Zilo: Oh man! I'M ALL ALONE! And late. Sorry! But many thanks to LeFay Strent, Beryl Bloodstone, DoctorWhotaliaandtheOlympians, Shinigami's-Neko-Gaki, nisakeehl, LOL-LIVElikeurOUTofLOLLIPOPS, and Draconic for reviewing and being patient! Now onto the next chapter-and be forewarned, it's partially unbeta'd!
15: Ultimatums
in which there are a lot of explosions
The scenery changed, from Mom's face, to the roof. I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding and let go of Al's hand.
"Joey?" Ike said, his voice full of concern.
"Just save it," I said roughly, turning away.
"Is everyone else okay?" Al asked Ike.
"Yep. They sent your brother back once, but I returned him to a different floor. Riza's mostly just looking for Roy," Ike replied.
"Colonel Mustard was in the room with me and Mommy," Cassie's canned voice said from inside Al's armor.
"He was?" Ike said, surprised.
Cassie didn't answer for a minute, and I heard her start to sniffle. I twisted back around, just as Al was unhooking his chest plate, without me even having to ask. He pried it open, and I reached in and pulled Cassie out. She wrapped her arms around my neck. "Mommy was scary. She wanted me to make him go away, but I didn't know how," she whimpered.
"It's okay, Cassie," I told her.
"Oh, they got Riza. One sec, I'll bring her back," Ike said.
"Just get everyone back up here. We'll come up with a new plan to find Roy," I said.
He glanced at me, and I know my face was red and I still had teary eyes, but mercifully he didn't comment, just nodded. Within a few moments, everyone reappeared on the roof. Ricky was holding the bat I'd brought along, though it was broken in half, which might have been funnier in a different situation.
Ricky saw me and Cassie and his face lit up. "Cassie!" he exclaimed, dashing over. Cassie withdrew one of her arms from my neck to reach out to him, and he hugged her tightly. "Cassie, I'm so sorry I let them take you away! Are you okay?"
Cassie just sniffled some more, tears running down her face. Ricky's joyous look faded when he saw that she was seriously upset, and when he turned to me and saw my face, any happiness was completely gone from his expression. "Joey? What happened?"
"I talked to Mom," I mumbled.
Somehow that was enough for him to understand. He freed one of his hands and pulled me into the hug as well. "It's okay, Joey, we'll figure this out together," he said.
I let my forehead rest against my brother's shoulder, and felt safe enough to let some tears out. Cassie's little arms were around both our necks, and we all hugged each other like we were an interlocked liferaft in the most depressing sea ever.
"What happened?" I heard Ed say in a low voice.
"Joey's mom was kind of…prioritizing what they're doing here over her family," Al whispered back.
"Ah jeez," Ed sighed, and the way he said it made it sound like he understood exactly how I felt.
I snorted up the snot that was trying to escape my nose and wiped my eyes clean after a few seconds, pulling back from Ricky. I was the oldest child; I had to be the most together or we were toast. "Okay," I said, clearing my throat to make my voice sound as normal as possible. "We now know that that individual who claims to be my loving mother took Roy away herself, so Cassie could practice on him."
"Practice what?" Riza exclaimed in alarm.
"Apparently these bastards want Cassie to be their next guinea pig, so Mom wanted her to return Roy to Amestris with whatever powers she supposedly has."
Ike looked alarmed at this. Cassie held onto my neck a little tighter.
"That's insane," Ed said, his teeth gritted.
Even Ling looked disapproving.
"Does she know where he is?" Riza asked.
Cassie tucked her head under my chin nervously.
"Not really," I said, speaking up so Cassie wouldn't have to. "She doesn't know the layout of this place; it was just a room somewhere."
Ike brightened. "Well if it was somewhere here, then we should be able to find it from the TV room."
"The where?" I repeated.
"You know, security cameras and all. Usually we use it for other places, but we can look internally for once," Ike said.
I nodded firmly. "Let's go."
