Authors Note: FMA is still not mine. Also, I hate schedules. I don't know why I gave myself one that I didn't even need, so scratch that Sunday thing. I love this story and I'm not going months without updates or anything crazy. Every week to two weeks is a lot more manageable. :)

Rated M: Ed has been locked up for a while and doesn't have any soap for his filthy mouth. Not my fault. Cough.

A 'thank you' to all my reviewers. You make my day with your kind words and encouragement. Special thanks to Aurom ( you know who you are) for inspiring me to follow my dreams and write this story, as corny as that sounds. You have no idea how much that means to me.

To the people who said they have seen a soul bond fic before. I hope I'm doing something different with mine. It will not be: they become bonded, deal with it, fall in love, the end. As much as I love those kinds of stories, this is more plot-oriented. Evil diabolical plans abound. But I love constructive criticism, especially since I'm still new at this, so please let me know if the clichés start having babies and taking over my plot.

Chapter 4: In which someone finally breaks out of prison.

()()()()

Roy's eyes were crusted shut, as if he had been asleep for a long period. Awareness came to him with glacial slowness, but the first thing noticed was the smell.

Blood.

It filled up his nose, making him want to choke. Actually, as he was able to focus, he realized it was choking him. There was a mat of hair covering his face, making it hard to see and breath. However, he couldn't figure out why hair would smell like blood, or why there such a heavy weight on his chest, or why his ears were ringing, blocking out all noise.

With huge effort, Roy managed to wrench his eyes open. He was met with a vision of blond hair and a crusty bandage. How gross, he thought just as he realized that the owner of the blond hair and bandaged forehead had to be Fullmetal. Edward Elric was sprawled on top of him, unmoving. The next thought Roy had, was that Ed must be dead to put up with such close bodily contact. However, that thought was dispelled as Ed's hair ruffled and a breath of air danced across Roy's neck and face. The boy was breathing, albeit shallowly. Roy sighed in relief.

Sighing turned out to be mistake, as it stretched out Roy's chest. He would have screamed but nothing came out of his mouth other than a small whimper. Still, the pain cleared his mind, and he remembered being carved into by the alchemy, consumed by it, and sent to the other side.

As the ringing in his ears faded, Hawkeye's voice was suddenly audible, fierce and commanding.

"Shooting you again would be better than you deserve, you bastard!" He heard a sharp intake of breath and she said, "You will explain to me what you did to my General and you better hope for your sake that you can reverse it."

Roy knew he should let Riza know he was awake, but he forgot about the thick hair covering his face. The instant he tried to vocalize, a glob of it sank into his mouth, making him sputter.

He was trying to spit Ed's hair back out when he sensed Ed take a large gasp of air and jerk his head. Roy tried to call out to him, to warn Ed not to move too much, but his voice still wasn't working properly, and Ed heaved up with a mighty push.

Edward made a sound that was half groan and half shriek, rolling off Roy as he did so. Roy realized that having fallen on top of each other like that, their wounds had dried a bit, letting the blood clot and stick to both men, and therefore causing it to feel like they were being ripped apart as Ed jerked up.

Edward clutched at his chest, where the blood started flowing freely, and gazed around in bewilderment, half raised up on his elbows. His wide eyes fixed onto Roy, but he didn't speak. He simply stared, gasping for breath.

"Fullmetal, do you remember what happened to us?" Roy asked with a croak.

"I-."

"You obviously have every intention of shooting me as soon as I give you the information you desire, therefore I have no incentive to tell you anything." came Schmidt's voice, cold and somehow still in control even though his transmutation had gone so horribly wrong. The Lieutenant let out a noise of rage.

Ed's eyes narrowed at the sound of that distinctive voice, and they lost their glassy look, becoming dangerous. Both Roy and Ed looked up at the same time to see that Schmidt was standing at the edge of the circle, holding his bleeding shoulder. Riza was near the door, her gun trained on the alchemist, and Katrin was slumped behind her. Strangely, Hawkeye was wearing an ill-fitting guard uniform. Roy supposed that explained where she had gone after she ditched him and how she had avoided being caught. To his horror, dead bodies littered the floor.

Ed snarled and rose unsteadily to his feet, causing both Hawkeye and Schmidt to pause and turn their gazes toward him. Roy contemplated whether he should join his former subordinate but found that his limbs still were not inclined to obey him. How Ed had managed, he had no idea.

Then Ed spoke and Roy knew how. There was a simmering layer of rage in his voice, that had it been directed at him, Roy would have been afraid. Unlike Edward's usual rages, his voice wasn't raised, yet it managed to boom around the cell.

