"Oh shit! Get back!" Dean tightened the hold he had on Bobby's shirt and dragged him off, making a run for the other end of the alley opposite the oncoming ice wall. Sam was pressed to choose between helping out the robot-kid and the short blond one or making a run for it, but the imminent sense of overwhelming danger became dominant, and Sam was forced to turn and run, hoping that the two would be okay on their own. And whatever happened to that Freezer guy made no difference to the younger hunter, he'd sealed his fate the second he threatened Bobby. He could freeze to death for all Sam cared; disregarding how ironic the thought sounded. He was just on the verge of closing the distance between himself and Dean and Bobby when….
"ALPHONSE!"
The high-pitched screech was enough of a distraction to cause Sam's abrupt halt and 180-around to see what was happening. The robot -kid, or Alphonse, was staggering back slightly, but appeared to be unharmed….save for the fact that his head was gone, and Sam couldn't help but notice….surely not….he was empty inside.
"What the hell?" he whispered aloud to himself, the ice wall and Dean and Bobby temporarily forgotten in the wake of Sam's stunned silence.
Freezer staggered back, his cold gaze fixed upon Alphonse, eyes wide with shock as he pointed an accusing finger at him. "There's no one in there, it's empty! But that…..that can only be true if the soul was bonded to the armor." Seeming to instantly pick up on what was going on, "so you lost your arm…and your brother, he lost his entire body." He seemed to ponder this for a moment, then a slow grin crept onto his face as he realized, "I see, it all makes sense. You fools committed the ultimate taboo! You attempted Human Transmutation didn't you? Alchemy's one and only unforgivable sin!"
A strong silence crept in between them, leaving the sound of the wind whipping about and the rumbling of the earth to seem almost intrusive with its obnoxious racket. Not even the Freezer said a word, having already done his part for the time being by dropping that bit of information.
The shorter one, seemingly cowed by the Freezer's words, hung his head as though ashamed, blond locks dangling to frame his young face. But the words that came from him next were nothing short of livid.
"You know…there are some lines you really shouldn't cross," his voice was almost soft, the kind of calm that arrived just before all hell broke loose.
Freezer, wiping away at some blood dripping from one of his many wounds, gave a sinister grin and made as though to strike out again, but the shorter one fired back with an outburst of, "Give it up! There's no water for you to use here!"
Seeming to realize that he was right, Freezer merely smirked at the short one's angry retort, giving a chuckle for good measure. "Would love to stand around and chat but my ride is here," he lunged forward, a darkly blur racing past the duo heading straight for the ice wall that was closing in even more. Sam's initial thought of action was to yell at him to get the hell away from that thing, but he could only watch in pure amazement as Freezer leapt forward and grabbed a hold of the wall where, after a sudden burst of blue light, he was lifted higher and higher until he reached the top. At this point he merely watched them from above, a maniacal laughter escaping his lips as the wall continued forward like a freight train intent on mowing down everything in its path.
The blond one reached over to snatch up his partner's head that had been rolling on the ground, tossing it over to Alphonse, who instantly snatched it out of the air and replaced in upon his shoulders with a kind of finesse that spoke clearly of his familiarity with getting his own head knocked off and put back on.
"Brother we need to get out of here!" Alphonse yelled in a frantic voice, backing away from the wall as it became closer and closer.
"You're right Al, let's go!" The "brother" answered, his voice equally as frantic. Turning away from the wall they began racing down the alley, passing Sam as they went, Alphonse's steps ricocheting off the walls in metallic clanks and the shorter one a red blur in his overcoat. The "brother" reached out to punch Sam in the arm as he passed, yelling back "Stop gawking and get moving you idiot!" before rushing onward, leaving Sam to instantly snap back to his senses and follow them.
This running thing was becoming a bit tedious.