The scenery faded again, this time to another dark room. Cassie's fist bunched up the collar of my shirt until lights flicked on. Ike stood next to a light switch that was beside a nearly wall-to-wall spread of TVs, all different shapes and sizes, all built into the wall like an elaborate puzzle, fitting around each other perfectly. He raised his other hand to reveal a remote that was twice as long as usual.
"Everyone keep an eye on the screens and holler if you see him," Ike said.
"But…what are these?" Riza asked, sounding confused.
"You'll see in a second." Ike said, fiddling with some buttons on the remote.
I rolled my eyes. "Basically, each one's going to give us a real-time picture of something happening in all the rooms here," I told her. "And Ike, stop being so mysterious."
Ike just smiled mischievously.
"A real-time picture? Like looking through someone else's eyes?" Ling jumped in.
"Uh…yeah, just like that, actually. Except the 'someone else' is just an electronic device. Like…hmm…well, you know cameras, right?" Riza and Ling nodded. "Well, these are like cameras that can take pictures so fast that it looks like video…er, real-life motion!" I said triumphantly, satisfied that I'd come up with a good explanation.
Ling looked amazed. Riza seemed to be weighing my explanation. Ike finally found the right buttons and turned on all the TVs.
First it was just silent static, which still made half the occupants of the room jump. "What the hell is that, a blizzard?" Ed exclaimed.
"That just means there's no picture yet," Ricky jumped in.
"These things get terrible reception, we really need to replace them," Ike commented, seemingly to himself. He messed with some more buttons, and finally we had reasonably clear pictures of a multitude of rooms, looking down like from security cameras.
I stared. "Damn…you guys really trashed this place." Broken furniture and destroyed appliances decorated the rooms. There were plenty of holes in walls and dents in floors. A couple rooms were blown out like there had been a bomb set off inside. A few rooms looked like everything in them had been alchemized into dust. I saw the other half of my bat sticking out of a now-empty water cooler. And the meditation wing had been demolished like Superman had thrown a temper tantrum.
"This will take forever to repair," Ike commented, though he was smiling.
"Oh, the poor bastards," I replied, also smiling.
"There!" Riza said, pointing. We all turned to the screen where she was pointing, and I saw Roy. To my relief, he was uninjured. He sat in a chair, arms crossed and legs crossed. He looked totally at ease.
"Awesome. Let's get him out of there," I said.
Ike started to speak. "We could probably just—"
"Wait!"
I froze at the voice. Cassie's grip on me tightened. Oh, I am so not in the mood for this again. I twisted around, and my look changed into a glare when I laid eyes on my mother, who stood where Ike had been a second ago. "Why don't you just stay out of our business?" I snapped.
She spared a brief, frustrated glance over my shoulder, and I realized that that was where Riza stood. Riza, who had now unholstered her gun and pointed it at Mom. I felt a presence at my back, and realized that Al was hovering close enough to Cassie that his arm was a hair shy of touching my side. In a burst of inspiration, I moved back, closing the distance between his arm and my side, while reaching out with one hand to grab Ed's sleeve. Ed shot me a look, but I didn't take my eyes off Mom. Even better, I heard Ling "hmmm" in understanding, and he casually rested his elbow on Ike's shoulder.
Good, we're all connected now. Mom noticed the slight movements, and her frustrated look deepened. I couldn't resist a smirk. Now she won't make anyone disappear without sending me with them, I thought rather smugly.
"Mom, what's going on? Why are you…like, the bad guy?" Ricky asked, sounding pleading.
Mom's look softened as she looked at him. "I'm not the bad guy, Richard. I promise. There's just a lot of misunderstanding going on."
"Then why did you take Cassie away? And do all this crazy stuff?" Ricky wanted to know.
"Please, just stop this. And I can explain everything later."
"Oh yeah, I sure believe that. You'll probably just make us a bunch of ignorant amnesiacs, just like you said!" I snapped.
Mom flinched, and Ricky looked stunned. "Mom…you'd really do that to us?"
"You don't understand," Mom protested.
"Oh just save it," I snapped.
"Will you just listen? I'm trying to reason with you before things get worse," Mom said.
