The last chapter. Or should I say, Conclusion.


The room was filled with smoke, alchemy buzzing around as Ling and Ranfan searched the void for the brothers and the sin with their mind's.

"Master!" Shouted Ranfan. "They-!!"

Ling did not hear. He searched every corner, every nook and cranny where the sin could be hiding. "The… ki… of the Homunculus… is gone?!"

The simplicity of it; neither Ling nor Ranfan would have believed it if they hadn't seen it happen with their own eyes.

"Brot-" coughed a young voice in the middle of the room. "Brother?"

"Alphonse Elric!" Alphonse felt a grip on his right arm, whose he supposed was Ranfan. "Are you alright?!" Or more correctly Ling.

He tried to stand, his own body surprisingly abnormal to him even though he had spent more than a few months in Pride's young body. After having to lean onto Ling to stand up, Alphonse suddenly realized that Edward, for the whole ordeal after the transmutation burst, didn't speak a word.

"Brother-Ed-" Alphonse yelled desperately. The last he'd seen was over a dissolving Pride, Ed's eyes becoming wider and wider as his hand was taken off from the sigil. "Ed! Are you alright?! Ed!"

"Edward?" Shouted Ling, still supporting Al. "Are you still there?"

Silence continued, and Al, Ling and Ranfan were starting to get seriously worried when somewhere along the walls of the room, a shuffle was heard.

"I'm- I'm good-!" Ed croaked. "I- I'm alive?"

The Xing's heir couldn't help but laugh in relief and the absurdity of the question. "Of course you're alive!" After all, it wasn't Ed's body they were thinking of transmuting.

Ling felt Alphonse slouch further, visibly relaxing after confirmation that Edward was alive and fully healthy as well.

"We did it, brother!! We did it!!"

"Where's -" said Ed's voice, cracking as he wheezed uncomfortably through the smoke, "where's-?"

Ranfan, after switching on the light, found her way to the other boy and held him up before Ed fell onto the broken pieces of glasses.

"There is no ki of the Homunculus anymore; the body is gone as well."

"Good… riddance…" said Ed. "And what… a gain."

"Ed?" Alphonse was confused.

Edward wouldn't talk about a sacrifice like that. Not even a sin's. Not after what he'd heard from Mustang.

A dry laugh sounded from Ed's mouth. "You got your body back! And I got … limbs, new limbs …"

Suddenly, Ranfan jumped back in alarm.

Edward flopped onto the floor, grunting as glass shards pierced through his skin and dug through his muscles. "Uh! Ah! Ranfan?! What the- there are glass pieces here!!"

"Ed!!" Alphonse stepped forward, his hands outstretched for his brother in alarm. "Umph!"

He was pulled back.

"Ling?" The prince didn't move. His grip was hard, too hard for Al's liking, and sweaty. It was rigid, and his skin suddenly felt cold. Looking up, the younger Elric could see

"Don't … move."

Ed's grumbling stopped, and full silence reigned the room. Ranfan hadn't moved, her posture tense but not in defense, as if she didn't know how to react.

Ed's face lifted up, and Alphonse gasped when he saw the golden eyes frown at him with an unnatural scowl.

"Hah? And I thought the Xingians couldn't smell me any more?"

"No…" Alphonse couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it.

Pride.

Edward was gone.

"What-!" Al tried once again to run towards his brother, struggling against Ling, who was holding him back. "How?!!"

"Honestly, I don't know," the Sin shrugged, "and I don't care."

He started laughing evilly, and Alphonse was fully disturbed. Edward didn't do those kinds of things- he didn't smirk like that, he didn't cackle like that, and he certainly didn't stand like that. Pride was using his brother's body wrong.

Pride opened his arms, smirking. "I'll kill you all here!!"

"Watch out!!" Ling flinched and Ranfan shot a throwing knife at the light switch.

She threw it with her right hand. Her automail hand.

She missed.

Nothing happened.

There were no shadows ripping the three apart, no freakish eyes staring from dark corners, no teeth biting any of the humans in the room.

"What…" Al's voice cracked. "What going on?! Why isn't it working?!"

Ranfan growled and jumped to kick at the frustrated blonde.

Pride saw it coming. "Grah!! If my powers don't work anymore, I'll use Alchemy!!"

Clap

Slam

Pride – in Ed's body – was flown into the wall behind him, denting it and splattering it with fresh blood.

"Why doesn't it work?!"

Alphonse was watching the whole proceedings with eyes wide, his mind trying to process what was happening instead of wailing 'Brother died' repeatedly.

"Ed's… mind… and Pride's body is … gone…" he whispered, finally understanding what had just happened. Pride he knew didn't have that strong of an emotion – it was Ed's soul Pride was using. "Your body had the power, and you live by your mind… you don't have Ed's knowledge of Truth! You can't work alchemy!!"

Pride paled, and looking around, he started to run towards the exit. "No-!! Umph!"

He fell.

"Haaah-!!"

The Sin tried to get up, but collapsed again, finally noticing that his right arm was an unhealthy grey, withered up. Rolling away from Ranfan's knife, Pride checked the leg as well. Identical dried wood of a leg showed.

"The new limbs have been in the gate for so long…" explained Alphonse, still in the process of understanding himself, "it doesn't work anymore…"

Pride looked at the brother. "But you-!!"

"The things Edward ate… it didn't get to his body at the gate… it went to feed mine," Al's eyes widened in full comprehension, "your new limbs are dead."

Pride howled in frustration. "Graaaah!! Worthless body!!"

He escaped another kick to his – Ed's gut, and squatting down, plucked out a large piece of glass from his dead leg's shin, uncaring as the sharp edge dug into the hand.

"No!! Stop!!"

The red-stained glass was trembling in front of Ed's throat. "Damn it… for all the things I've done so far… this… is not worth it."

Alphonse struggled against Ling again. "No!! Stop!! You'll disappear-!!"

"I'll disappear," Pride smirked, "but it would be worth it to see you suffer."

Alphonse was about to scream bloody murder, to beg for the Sin to not, when Ranfan's black boot slammed the bleeding hand, kicking the glass shard far away.

"Not until we find a way to get Elric back, homunculus," growled Ranfan.

Pride growled, but soon smirked.

"You think I need tools to kill this body?"

With amazing dexterity, Pride flipped backwards, heading for the furthest corner in the room.

When he got there, he leant back into the corner, still smirking, and raised his arm towards his mouth.

Edward-no Pride then bit his wrist.

Rrrrip

Ed's vein was ripped out of the body.

Rrrip

Ed's other vein ripped out of the body.

"Brother!!"

Blood poured out of Ed, almost infinitely.

Pride laughed, reached the shaking hands to his neck.

Ling and Ranfan were already out of their stupor, throwing themselves onto Ed's body, when Pride twisted his hands.

Crrack

Ed's golden eyes dimmed to yellow.

Ed's arms fell.

Pride took Edward to the Gate.


... End.

Mrawgirl09