CHAPTER 15 - Basic Geometry

"Havoc!"

"Shhh! Keep your voice down," he said urgently, crouching low so that he would be less noticeable. He pulled his tools from an inside pocket and went to work on the handcuff around Ed's left wrist. He figured the left one was the most uncomfortable judging by how it was pinching the teen's skin.

The cuffs proved more difficult than he would have thought. They were standard issue police handcuffs but they were well worn and a bit rusted which made them harder to pick. He really needed a cigarette right now. Already passing the one minute mark, he knew that if this was an exercise he would have failed it. Ed was watching him closely, curious, but stayed quiet.

Then, the tool snapped, the pieces flying off in different directions. One of them, he knew, landed in the pool of turbulent water, disappearing from view with a soft sploosh.

"Shit!"

"Dammit!" Ed swore, pulling on the handcuff as if it would suddenly break under his thirteen year old strength. Then again, thought Havoc eyeing the automail on the other side, he'd seen the young alchemist smash through some pretty solid things with that metal arm.

Ed saw Havoc eyeing his arm and growled in frustration. "It's busted," he said with a touch of defensiveness.

"Why don't you just use alchemy to break the cuffs?" It seemed pretty obvious to him. But Ed gave him an incredulous stare and even Hartley snorted in disbelief from the other side of the car.

"If I could use alchemy d'you think I'd still be sitting here like an idiot?" said Ed sarcastically. "I need both hands to transmute," he added acidly.

"Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a twist," levelled Havoc easily. "Got any ideas?"

Ed bit his lower lip as he thought of something. "You're gonna to have to do it."

"Do what?"

"Alchemy."

It was Havoc's turn to stare incredulously. He blinked a few times until he was sure he'd heard right. "I am many things, Chief, but I am not an alchemist," he said slowly.

The teen shuffled as much as he could to free his coat from under his butt. "Reach into my coat pocket, I've got chalk," he said, ignoring the man.

Havoc did as he was asked and awkwardly reached into the pocket of Ed's favoured red coat, feeling around for the chalk. His fingers landed on some coins, something that crinkled which was most likely a candy wrapper and something else that was sticky. He didn't even want to know. But there was no chalk.

He shook his head and pulled his hand out to show it was empty. "Try the other one," said Ed, scooting over to expose the other pocket. Havoc rolled his eyes and reached into the other pocket. More sticky stuff, a wallet and a stubby, chalky stick. His prize in hand, Havoc leaned back and stared at the teen for further instruction. This struck him as a really bad idea.

"You have to draw an array on the cuff somewhere where I can reach it with my fingers."

"What's an array?" he asked with a blank stare.

"C'mon Havoc! You know what an array is!" Ed growled in frustration. The serious look on the older man's face transformed into a grin as he gave in.

"Alright, alright, I'm just messing with you," he conceded. He'd spent enough time around alchemists to know some of the terminology. "But you'll have to walk me through this, alchemy is definitely not something I've ever looked into."

Ed nodded. "Draw a circle," he instructed.

Havoc drew a circle. Ed looked at it with consternation. "What the fuck is that?"

Havoc looked at the shape and didn't understand what the problem was. "It's a circle! You told me to draw a circle!"

"That's not a circle, it looks like a lumpy potato," criticised the teen.

Havoc waved the chalk in his face. "I told you I am no alchemist!" he snapped back, keeping his voice low.

"Yeah but I thought you'd know basic geometry!" countered Ed.

"Will you two hens quit bickering and get a move on," hissed Hartley from the other side of the car.

Havoc wiped the chalk clean with his sleeve, frustrated. "I know you're anal when it comes to alchemy but does it have to be goddamned perfect?" he asked, annoyed.

Ed stared at him intensely and with a sudden, deathly serious expression. "Yes. It does," he said levelly. "If it's not perfect it will rebound. And if it rebounds, I could end up with my insides on the outside and I'd consider myself lucky," he hissed.

The older man stopped what he was doing to stare at the teen. Their eyes met and neither looked away in a moment that could be best described as awkward.