"Phoenix, maybe you should just stop," Ike spoke up for the first time. "This project is a failure, and you need to let it go, and let Joey take the reins. She knows what she's doing."
"She's a failed tester, she can't know!" Mom exclaimed.
"She's right here!" I yelled at her.
Suddenly there were more people in the room. A lot more, roughly two dozen. All of them wore gray and black uniforms and carried hi-tech guns. Mom looked around, even more frustrated. There was a blink of movement next to me, and I glanced over and saw that Ike had disappeared, after apparently removing Ling's arm from his shoulder. Ling quickly readjusted by putting his other elbow on Ricky's shoulder. Ed's hands reflexively went up, poised to clap, my hand still holding his sleeve.
"What the hell?" Ricky exclaimed, too stunned to notice Ling, and I shot him a look meaning, Knock it off with the language.
"Put your hands up and step away from the characters," said one of the guys.
"Not this shit again," I griped, setting a terrible example for Ricky.
Mom's fists clenched. "I was trying to tell you," she said.
"Oh, way to go with the whole 'holding us up when we probably could've just gotten away' thing!" I snapped back.
"I repeat, put your hands up and step away from—"
"I heard you, asshole!" I railroaded right over the guy's words.
There was a chuckle. "My, my, when your mother described your temper, she didn't say how delightful it was," said a new, smarmy voice that I instantly hated. The goons parted to reveal a guy with carefully tousled black hair and cold blue eyes, wearing a black suit, shiny black shoes, and a red tie.
"You're the head douche bag, I presume?" I said warily.
The man smirked and bowed at the waist. "Mortimer Wing. General Assimilator of Reconnaissance Youths, in charge of this division's Scheduling, Taskmasters, and Ultimatums. And head douche bag."
"What do you want?" I wanted to know, edging close enough to Riza so my shoulder touched hers. Now we were all connected, and hopefully that would be enough to keep them from making my backup disappear.
"The same thing you want. A conclusion to this entire fiasco."
"Oh, save it, I've heard shit like this before. And if you start talking about how you and me aren't so different I swear I'll punch you in the throat," I warned.
Mortimer chuckled. "Truly amazing. How one young girl can contain so much acerbic vitriol is beyond me."
Ed snorted. "Just tell us what you want!" he snapped.
I agreed with his sentiment. "And stop getting on my nerves!" I added.
"Very well," said Mortimer, and he made a gesture to the men, causing them all to lower their admittedly scary-looking weapons. "Now, if the lieutenant and alchemist would be so kind as well…"
I glanced at Riza, and she glanced at me. "They do outnumber us," she commented.
I sighed. "Okay. Be ready in case somebody pulls a fast one, though."
She lowered her gun. I glanced at Ed, and he shot me a look like he wasn't about to drop his arms.
I blew out a breath, trying to put a lid on my rising temper so I could talk normally. "Ed, you've got kickass reflexes. If they start something I'm sure you can get to transmuting easy. But…let's hear them out for now."
My compliment seemed to calm Ed down a little. "You better be right about this," he warned, slowly lowering his hands.
"Excellent. You know, you've been officially recorded as a failed tester, but your ability to gain the trust of a number of characters in less than a week is truly remarkable," Mortimer said.
"Stop complimenting me, it's annoying and I don't like it," I replied shortly, handing Cassie off to Al again so I'd have at least one hand free.
He laughed again. "Wonderful! Just wonderful." He turned, grinning, to Mom, who flinched. "I see why you wanted to begin her testing so early, Taskmaster Phoenix. She'll make quite the addition to the team."
"If you haven't noticed, Melissa is not interested," Mom said quietly.
"For now, perhaps. But the young mind is indeed quite fickle and changes on a whim. Perhaps we have yet to offer something that will tempt her.
"Now," Mortimer went on, turning back to me. "I assume your friend went to retrieve Colonel Mustang and will shortly return to defend you. So nice of her. As you may know, both the colonel and the lieutenant have a letter-lock on them, which is rather inconvenient for us."
He waited, and I unfortunately bit. "What the hell's a letter-lock, douche?" I grudgingly asked.