When they made it back near the park, Sam began noticing that the ice walls from before had been heading in a similar direction, and the wall directly behind them was following along that same trajectory. The path seemed to lead directly to the center of the city, which from what Sam had witnessed on their initial descent from the hill a couple of hours ago, contained one massively-large building that towered above all the other buildings. He remembered seeing flags dangling off the walls, green ones with some kind of white emblem on them that looked like a lion with a series of circular lines drawn in a pattern that was reminiscent of a military design, or close enough.
"Ed!" Alphonse yelled, because that was the only way to be heard with all the racket, by yelling. "The ice walls! They're headed for Central Command!"
They came to a sudden halt, the two coming mutually to the same conclusion, replying aloud in unison with a frenzied "HE'S GOING TO FREEZE IT OVER!"
"Quick let's go!" The shorter one, Ed, clapped his gloved hands together and slapped them to the ground. A sudden burst of familiar blue light erupted all around them and the ground beneath their feet began shifting and transforming, creating some kind of concrete platform that began rising rapidly into the air.
Ed and Alphonse seemed to have been so caught up in what was happening they'd forgotten the fact that a passenger was on board for this ride. Sam was grasping the edges of the "platform" with a death-grip in order to prevent his falling off the edge and plummeting to the ground below. He couldn't believe what was happening, only moments ago he was on the ground watching a perfectly normal (well sort of) altercation between themselves and Freezer, and now he was rocketing up to the sky, higher and higher with a little blue flicker of light here and there. If Sam didn't know any better, he'd think that the light was almost fueling the "platform's" ascent, which would explain a few other things. But he was beginning to feel a bit light-headed and too much thinking at a time like this would only make him nauseous and he needed focus more than anything right now.
"Brother, what about him?" Alphonse suddenly commented on Sam's bemusing presence, though Sam couldn't tell what he must be thinking (Robots think?) since his Poker Face was made of metal rendering him expressionless. But a part of Sam was transfixed by the glowing circles of light located in two eyeholes where he figured two traditional human eyes would normally be, they seemed to express emotion in a way that the younger hunter couldn't even begin to explain, but he felt his instinct was right, there was emotion there.
Ed turned to face his brother (Brothers? Really?), he was crouched down on the platform just like Alphonse and Sam, though he and the robot weren't clinging to it the way Sam was. This sort of thing must be normal to them, Sam mused awaiting Ed's reply.
"You're not going to pass out on me are you? It would really suck if I had to drag your enormous limp ass to a safe spot," Ed countered sarcastically, reminding Sam so much of Dean it was almost eerie. He merely shook his head in reply, not wanting to open his mouth in case his stomach decided to empty its contents without any warning.
Ed merely shrugged, turning back to Alphonse, "If he gets tossed off that's not our problem, he got himself into this after all."
Alphonse shook his head and turned back to Sam, who had the feeling that the robot-kid was looking at him apologetically, "Just don't fall off okay? We're headed straight for that ice wall." He raised an enormous metal arm to point at said wall, where Freezer was standing at the top, riding it along as it glided towards Central Command. Alphonse continued, "Once we land, jump onto one of the rooftops and get to safety. My brother and I will take it from there. By the way, what's your name?"
Sam's curiosity overpowered his sense of feeling sick, so he immediately raised his voice to call out, "I'm Sam."
"Well Sam, you picked a fine night to clash with a convicted murderer," Ed countered, facing forward as he spoke allowing Sam a moment to get a good look at the symbol on Ed's coat, which oddly enough appeared to be a cross with a kind of serpent wound around it and a crown of some sort adorning the top that had a pair of tiny wings.
Sam wanted to ask about the symbol, he had the strangest notion that he'd seen it somewhere before, but he was too curious about the "convicted murderer" in question to be distracted by it now. "So who's Water Boy?" he asked, a bit of his brother's own brand of humor slipping into his words.
"Isaac the Freezer, he's a State Alchemist," replied Ed shifting his weight so he was standing, leaning back slightly with his legs bent at an angle that reminded Sam of surfers as they rode along a wave. He took a moment to briefly glance over his shoulder and yell, "Brace yourself!"