Havoc was shocked by the seriousness and the touch of fear in the young alchemist and things about the prodigy suddenly came into sharp focus. He was not privy to all the details surrounding the "accident" that ripped the boy's limbs from his body but he knew the official story, of him losing those limbs as a result of the war, was false.

"Sorry," he said soberly, redoing the circle carefully so that it came out more or less round. It was still not perfect but it was better than the first one. Ed then guided Havoc through drawing the array, a basic decomposition transmutation. It was just about complete when something exploded off the rim of the mine car close to Havoc and Ed's faces. At the same time as Ed swore, Havoc registered the crack of a gunshot and came up to his feet holding the chalk instead of his gun. He swore too.

A man had his gun trained on him. "Drop the chalk and walk away from the alchemist," he ordered.

"You dirty traitor," spat Hartley.

Ed was livid. A fresh cut was seeping blood down his cheek. "Just you wait till I'm free Sean, I'm gonna rip you apart," he shouted over his shoulder.

The man, Sean, ignored the prisoners. He was focused on Havoc, his mouth set in a grim line. "Get out of here," he ordered calmly.

Havoc appraised this new arrival with a critical eye. The man did not have the hard edges of a criminal. In fact he looked like he didn't even want to be the one holding the gun. Ed had mentioned Sean a few times during their violin lessons and Havoc had assumed the man was a friend. But then again, Ed had assumed Hartley was an enemy so Havoc could be forgiven for not trusting the teen's judgement of people.

Havoc knew that Barnes was the man in charge here so Sean was a lackey at best. A reluctant lackey by the looks of it. He wanted Havoc to leave, maybe before Barnes found out he was here. Havoc judged him soft-hearted and stood his ground. No one moved.

"Please," Sean implored calmly in the tense air, "I don't want to shoot you. Just go."

Havoc stared him down. "I'm not leaving without Fullmetal." He'd faced many people with the intent to kill and this man was not one of them. He took his chances and, slowly but with confidence, stepped forward with the chalk.

Without further warning, Sean shot him. Whether it was an accurate non-lethal shot or a badly aimed shot with the intent to kill, Havoc had no idea. What he did know was that it hurt. A lot. He stumbled back wincing at the sudden pain and blood blooming from his bicep.

"Well shit," he managed sitting in the dust. Ed was staring at him in alarm and tried with renewed vigor to free his wrists from the cuffs, swearing. While Havoc, Ed and Sean stayed staring at one another in shock, pain or horror, the fighting from the cells suddenly moved into the cavern and all hell broke loose.

The riot was fast and fierce. Havoc took immediate advantage of the confusion and tackled Cann to the ground. They wrestled in the dust for the gun. The two men were of the same height, build, strength and, much to Ben's surprise, skill. But Cann had the advantage over Havoc in the fact that he wasn't already injured.

Ben, and Ed sitting on the other side, could do nothing but watch the scene of chaos unfold. He was watching the fight right in front of him intently when he heard a loud splintering crack. It sounded like someone had thrown a pile of timber. His eyes travelled up and he watched, as if in slowed motion, as the scaffolding started to collapse. As the wood fell, it knocked more wood loose until the entire wall of old lumber was crashing down over them. Havoc, Cann and a number of other brawlers, were right in the path of destruction and they disappeared in a cloud of dust and splintering wood.

A large piece of what must have been a platform complete with heavy metal equipment fell mere inches from him, crashing against the back end of the cart and Ben ducked his head to shield his face from the flying debris. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, his stomach dropped as the cart started to move. It was slow at first, but as it moved down the slope it picked up speed. Despite is injured leg, Ben braced both his feet into the hard pact dirt to try and arrest the movement but even with his entire weight and, he assumed, the kid's against it, the cart was too big and too heavy.

It rolled and he was dragged right along with it.

He heard the kid's panicked "Oh shit. Shit! Shit! Shit!" and for once, agreed entirely.

The water was coming up very fast and at the last minute, he took one last breath as he was plunged under.

The water was incredibly cold. It was a shock to his body and he just barely managed to fight an involuntary gasp as he was plunged under. His heart rate spiked as he was dragged down, down into the dark. He started to panic, pulling frantically at the handcuffs. The metal scraped his wrist raw but he didn't even notice. They would drown for sure and he needed to do something. Anything.