"Good thing I know what you did then," he said looking directly at Schmidt.

"Edward I will handle this," Riza answered firmly. Roy knew she was afraid of what Ed would do with his temper in disarray. They needed to handle this with care.

"Yes, let the grownups handle this, Edward," Schmidt said with glittering eyes.

Oh God, a blatant attempt to make Fullmetal lose control. Roy almost rolled his eyes in weariness.

But Edward surprised him. He didn't even blink, only taking the time to shift his weight off his flesh leg.

Schmidt looked from Edward to Hawkeye again and said, "Well, I used Flamel's principle of energy conservation in space-."

"English!" barked Hawkeye.

Edward interrupted them, his voice laced with bitterness, "He put a piece of Mustang inside me, that English enough?"

Everyone but Schmidt felt their mouth's drop open, including Roy.

"That's a very simple way to put it, Fullmetal," Schmidt said as he turned to face Ed with a calculating look.

"Yeah, well, I think you should just shoot him and be done with it."

Before either Riza or Schmidt could answer that, Roy finally compelled his voice to work. "No!"

He probably could have forced his body up as Edward had, but he decided to save his energy.

"Major Schmidt, what could you possibly hope to gain with this move?" Roy asked as calmly as he could manage. Inside he was seething almost as much as Edward.

A piece of me inside Fullmetal? How the hell does that even work?

"What do I wish to accomplish? Well, it could be that I did it simply because I could. I was bored being locked up here all day, as I'm sure the Fullmetal can attest to." Schmidt turned to look at Edward who hissed. "I wanted to take alchemy to a new level as it were."

Before Ed could move, Roy who was still perched on the floor said firmly, "I don't believe you."

Roy's brain was working overtime. Actually, I bet it's at least partially true. This entire time Schmidt has been taunting Edward, playing with him. At least part of this has to revolve around his interest in Edward Elric. But, if all he really wanted was to experiment on Ed, then he wouldn't have made it so easy for me to find him, knowing I would bring the brass on him. It was hard to think though, with his chest bleeding and his head pounding out a painful rhythm.

It didn't help that Edward's body in front of him was a frightening visual representation of what was happening to Roy himself. Blood dripped from raw, red lines, painting streaks down Edward's exposed chest and torn garments. Ignoring the phenomenon, Ed was forcing all of his energy into tearing Schmidt down with his glare alone, not that Schmidt seemed intimidated.

The Major narrowed his eyes. "Or maybe I understand that no matter what happens here, good Mr. Bertram will manage to blame it on you." He laughed, tauntingly. "Oh how he fears you, Flame Alchemist, how he'd love to bring you down to the dog-like state you pretend to be in. Maybe Bertram needed a distraction, and your headlong rush to protect one of your own provided the means for a ultimate one." He paused and then said with a vaguely conspiratorial tone, "I might even be perfectly willing to let you escape here, and watch Bertram go play fetch."

Hawkeye interrupted. "Whether we escape or not has little bearing on whether I shoot you." It was obvious she was still primarily concerned with what had happened to the Brigadier General during the transmutation.

Schmidt rolled his eyes. "Well you've already done that; One." He gave her a withering look. "Two; what stops you from killing me is my end game. My contingency plans. You really don't want to set those in motion."

"Really?" Hawkeye cocked her gun.

"Really," Schmidt answered. "You see, my men have certain orders, damage control orders." He continued as he pressed into his makeshift bandage, "They are to do everything possible to hide this operation. That includes killing a lot of people of course."

He faced Edward's blazing eyes and said, "Your brother screamed for you when we broke his arms. Such fragile bones."

That broke Edward's control. He screamed and launched himself at Schmidt, only to topple over as his leg gave out.

Ed struggled on the floor and hollered, "You fucker, you think I'll ever let you live after this. Contingency plans!? you're only contingency plan should be what you say to God, because I'm about to give you a face to face fucking meeting. How's that for a gift?!"

"And Alphonse will die. Painfully."

That made Ed pause.

"Where is he?" He looked murderous, like he was going to strangle the answer right out of Schmidt's neck. It turned out however, that he didn't need to, as Schmidt was more than willing to tell him.

"25 Fichten Street, apartment 14, North City."

Ed just stared for a moment in disbelief, then immediately continued. "Yeah right."

"It's the truth. Go rescue your brother. Hope that I don't see any full military invasions of West City, before you find him though. Then you might not like what you find." He smirked.

"Fetch," murmured Roy with understanding .

Schmidt looked down at him, "Precisely."