It was then that Sam noticed their little platform was tilting forward slightly and they were making a beeline straight for the ice wall. Sam barely had time to stand up and position himself for the impact before they crashed into it head on and within seconds Ed and Alphonse were running along the pinnacle of it while Sam struggled for a concise moment to regain his footing enough to get off the platform and onto the ice wall. As he stepped away from it, the platform crumbled and fell away instantly, crashing down to the street below. Two large buildings bracketed the region of the wall upon which Sam was standing, and he found himself in quite the conundrum: he could either back off now and find a way back to Dean and Bobby by jumping onto the nearest roof as Alphonse had instructed him, or he could stick around to see what else became of these estranged "brothers".
Knowing Dean would kill him for it (more than likely he was going to kill him anyway simply for not following him and Bobby in the first place), Sam took off after Ed and Alphonse, the wall rumbling beneath his feet, but he felt no sensation of being close to slipping off it. Strangely enough he felt more balanced on the wall than he did on the ground, though he was sure that was due to its constant change in shape, as though it were secretly compensating for lack of better footing for those on top of it. Sam worried about the possibilities of slipping on the wet surface and falling to his death, but there was a fine layer of frost on the summit which provided a good opportunity to sprint.
Catching up to the other two, he arrived just in time for Alphonse to swing at Isaac, miss, then have his metal body swerve around the convict due to the force behind that single punch. Isaac slipped past Al, opening his palm as he did so and with a flick of his wrist, and a burst of red light, he used is own blood from one of his many wounds to form a long shard that shot out of his hand, like Spiderman shoots a web, and pierced Ed's shoulder just as the kid was about to take a shot. Alphonse shouted for him as Ed stumbled back but his movements were cut short as the blood-shard hooked him to Isaac like a fish on a line. Sam charged forward, grabbed a hold of the shard with one hand and punched it loose with the other.
Ed reached up to tear the broken bit of blood-shard from his shoulder, a splatter of his own blood flying out as he did so. He turned to Sam with a look of pure indignation, "This isn't your battle so don't get involved!"
Sam couldn't help but fire back, his own temper flaring at Ed's stubbornness, "Maybe you should've thought of that before you dragged me into this!"
"I didn't drag you into it, you stowed away and - !"
"Brother!"
Alphonse's admonition was enough to jerk the bickering duo from their heated argument, but not quite fast enough to help them avoid the fist that slammed Sam's face, knocking the taller man back a step or two. Ed launched forward with a minute battle-cry and slammed a fist into Isaac's stomach, then doubled his hands together to knock him on the back of the head, forcing his face to slam against the ice. Ed was about to take another shot but Isaac's hand had sprawled out on the icy surface creating another burst of red light which released a surge of ice that shot straight for Ed's face.
Sam shot out a hand and grabbed a fistful of Ed's jacket to jerk him back just as the ice-spike stopped within inches of the young boy's face. In the midst of the scurry Isaac had regained his standing position and slid down the side of the ice wall, stumbling onto the ground upon landing, followed closely by Alphonse and his brother, then a reluctant Sam who didn't really see any other option than to follow. It took him a moment to realize that the ice wall had stopped moving and that they had landed right next what he could only guess was Central Command, which was beginning to freeze over as the other ice walls closed in on the enormous structure. The green military flags ceased their flapping about in the wind and were submitted to being covered in a think layer of ice that crept along the concrete structure at a rapid rate.
From somewhere a couple of streets over, a huge explosion of fire took place that made the ground shake even more than it already was, the flames reaching high into the sky and framing against one of the ice walls. Sam distinctly heard someone bellowing "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY FLAMES NOW YOU BASTARD!" before another explosion followed. He hoped that whoever that had been was having better luck than they were.