"It's a side effect of a character being summoned by an individual who hasn't fully realized their powers. It means that they can only be returned to their proper dimension by the one who summoned them. Namely, you. Fortunately the other characters were summoned by us or by the letter supplied to your brother, which leaves them under our jurisdiction."
"Yay," I deadpanned.
Mortimer grinned again. I really want to throw something at him. "So, obviously, we'll need your cooperation to return them to their rightful dimension, since you've obviously learned that your physical contact nullifies our control over them."
"I wasn't trying to keep them around until now," I snapped. "In fact, if you assholes hadn't interfered I probably could have done this myself."
"Ah, but once the test is over it's imperative to return things to status quo as soon as possible," Mortimer commented.
"Fine, whatever! Just get on with it!"
"All right then. I would like to offer you two choices after you assist in returning everyone to their proper dimension. First, we can proceed with the memory wipe, which will ostensibly return you to your normal life, none the wiser."
"I already turned that down," I said flatly. "Next."
He chuckled some more. "Very well. The other is, now that you're aware of your abilities, to allow us to reinstate you. We'll train you to properly control your abilities, and you'll be able to assist us in preventing these upsetting circumstances from happening to anyone else."
"I already turned that down too, so you'll have to come up with something better," I warned.
"I'm afraid, Miss Joey, that those are the only two options we can afford you. I assure you we'll abide properly by the terms as well."
"And if I tell you to go to hell instead?"
"Then I pick." This time Mortimer's smile was scary. "And I don't think you'll like what I pick."
Mom looked a little distressed at that, and turned to me. "Joey, please. Just accept his offer and pick one. I know you don't trust me, but please believe me when I say you don't want him to choose."
I glanced at her for a moment. I was obviously still pretty pissed at her, but she looked like she genuinely feared for me, and that stirred something in me. Maybe this Mortimer guy wasn't such a joke after all.
"Hold on a damn second!" Ed suddenly interjected. "Why can't you all just leave her alone? Haven't you meddled enough already?"
"I'm afraid that's none of your concern, Fullmetal Alchemist," Mortimer said coldly, his smile suddenly gone. "As a matter of fact, it would serve you better to keep your mouth shut from here on out. Otherwise, there might be an…accident when we return you."
Ed's fists clenched. "You bastard. You're just like all the other power-hungry tyrants out there, ruining people's lives for your own enjoyment," he snarled.
"Whether or not I participate in such hobbies is, as I said, none of your business," Mortimer answered.
I could almost feel fury radiating from Ed, and it matched mine pretty well. "Brother, stay calm," Al said in a low voice. Then, after a moment, he added, "You too, Joey."
"So the choice is fairly clear," Mortimer said, spreading out his arms. "If you choose to cooperate, you'll see that I am a fair man, an extension of a fair organization. Your siblings will be taken care of at your discretion. Really, there's no reason not to cooperate."
I glanced at Cassie, who was tucked protectively into Al's side, and then at Ricky, who glanced back at me with a nervous and scared expression. I couldn't risk something horrible happening to them just to piss off the smug jerk in front of me. I had to protect my little brother and sister, whatever it took. Slowly my righteous anger was washed out by resignation as I realized that I apparently didn't have a choice.
I reluctantly looked back up at Mortimer, and my eyes caught Mom's, as she stood behind and to the right of the douche. She looked regretful, and I almost felt sorry for her, except for the fact that this whole mess was her fault in the first place.
"Not so fast," a familiar voice rang out. Guns swung up and over as everyone turned to the source of the voice. Roy didn't look one bit uncomfortable at having a bunch of guns pointed at him. "This discussion is over," he said.
"Oh, really?" Mortimer grinned. "And what makes you say so, Colonel?"
"I'm not very tolerant of negotiations that threaten my subordinates and their friends," Roy replied, hands in his pockets.
"Well, as firmly as you may believe that, I'm afraid this really doesn't concern you. Especially considering you have no real power here," Mortimer said.
"No?" Roy said, removing a hand from his pocket. I noticed two things then—a slight narrowing of Mortimer's eyes as he focused on Roy, and then a beat later, a look of annoyance on Mortimer's face, as whatever he attempted failed.