Ed forced himself to calm down. He knew that if he panicked now, he was not going to make it out of this alive. And he still had shit to do before he died. The cold bit into the automail ports and made his skin crawl while at the same time numbing his exposed fingers. That calm, observant scientist in him noted that the water was either at or slightly above the point of freezing. He opened his eyes and could see that there was light above him, steadily moving away as the heavy mine car dragged them down, but nothing else.

Surely they would hit the bottom soon? But there was nothing. He floated, weightless until he started to feel disoriented in a way that he hadn't felt since… since…

The Gate.

Ed felt a shiver run through his body that had nothing to do with the temperature around him. He wasn't sure how long he could hold his breath; his lungs were starting to burn. Pulling at the handcuffs again in frustration he felt the right one give, just a little. Ignoring the jabs of pain in his shoulder, he heaved with the automail and felt the metal of the cuff warp, bend and then suddenly snap. His arm shot forward in the water with the sudden freedom and without wasting any precious time, he brought his right hand to his left and clapped.

Ben was mentally saying goodbye to his family, accepting the fact that he would drown in this awful place. He was surprisingly calm about it, knowing there was nothing he could do except wait. Wait for the darkness to swallow him whole. Instead of darkness, what came for him was a blinding white light. He saw it even through his closed eyelids and was sure he was dying. Then the cart started to warp around his body and he was sure he was hallucinating.

Ben was jostled into twists and summersaults in the water until he was no longer sure which way was up and which way was down until everything came to a sudden, shattering halt. It was a miracle he managed to hold the air in his lungs the whole time, but in a strange, surreal experience, he wasn't even sure he was still alive. With a crashing, metallic bawump, everything stopped. Finally, he couldn't hold his breath any longer and he gasped.

Air filled his lungs and with the fresh oxygen his brain kicked into gear. He took stock of his situation. It was dark. He couldn't see anything. But he was alive and breathing. His clothes and body were drenched and so much water cascaded from his hair into his mouth as he gasped that he had to spit some out a few times, coughing as he inhaled some in the process. It was cold and he was wet. His fingers and toes were numb, his arm and legs felt heavy but other than his previously injured leg and possibly a broken nose, he was physically fine.

He was still handcuffed by the wrists to something but his hands were now above his head. His feet were touching ground but he was too tall for the space he was in and he had to bend his knees awkwardly to stand upright. With his hands he touched the wall above his head. It was icy cold and felt like metal but it was hard to tell with his numb hands.

Ben had no idea what just happened to him. One moment he was drowning and the next, here he was in the dark, alive and breathing. Before that, he'd been cuffed to an old cart that was pushed into the water by falling debris. The kid and the Lieutenant had tried to use alchemy to free them. The kid!

Alchemy.

"Hey kid," he said, his voice incredibly loud in the silence. There was no answer. Carefully, he felt around along the ground with uninjured foot. There, not more than two feet away, he made contact with a fleshy limp lump on the ground.

"You alive, kid?" He gave the lump and gentle nudge. There was no response.

Then after a moment of absolute silence, he sighed in resignation.

"Shit."

1. Havoc drawing a transmutation circle was one of the scenes I had in my head from the beginning but I had to wait for the best time in the story to include it.

2. Hahaha, "Drop the chalk!" I really wish they'd use that line in the show…

3. I actually had to research what happens to a person's body when they fall into icy water. It's not pleasant… Most people who fall into cold water drown within a few feet from safety in only a few minutes. The reason is that no matter how good of a swimmer you are, your limbs just stop cooperating. Loss of dexterity happens in under 2 minutes. So wear your life jackets, kids!

4. One of the things that's only just touched on in the series and I wish they had really gone into is just how much PTSD Ed might have from his experience with the Gate. Because, seriously, that is some messed up shit. But then FMA is an action series, and spending too much time on someone's psyche might make it too much of a drama. But it would be interesting….

5. Oh Sean… poor misguided Sean.

6. Happy Easter, stay safe out there in this scary world of ours.