Uh, short chapter. (:
Warnings – Violence, killing, madness, Ed, Envy, etc etc.
Ink Hands
Trickery & Truth
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The blond woke to a dull throbbing in his head, and the sounds of guns being pointed at him. Why...? Oh, that's right this was all Envy's fault. The sin had tricked him! Then again, you really couldn't trust anyone these days, especially when they are known for trickery and deceit. It turned out that the sin had been employed to follow him everywhere, and drag the blond back to the military if he had decided to flee. He huffed darkly, blowing away the bangs that brushed over his eyes. Glaring up at the soldiers, he noted a smug Envy and General walking towards him with a sheepish looking Al.
"Where's it all gone?" he muttered as soon as the threesome had stopped in front of him.
"Where's...? Stop trying to confuse us, fake, where is the real Edward Elric?" demanded the General, glaring down at the blond.
"The real one? I don't know, maybe the Gate ate him, or maybe you are just too blind that you can't see him right in front of you," the blond growled, his features taking on animal qualities.
"The what ate him?" asked Mustang and Al at the same time.
"The Gate, what you meet when you perform human transmutations. It takes something from you in order to access it, that's why Edward Elric left. 'Cause he figured that out, and left," the blond answered.
"So brother left to protect me...?" mumbled Al.
"Uh-huh."
"Then you know where he is!"
"I doubt that, after all I am Edward Elric, and I performed human transmutation on myself shortly after I left you," the blond mused.
"Is that even possible?" questioned Mustang.
"Sure, if it doesn't work on dead ones, shouldn't it work on live ones? After all - the living have souls. This of course stole my humanity, or rather not that simple thing, turned me into something worse than a homunculus, and threw me into a human shell of my previous self... Yeah, that's what happened," he said in a cheerful tone, considering the fact that this all had made him lose all sense of self, and fear human emotions beyond belief.
The blond wasn't really paying much attention to the human chatter that was going on from his last statement, and was focusing on the ropes that bound him. Slowly he let his mind picture the bounds releasing him, and discovered the breeze had followed him. It coiled itself around the ropes and slowly separated the strands one by one until the ropes lay on the floor as the blond stood. Several soldiers meant to shoot at him with their guns, but found that the breeze had twisted and bent the pistols so no bullet could be shot from them. Edward muttered a quiet thank you to the breeze, as it twisted the other guns till they could not be used.
"Wh-what the heck is that!?" cried some of them, as they felt the breeze rustle amongst them and lift an unsuspecting victim from the pack of soldiers. The breeze tossed the soldier against the wall. Hard. Everyone in the room could hear the bone shattering, and could see the crimson liquid flow from his broken and splintered neck. The blond held a feral grin, and turned his back on the chaos caused by the breeze.
"I'm leaving, and this time, do not follow me," he growled, glaring specially at Envy, before crashing through a window and leaving.
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A pain traveled up and down his spine as the blond fell into a fit full sleep. Or rather the memory of the day of and after he had fled from Resembol.
The young blond had been reading through the books on human transmutation just to make sure they would get it right, when he noticed a page he hadn't seen before. Edward's eyes scanned over the page, and he dropped the book in surprise. Doing human transmutation would cause either he or Al to be killed! He couldn't have that, so the blond decided he would leave, since his younger brother wouldn't believe him because he wanted to see their mother again. Quickly he packed extra clothes, toothbrush, and other random essentials. On a whim he tore out the page that stated the price of human transmutation, and ran out of the house. Tears trickled down his face as he fled, shocked and fearful of what he had been going to put Al through...
Later that night when he was re-reading the page by firelight, he noticed someone's writing scrawled in the margin of the page. Human transmutation on live humans was a success. It works if the human was alive? Ed, being a naive and foolish child, wondered if he could use human transmutation on himself, and decided to try it.
Using a piece of charcoal from the fire he drew the circle, and the markings that went on his own body. Clapping his hands together when he was in the middle of the circle, he pressed his hands down upon the cavern floor. The alchemic reaction flared up around him, and he found himself standing before an ancient black gate in a field of pure white.
"What...?" he wondered in awe, when he saw something move in front of the Gate.
"A human you performed transmutation upon himself... How wonderful to have a new child to recreate," a voice said, and the Gate opened partially. Tiny black arms and hands shoot out and dragged the blond, who was now screaming, into the Gate. One of the hands wrenched his soul from his body, causing him to stare at his own pale form as the hands began to devour it. He found he could not even scream, nor move.
"Now... What to turn you into? A snake? No... How about a cat? Hmm... I know," the voice whispered in his mind.
The blond felt himself being forced to walk on four legs, and his body changing. It hurt. A lot. Pain traveled throughout his soul, as whatever this was messed with his body. If he could cry, he would. Slowly the pain retreated, leaving him feeling cold, and sprawled out upon the cave floor. He panicked as he found he could not stand, but then slowly realized he had to walk on four legs. Slowly he crept out of the cave, and peered into the small pond that was outside of the place. What he saw gave him a terrible shock.
He looked like a manticore! Those man-eating creatures of myth, and this was impossible! He still had a vaguely human face, with golden eyes. His lean cat-like frame was covered in soft golden colored fur that was decorated with brown spots and bars. His front paws were very similar to a gorilla's, in the manner that he seemed to walk on his knuckles like one, and they were strangely human. And he had small opposable thumbs. His tail that trailed out behind him was long, and the end was covered in quills, and were obviously poisonous.
Oh hell.
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Uh-huh. Expect the next chapter tomorrow. I see little of manticores, and little knowledge of them. And since lots of animals fear them, I decided to make Ed one! Or at least the Gate to turn him into one... (: Oh and Eon's not going to write a FMA chapter story. He's doing a Vampire Knight one. So whatever. --
R & R please and thank you.