The two brothers and Sam went along a couple of alleyways before reaching a street filled with soldiers who were sitting behind mounds of sandbags, firing relentlessly at one of the ice walls but to no avail, and that's where Isaac's trail had gone cold (if you could pardon the pun). Sam scanned the entire street, but Isaac was nowhere to be seen, he must've darted into another alley and slipped away. But which one?
"Major!" Ed directed at one of the soldiers. He was a very tall and muscular man with no hair atop his bald head save for a small bit of blond hair that curled at the tip and dangled forward. He wore the same blue uniform as the other soldiers though judging by the assorted status pins and by Ed referring to him as "Major"; it was obvious he was a man with some level of authority. Like Isaac, he sported a kind of metallic arm-wear that adorned a symbol of some kind, but where Isaac's was on his wrist, this man had them on his hands almost like fingerless gloves with small spikes on the knuckles, one "glove" for each hand. The trio approached him, Ed panting while he made a request, "Al and I will try and slow him down, can you handle the Transmutation circles?"
Sam had no idea what he was referring to, but thankfully the Major did, for he nodded and with a deeper voice than Sam had expected the giant of a man replied with "Consider them erased. I'm on it." He was off instantly, making his way to one of the alleyways and disappearing into the shadows.
Ed motioned for the other two to follow, "Come on before Isaac gets away!" He took off for the nearest alley, which Sam could only hope would actually lead them to Isaac instead of getting them going in circles trying to find the right one.
Alphonse was a faster runner than Sam had expected, he almost had a hard time keeping up with him. They made a series of turns, scanning in all directions for a sign of Isaac, before passing one alley which, from further down it, you could see the Major and a shorter dark-haired man facing off against one of the ice walls. Sam stopped momentarily to watch in fascination as the dark-haired main snapped his fingers towards the wall and, with a sudden burst of flames, forced it back a bit.
"Major! Go now!" He shouted over his shoulder.
"LEAVE IT TO ME!" The Major roared with bravado, his shirt and jacket ripping off with a single flex his abdominal muscles. "The Armstrong fists will not fail!" With a look of determination, and a random sparkle on his head that Sam just couldn't understand, the Major slammed his very fist into the ground with the force of the Incredible Hulk. A burst of blue light and the ground shook and trembled before it broke up and burst forward, the strength of it enough to break up what Sam could only guess was a Transmutation circle that had seemingly been drawn onto the walkway with a piece of chalk. The destruction occurred just in time before the edges of the ice wall could take hold of it completely.
Instantly the red glow that had taken over the city dimmed down and finally disappeared, the other ice walls ceased their movements, and an eerie silence took hold of Amestris. No one spoke for several long minutes, as though they were afraid that by uttering a single syllable the chaos would just start back up again. The soldiers had halted their firing, and stood looking about, waiting for their new orders.
Sam wanted to stick around to see more of what the dark-haired man and the Major were going to do, but his unspoken obligation to help the two boys crept back into his conscience, and he found himself searching frantically for the brothers who had gone ahead without him to confront the convict.
But upon catching up to them, Sam soon realized that was no longer necessary. Ed and Al stood in yet another alleyway, but not to face Isaac in an attempted battle, instead they were facing the site of his "deathbed" which now consisted of his body covered in a blanket with blood pooling out from underneath it. Ed had a hand clasped to his injured shoulder, panting as he and his brother watched a group of soldiers oversee the cleaning-up process. "Fuhrer Bradley….you're here?" he asked incredulously, addressing one of the uniformed men that seemed to stand out amongst the others.
Fuhrer? So he was the leader of this country?
He stood at a height of about six-foot-three, with dark hair glossed back and obviously well-kept on a regular basis, a thick dark mustache and the kind of smile that reminded Sam oddly of a southern preacher from the 1940's in a tan suit and tie, sitting around the business table remarking on all his success at spreading the "good Lord's message" while mopping the sweat off his forehead with an old handkerchief.