()()()()

Bernhard Bertram was sitting at a mahogany desk, tapping his fingers ominously and glaring that man standing in front of him. The Warden with his patchy, receding hairline smiled thinly, to which Bertram did not respond in kind. His smile fading, the Warden turned to whisper to two men who had appeared in front of the office door. Bertram caught a few words, mostly involving Mustang and fire.

"If anything happens to my Secretary, I will hold you personally responsible," Bertram said coldly, as the Warden faced him again.

Bertram was the reason the Warden had his job in the first place, making that not an idle threat. The Councilor kept a blind eye to the activities of the prison staff in exchange for favors. That was something he had not informed his Secretary of, nor anyone involved in his intelligence group. He considered what went on in the prison a bit of a side project. The drugs were a necessary price to pay for the freedom to conduct experiments on prisoners and for access to information. He sighed to himself. Katrin held such a naïve view of the world, even though she had seen her share of hardships, and he could not bear to let her down by allowing her to find out that he was involved in things that were not so black and white.

Glaring imperiously at the Warden, Bertram continued, "You obviously cannot handle the responsibility bestowed upon you, and if you don't control this situation, I will find someone who can." He bent down to examine a few papers he had brought with him; thereby missing the way the Warden twitched his mouth and rolled his eyes.

Bertram frowned and chewed on his pencil. Roy Mustang was somewhere in the prison. Alone, if the reports were accurate, and Katrin was still in Elric's cell along with Major Schmidt. There was no doubt in Bertram's mind that Mustang was here for his former subordinate, and that he would not hesitate to harm Katrin if she were in the way.

The Warden spoke suddenly. "This is a facility specialized in neutralizing the threat of alchemists. My men are trained in that regard, and we have the advantage of numbers. You have nothing to worry about."

Bertram thought idly about smacking him. The man's intelligence had obviously not played enough of a role when he had appointed him. That mistake would not be made again.

They were both sitting in the central office of the prison. Two guards were stationed at the door where the Warden was giving orders for the capture of the Flame Alchemist. Most upsettingly for the Councilor, the Warden had deemed the threat too high and refused Bertram's demand to go back for Katrin and the Major. Bertram had seen the Warden's point that the men stationed here had more military experience than him, therefore making sense that he stay out of the way, but he still felt tricked into being separated from the others still in the cell. Being trapped in the office while the Warden made a mess of things galled him.

"You're a fool if you think numbers will help you when the Flame Alchemist comes calling," Bertram said darkly. The Warden made a face at that. They sat in silence for a few more moments until Bertram interrupted it.

"A circle within a circle," Bertram said abruptly, staring at his paper.

"Excuse me?"

"In alchemy. A circle within a circle. Used to stabilize and control a powerful transmutation."

"I wouldn't know," the Warden responded with a touch of annoyance.

"Hmn."

The circle within the circle. It was one of the keys to unlocking Schmidt's research. He had always assumed with his knowledge of what Schmidt had been commissioned to do, that the circle controlling the more powerful transmutation was a metaphor for an alchemic procedure that would control a powerful alchemist. He had staked his entire endeavor with Schmidt on that assumption.

It was nagging him though, the idea of circles. He was missing something; it had to do with the way the Binding Alchemist had laughed at him. The experiment with Edward was obviously over, and Mustang would come for his ass if he were allowed to escape the prison. Bertram's plans were coming undone, which meant he needed to think and reevaluate.

"Hmn," he repeated with the pencil still in his mouth.

The Warden did not respond.

Bertram felt the desk shake and saw dust fall from the ceiling.

"What the hell was that?"

"The Warden grabbed his walkie-talkie and shouted into it.

"I have no idea, Wilson, do you copy?"

The answer came in between static. "Sir, we lost him...Mustang escaped." Bertram felt his breathing stop. However the voice continued, "The...bodies, everywhere...the Secretary."

Bertram grabbed the walkie-talkie out of the Warden's hands, and shouted desperately, "What about Katrin? What happened to my Secretary?"

For a long moment there was only static, then the answer came, "They have her. They took her with them." Bertram felt a chill wash over him. They had his Katrin. Those bastards.

"I've got the Major. They shot him...Twice," Wilson's voice continued, oblivious to Bertram's turmoil. He couldn't think about the Major, who had been stupid enough to let Mustang escape, not when they had Katrin. The Major could rot down there for all he cared.

Bertram turned to the Warden, "I'll need a police investigation team here now to ID the bodies."

The Warden looked at him incredulously, "We can't do that. Are you crazy? Think of what they would find."

Bertram wanted to yell at him that none of this mattered, but he held still. The Warden was right. An investigation into the prison would only harm Bertram's power, and give the military the upper hand.

