage Mangeli – it didn't cause him the same pain it had Father, at least. He had probably learned to manipulate the black shadow to partly shield himself from those kind of attacks. But when she threw him into the ground, it seemed to work better.
So as Mangeli staggered to his feet, Winry rushed again.
But this time, when she enveloped him in a bear hug, she took care to pin his arms to his sides. Her wings opened, and began to beat rhythmically.
Slowly, she and Mangeli rose above the battlefield. He fought against her arms, but with his pinned, there was precious little he could do. He bellowed his frustration, arching his back and fighting her hold like a wild horse, his black shadow scorching her flesh like acid.
And still, Winry clung on grimly. And still, her wings beat steadily, carrying them higher and higher.
Winry could see the panic in Mangeli's eyes. 'Beginning to catch on? A fall from this height will snap every bone in your body, stunning you, and leaving you open for that moment when I rip the Daemon from your body.'
They rose higher and higher, the muscles straining under Winry's steel skin as she fought to rise higher still.
Finally, when she could rise no further, Winry folded her wings, angled to the ground, and dropped.