He seemed to radiate authority without even trying; it was as though he was brought into this world with the notion that he was to take charge in all things, but something about him made Sam feel uneasy. It wasn't the impressive sword he kept dangling off his belt, nor was it the eye patch that covered his left eye (which aroused Sam's curiosity a great deal).
No
It was the aura that pulsed off of him, something about it reminded Sam of the feeling he sometimes got when he could sense a demon's presence. For a split second Sam's subconscious slid back into a darker part of himself, a place where he stored away the sensations and emotions he associated when dealing with demons or other creatures of the worst kind. His mind, having been distracted severely with everything that had been going on tonight, suddenly began tugging at certain memories and fears that he'd rather not face at the moment. He fought against it, managing to squash it all down. For now. The memories of the past year and a half had been threatening to plague his mind since the moment he woke up in the Panic Room, but he couldn't do it. He wouldn't allow himself to break. Not here. Not now.
"Ah yes, job well done Fullmetal. I came out to see if I could lend a hand," Fuhrer Bradley replied to Ed's inquiry, then he added with a blatant show of male pride "And to think that I'd actually be the one to catch him. If nothing else this should make an exciting story for my son."
Sam watched Bradley cautiously, searching for any signs that he was indeed a demon, for he couldn't be anything else, Sam's gut was screaming that this guy wasn't right and his gut was rarely wrong. The Fuhrer continued to grin triumphantly, but Sam was more focused on what his senses were telling him. Bradley didn't just feel like a demon, he even smelled like one, but Sam had to be sure before he started jumping the gun on this.
Bradley strode forward, his gait oozing authority just as easily as his stature, he came face-to-face with the younger Winchester, offering a pleasant smile. "I see you've brought a friend here Fullmetal. What's your name there son?"
Torn between giving a false name and being honest, Sam settled for giving his real name instead, more than likely if Bradley was in fact a demon he would know who the younger hunter was anyway. So why lie about it?
"I'm Sam Winchester," he responded offering his hand to the Fuhrer, doing his damnest to keep from giving away that he was aware this man was something other than what he appeared to be. What everyone trusted him to be.
"Very nice to meet you Sam, thank you for your hard work in trying to catch this criminal," Bradley shook Sam's hand warmly as though they were old fishing buddies before retrieving it and placing both hands at the small of his back. "Well I must be heading back to Central Command now. We've got quite a mess on our hands after tonight's events and a long day for paperwork tomorrow. Hope to see you boys helping out with the clean-up," he added as he turned to walk away.
Knowing he didn't have much time before he lost his chance, Sam muttered "Christo" a bit loudly, then braced himself for the result.
Bradley turned around, looking at Sam with a patient yet almost doctor-like expression, which increased Sam's unease, "Beg your pardon?"
Sam found himself staring into the black-less green eye that wasn't covered with the patch. He felt a small dose of relief, but his sense of unease was still poking at his conscience, warning him of danger. No black eyes but he still smelled like a demon.
Sam shook his head, offering a half-smile, "Sorry sir, I was thinking out loud."
Bradley smiled again to show that he was neither offended nor concerned with Sam's answer. He even offered a bit of a reprieve, "You know some people believe that it's a good thing to speak aloud about your thoughts. It helps to make them more real and the more real they are, the easier they are to accept."
Sam nodded but said nothing. Bradley reciprocated the action before turning to continue on his way back to Sam guessed must be the direction of Central Command. Once the Fuhrer was out of sight, he turned around to face Ed and Al, both of which were looking at him strangely as though they were noticing him for the first time.
Now that the danger from Isaac had past, Sam felt it only prudent to begin tracking down his brother, who must be on the verge of losing his mind wondering where Sam had gone. The younger Winchester muttered a "see you later" to the two boys before taking off to search for Dean and Bobby.
Whatever Bradley was, it certainly wasn't human. Sam had spent too many years doing endless tangos with a variety of the supernatural ranging from the good to the worst. If his instincts were right, and he doubted they weren't, they had work to do here in Amestris.