"Fine," he said. He thought for a moment and then continued, "I have a friend in the police department. I can get her to quarantine the city if I have to. I have my own men to send after him." Bertram's glare told the Warden just what he thought of the quality of his men. Bertram twisted his pencil and added, "Mustang has escaped. If we don't cut him off from the military, make him an obvious fugitive, he will sic the Brass on us. We need to prevent that."

"Yes, sir."

"You need to cover up the operations here regardless. We cannot prevent an investigation once the murders come out, and if we don't blame it on the Brigadier General first and control the situation, rest assured he will blame us and use that." The Warden nodded.

"Lastly, it's paramount we find him before anyone else."

"Hmn, I know you have your own team, but I have some people with certain skills you might be interested in."

Bertram considered it for a moment, still contemplating the utter fuck up that the day had been. "Do it. It's your chance to redeem yourself."

()()()()

"I hope it was worth it, saving Miss Katrin," Schmidt was saying to Edward.

Ed's look hardened. "It's always worth it."

Roy had had about enough of being this man's victim and listening to him run his arrogant mouth. He wasn't sure what Schmidt meant by saving Katrin, as all he remembered was that the dissolving alchemy would have consumed everyone, not just Katrin. Not only that, be he was sure he could hear voices and footsteps in the hallway.

He barely met Hawkeye's gaze, but it was enough.

Without forewarning, she shot the Major. With a resounding noise, it went through his chest and he crumpled. Roy was already surging to his feet, glad that his body was finally functioning.

To his amazement, Hawkeye sprinted towards him with a packet of crumpled matches in her hand. As she handed them over, she told Roy with a small smirk, "Courtesy of the guy whose smoke-break you ruined."

"Uniform too?" he asked.

"Yep."

He took a good look at the matches, deemed them worthy, clapped his hands, and scraped one across the matchbox.

A satisfying wall of flame arced down the hallway accompanied by the sound of shrieks.

"That'll slow them down for a while," commented Mustang, as he turned to face the greater problem of how to get the hell out of the prison. His gaze met Edward's, who was being helped up by Katrin of all people. For a small moment, Roy felt a wave of panic that he would not be able to tunnel them out, in front of the great Fullmetal of all people. However, there was no judgment in Edwards look, and Roy finally felt his mind settle into the icy calm that he was famous for.

All external distractions fell away. Riza was shooting her gun down the charred hallway but it didn't matter. Ed was cursing, arguing with the Secretary, and groaning could be heard from the Major's general area, but nothing shattered his focus.

He clapped his arms together, once again seeking the familiar feel of his alchemy, putting all of his focus into it. However, as soon as he deepened his focus it became obvious that something was very wrong. He hadn't noticed with his quick transmutation before, but the energy wasn't flowing the way it should have. Roy frowned, feeling immensely disturbed and starting to panic again when Edward spoke.

"Hurry the hell up, Mustang!"

"Maybe if you'd stop distracting me-."

However, that proved impossible, because as soon as he turned his attention to Edward, it became obvious that Ed was fundamental to why his transmutation wasn't functioning properly.

"Edward what is-," Roy started, but he was interrupted by the former subordinate, who swore and pushed himself next to Roy, shrugging off Katrin and clapping his own hands together. Roy watched in bewilderment as a tunnel formed, with clean smooth walls. It extended with pulses of blue light until he could no longer see the end.

In shock, Roy met Edward's eyes as he turned back from the transmutation. They were hard and closed off. Roy opened his mouth, ready to demand an explanation but Ed moved before he could, twisting back to face Schmidt who was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood. The man was conscience, his face pinched in pain.

Riza backed up until she was in front of the tunnel as well. As she reloaded her gun, she whispered to Roy, "If it hasn't killed him yet, they'll be able to save him after we leave." Roy heard the unspoken question behind the words.

So did Edward, who immediately cried, "No. He said he'd murder Al if we kill him." He shot an accusing look at Mustang.

Roy was in a dilemma. They could permanently end the man's plans right here. Taking the risk of harming Alphonse was in the grand scheme a small one, and he should be willing to take it. A long time ago, he wouldn't have hesitated, but that was before he understood that some decisions had far greater ramifications than their mere outcomes. Broken thoughts and images flitted through his head-

A vision of two little boys who refused to endanger any more souls on their quest for atonement.

Ed's expression as he shouted, "No," while facing a monster and clutching another in his hand.

Whispered words on an empty battlefield turned graveyard. 'So there can be no more Flame Alchemists.

"Leave him," Roy said and he walked into the tunnel, stopping only to offer the crippled Ed his shoulder.