Roy's hand flashed out as he snapped his fingers, and threads of fire jumped from his fingertips to the first row of guns. Each one exploded in its own cloud of combustion, and the men holding them quickly dropped them with hisses or grunts of pain.
"You sure about that?" Roy asked, with a well-deserved smirk.
Mortimer scowled. "Phoenix!" he barked at my mom, causing her to jump. "Get rid of the characters!"
"But, my children are still touching—" Mom started to protest.
"Now, Taskmaster Phoenix!"
Mom slowly turned to look at the group in resignation. I caught her eye, and she stiffened. I had a look on my face, one she could easily read. If you help him, I will never forgive you. If she wanted to claim any last shreds of dignity as a mother, she wouldn't try anything.
She hesitated, her hands opening and closing.
Mortimer made a "tch" noise, like he was disgusted with her. "Consider yourself demoted. Men, separate the kids from the characters!"
At that I gripped Ed's sleeve even tighter. The men advanced, the ones who had been disarmed smoothly falling back like they'd planned such a thing. Roy snapped again, and another group of guns exploded.
Seeing that their guns were pretty useless, some of the men dropped their weapons and advanced faster, looking like they might pummel us to death or something. One reached for Ricky, who was the closest, but before I could react, Ling's casual stance turned into a firm grip on Ricky's arm, and he easily pulled my brother out of reach for the moment. In the same move, Ling used his other arm to remove something small and black from underneath his jacket and toss it underhand, so it landed in the small no-man's-land between us and the goons. Almost immediately a thick gray cloud hissed up from the black thing and spread outward at an amazing speed.
"A smokescreen!" one of the goons yelled.
It worked well on both them and us, as now I couldn't see two inches from my face. Fortunately the smoke wasn't the kind to cause you to choke, but I did feel my eyes water.
"You morons!" Mortimer shouted. "They're right in front of you!"
I heard a echoing clap near me, and then a flash of blue light bounced off the smoke behind me. A cold, hard hand landed on my shoulder. "Joey, this way," Al's voice said, pushing me towards a vaguely square-shaped section of brightness in the smoke.
I reached out and found his metal side, then ran into something warmer and squishier. Cassie's leg. She felt my hand and grabbed it with one of her own, and I gave it a reassuring squeeze as I let Al's hand guide me to the square.
We exited out of the smoke and found ourselves outside, on an alchemized balcony halfway up the side of the building. Ed, Ling, and Ricky were already there, and I twisted around and saw Roy and Riza exiting behind us.
"We don't have much time," said Roy. "They'll be behind us any second."
"Where's Ike?" I asked him, feeling a flash of worry. What if that Mortimer creep did something to Ike for helping us?
"That boy? He said he would send me to the room and disappeared," Roy said.
I bit my lip.
"I'm sure Ike's okay, Joey," Al assured me.
"Come on, we need to move it," Ed reminded us, turning to face the edge of the balcony. He clapped and then touched the floor, transmuting about a third of it into a slide down to the ground. We all hurried down, trying to keep our footing on the slope. I glanced back once and saw the goons spilling out onto the balcony. "Dammit!" I growled.
Ed hit the ground first, landing expertly on his feet. The rest of us followed with varying levels of success. When Riza, the last in line, hit the ground with only a slight stumble, Ed immediately clapped and touched the slide's edge. It amazingly snapped upwards and curled back up to the building, effectively trapping three of the four idiot goons who had just started to descend. The fourth managed to jump off in time, angling to fall towards us, but a dead-on shot from Riza got him in the shoulder, knocking him off his trajectory and putting him out of commission.
"This way!" I said, pointing towards a familiar hill surrounded by trees. "The van's back there!"
Five of the goons appeared in front of us, guns raised. Almost as soon as they had appeared, Roy snapped his fingers, and the ground in front of the goons exploded. Two more appeared to our left a split second later, and Roy did the same thing to them.
"They're gonna keep pulling that," Ed said as we collectively moved to our right, the only unblocked path now.
