~~ EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE ~~
Chapter: Too Many Questions
Rating: T
Warnings: OOC
Genre(s): Angst, Hurt/Comfort, hinted Romance
Summary: Ed breaks the one law he'd thought he'd never break again.
Date Written: 6 March 2011
Date Published: 12 March 2011
Word Count: 655
Dedication: Sweet Serendipity!
AN:/: Sorry I keep changing my mind about where the story is going. I promise that this chapter has been edited and will remain unless someone points out errors or flaws. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Maybe the laws of equivalent exchange would work for once. Most likely not, but he had to try.
Mustang fought the urge to incinerate all as he, Havoc, and Hawkeye, raced for the edge of town. He hated the feeling of hopeless helplessness that threatened to consume him. Had he ever before been this way? When had he become the weak, sniveling coward that allowed a subordinate to be placed in danger! While he knew nothing about what was going on with Ed, he knew that something terrified the boy he'd never before seen cry.
Panic fought for control of Roy's mind as the storm abated and the winds ceased to rip all from its path. What had Ed mentioned about no longer being human?
"Follow the storm!" Roy's words almost seemed lost as the winds screeched the loudest, as if to keep him away from his destination. Nothing seemed right about the circumstances. Why today? Why the day when the strongest among them finally decided to come home? Why Ed? Hadn't the child suffered enough at the hands of life? Why Ed, the child who'd fought so damned hard to bring his brother home? When would Fate and the Gate allow all to rest and live out the pittance of life allowed to them?
Why a child? Why put a child through this hell?
A sweetened voice threatened to melt Roy with it's coyness...'He's no longer a child. Why don't you forget about all that bothers you?"
Roy grimaced. That was right...Ed wasn't a child any longer. Today was his twentieth birthday. He slowed as the full implications of that fact became known in his mind. Edward no longer needed him. He was no longer needed by anyone. The repeat of his past-when he barely understood what it meant to be needed-threatened to keep him away from everything he'd worked so hard to achieve. Everything he'd sought to prove to his father seemed to wash away with the rain as it refocused around him.
When had the rains picked up again? Roy stopped. The skies emptied into the tempest's wrath as Central faded into the background. What was it about that city that drew him there. Wait, why was he even there...? Who was he again?
Terror set in the Colonel's mind as everything past, present, and future washed away leaving only the fears of the Abyss he'd seen somewhere in his life. The void sucked at everything and pulled it inside much the same way the storm did...Unfamiliarly familiar phantoms ghosted his vision and edged closer to him. The faces remained unseen, except for the soulless eyes of ebony that echoed the shade of his own. He knew each and every face...but from where?
WHERE THE HELL WAS HE?
He fell to his knees as the torrential rains pounded uneven beats and rhythms that washed the world away. Hands clutched at hair the color of a raven's breast as the spectors nearly touched him with hands foul and rotting from the bone. Here he would die, with no memory of what sins brought him to this end...
"COLONEL!"
A body crashed into him, bringing him out of his stupor. He picked himself out of the mud and stood like a mountain against the storm. He knew who he was...
He was THE Colonel Roy Mustang. He was due for a promotion to Fuhrer in a year. He was THE Flame Alchemist, the pride of the Military. Who the hell had dared make him forget that?
"Keep moving. Do not stop for anything. Hawkeye, shoot Havoc in the ass if you have to, just get him in gear!"
The lieutenant smiled, pistol whipping the slowing Havoc in the ass. If anyone knew motivation, it was her.
Roy grinned and renewed running to the thickest part walls of water. That was where Ed fled to. The damned brat had better be grateful that he had a use to Mustang.