"Dammit, where is Ike? He could poof us to the van!" I said, frustrated but also a little scared for my friend.
"We can't worry about that right now," Roy said. At some point he'd taken the lead as we all hurried towards the hill, Ed on his right and Riza on his left.
"There's more behind us!" Ricky said, panicked.
I shot a glance over my shoulder and saw Ling yanking the tab off some round black item with his teeth. He then threw the black ball at the dozen or so goons that had appeared behind us and were giving chase. It exploded as soon as it hit the ground at their feet, and I heard startled yells.
"Is the van right behind the hill?" Roy asked me, pulling my attention to him.
"A little ways past it, parked on the other side of the trees," I said.
"Halt!" a voice yelled through what sounded like a megaphone. I heard a weird popping noise, and movement over my head made me look up. An honest-to-God net had been launched into the air over us, with round weights at the corner dropping it towards us at a growing speed. Roy snapped again, but for some crazy reason the fire bounced off the net, dissipating in the air.
"Joey, here!" Cassie was suddenly thrust into my arms. I instinctively grabbed onto her, twisting to see Al drop to one knee. In record speed he drew a transmutation circle in the dirt with his finger, then put his hands to the edge. The net was just starting to invade our personal space when clumps of grass and dirt shaped into hands shot from the ground and stopped the net's descent.
The weights on the corners, carried by momentum, swung around the hands like tetherballs, and one was just unlucky enough to smack me in the back of the head. I stumbled, stunned, and almost dropped Cassie, who let out an alarmed squeak.
"Colonel, they got Edward!" I heard Riza say.
"Dammit," Roy said, sounding pissed.
Footsteps pounded towards me. "Joey! Are you okay? Oh no, you're bleeding!" It was Ricky. I felt Cassie put her hands on either side of my head. I heard a noise that sounded like another of Ling's smoke bombs, and then two gunshots from Riza.
"Can you stand?" Roy asked, and I realized he was talking to me, and that I had fallen to my knees. I made my vision focus, and all at once a sharp throbbing pain rose in the back of my skull.
I winced, but stood upright. "I'll be okay," I said in response to anyone who cared.
"They'll be on us any minute," Ling said, his hand on Ricky's shoulder.
I nodded, which was a bad move as it made my head hurt. "Let's go to the van," I said through gritted teeth.
I could see that something had pulled the others' attention away. Roy snapped his fingers and set off an explosion to our left. Riza fired behind us, and from the pained yells I assumed she hit the mark every time. Ling fished out another smoke bomb with a long-suffering expression. Al hovered near Cassie again, who reached out to grab his hand.
"That's quite enough!" Mortimer's smarmy voice cut through the carnage. Reluctantly, I turned to see where he was coming from, but not without noticing that we had been surrounded despite our efforts, and now at least forty guns were pointed at us.
Mortimer passed easily through a gap in the goons. "Well, this has all been very amusing. You even made me call in more of the foot soldiers than I usually like to. But it's time to stop playing games."
"Go die in a fire," I snapped at him, not injured enough to resist insults.
Mortimer smiled at me, but this was the creepy smile that had made Mom flinch. "Now, now, I don't think you want to be leveling threats at me just now."
"Really? Explain why I shouldn't burn you to a crisp," Roy said, fingers poised to do just that.
"Because if you do, you'll be responsible for the death of Taskmaster Phoenix."
…What?
Mortimer's smile widened at our stunned reaction. "What? Do you think I'm above using my own subordinates as bargaining chips? That's a very misguided notion. I'm nowhere near noble enough for that." He made a gesture, and Mom was pulled out from behind a goon, with another one at her back with a gun, effectively using her as a shield. Mom's face was white, and she couldn't even look at us.
"Y-You can't kill Mom!" Ricky blurted, his voice high with anxiety.
Cassie started to whimper.
"Oh yes I can, if you all refuse to cooperate. And if that's not enough to sway you, I'm sure I can find some other people to use as well."
He's not kidding. This guy will really…bastard.
"Now," Mortimer said, directing his attention at Ling and Al, "if you two would so kindly step away from the others…"
Zilo: Until next time!