++cryogenia++

HeiEd AMV - "Your Hand In Mine"

2010-11-07T01:12:43Z

HEY EVERYBODY!

So, where I have been for the past month (other than being first ill and then working ridiculous hours):

This was done for Yaoicon 2010's Anime Music Video contest - it didn't win anything, but it was still fun :)

The virus attacks!

2010-09-13T01:16:46Z

I almost never do this, but crazyloststar got to me. So!

Rules:
- Leave a comment saying "What's up?!" [or some variation thereof...]
- I'll ask you five questions to satisfy my curiosity.
- Answer here if you wish!
- Update your journal with the answers to your questions.
- Include this explanation and offer to ask other people questions

CLS's interview:

1. If you could live anywhere, where would you go?
1. If I could live anywhere, I would live in Asiya next to MY FAVORITE GYM EVER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD is. But of course I would require a teleporter so I could visit my buddies in America all the time.

2. WOULD YOU COOK FOR ME? Your recipes all sound amazing. :3
I would cook for anyone! Especially if they pay me :) See again the need for teleporter.

3. Family Guy or The Simpsons?
Neither. I am a South Park girl all the way ~~if I ever watch television~~.

4. Do you believe in ghosts?
Technically I am too rational for that, but periodically something will give me those bone-crawling heebie-jeebies and I hide under the covers anyway :)

5. If you could change anything in the story of FMA [manga], what would you change?
Without invoking spoilers and/or wank, THE ENDING! (But I am actually very happy - I wouldn't be in a fandom for a series that I felt was completely perfect :)

CSI: Amestris holding place

2009-11-18T09:08:36Z

Since the kinkmeme proved a very fertile writing environment (and er, this computer remains highly unstable), I thought I might try something new :) Ch 2 will be posted in installments as comments to this post, if anyone is interested in seeing the raw ~~sewage~~ product, feel free to pushpin along XD

[fic] "CSI: Amestris" (Detective AU) - Chapter 1, Part II

2009-11-17T09:36:34Z

Title: CSI: Amestris
Genre: AU
Rating: R
Summary: Originally written for this prompt on the FMA Kinkmeme. Detectives Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes are caught up in a web of intrigue and murder as a series of brutal murders rocks Central city to its core. Along with their informant Edward Elric, a brilliant but troubled young man, their investigation will take them into the darkest reaches of Amestris's underground, and uncover a secret so dangerous they may not live to betray...

Back to Chapter 1 - Part I

Contrary to popular belief, South Central wasn't the lowest rent part of the city. It was infested with gang fronts and chop shops and condemned slumlord housing, but that it had rent at all still set it one step above the Waterfront. The Central River, with her plethora of sewage treatment facilities and garbage barges and industrial waste, moved all the human trash along too. When the beggars finished their day, and there was nothing but litter in their caps; when the junkies had sold their last fillings to pay for the chemicals rotting the teeth out their heads, the three-mile stretch of open and covered canals that formed the border between the bad and worse sides of town was what they had to go home to. Territory so worthless that no gang had even bothered to claim it; no-man's land, in the most literal sense. There was rock bottom, and then there was the river.

Roy picked his way carefully along the frontage road next to the river as the sun began to set. There was Canal Road and then there was Canal Street, the unofficial designation for the stone pathway set down into the open canal proper. It was the hope, back when the canal system was first designed to contain Central's natural waterways, that at low-water times the public might use the access path as a scenic walking path down by the water. A gathering place for society ladies, access for their children to be introduced to Nature and the virtues of wildlife in the water. What no one seemed to have accounted for, Roy thought with dark amusement, was how much less scenic a natural tributary became once reed covered creek banks converted to concrete, or how few children wanted to play in dank, polluted waters. No one had seen a fish in years.

Wildlife still flourished, though, especially at night. Aimless shapes shifted on the walkway fifteen feet below, men and women draped in linens and tablecloths and even plastic bags; piled with so many layers of makeshift clothing the men were no longer distinguishable from the women. Some wore pots covering over their heads, some walked round with pans taped onto their backs, all their earthly belongings and trappings of madness meandering with them. The people in the downtown districts, they thought they knew what destitute was, the busker on the corner who played the violin. To many on Canal Street, money no longer had meaning. Their despair had grown past that point. Young and old, tall and small, all of them simply shuffled, bearing the same identical zombie stares.

There was one figure down on the banks that did not fit in, Roy noticed as he passed, and he stopped and turned back a moment to watch. A man, bending next to a woman cocooned in three knit quilts. He, too, was dressed nondescriptly, carrying a sack, but when he straightened up his posture was all wrong, the set of his shoulders far too proud and wide. It was obvious this man, alone of the throng, walked with purpose.

That he was not Roy's quarry was also apparent. His skin was dark and tan-colored, his short white hair meticulously cropped at the sides and back of his head. An Ishvarite monk then, bringing gospel to the poor. Roy watched as the man knelt beside another pile of carpet and clothing and reached into his simple sack, pulled out a bit of bread to offer to the person buried beneath. The outcasts feeding the outcasts.

As if the man could sense his presence, suddenly the monk rose up again, turned around to meet Roy's gaze. His eerie eyes were baleful in the orangeing light, demonic chips of red not browbeaten or downtrodden at all. Challenging, direct. Slightly uncomfortable, Roy waved and moved on.

He wouldn't find his contact here anyway, he never did. Not down by the canal itself. The waterfront was just a convenient cover, a place the man tended to drift. Usually when the heat was bad. And judging from what his contacts down south had told him, right now Aquaroya might as well be on fire. It would take a good while of laying low before that little jewelry heist incident blew over.

Too bad "laying low" wasn't exactly his snitch's forte. If there was one area he excelled at, really excelled, it was knowing criminals better than they knew themselves. It wasn't long before he found it. Another aspect of the city's failed scenic park planning was the creation of several "miniparks" across covered parts of the waterway; they were to foster the illusion that when the water disappeared underground, it was to nourish flowers and trees. Right now this one was nourishing a bright orange extension cord, plugged into a concrete pillar originally intended for picnicer's boomboxes. Even in the failing light it stuck out like a sore thumb, snaking curiously out across the road and all the way across to an alley, a narrow little gap between two dilapidated old buildings.

Roy grinned to himself, then bent down and unplugged it.

There was a predictable amount of cursing. A tiny figure came storming out from between the two buildings a moment later, tracing back along the extension cord with a focus others might reserve for bombs. When he finally came near enough to see Roy's standard-issue blues next to it, his little blond head jerked back like he'd been hit.

"Oh fuck, not you again!"

"Me again," Roy confirmed, not even bothering to keep the triumphant smirk off his face. Of all of his snitches, Edward Elric was always the most entertainingly predictable.

"How was Aquaroya?"

"Sucked," the boy snapped back, typically blunt. He lunged down to pick up the extension cord and Roy shifted his foot over to pin the plug to the ground. Edward bristled like an unhappy cat.

"Oh come on, you bastard! You got no right to disconnect my electricity!"

"It's the city's electricity," Roy said evenly, gesturing toward the park district sign. "I believe the park district is footing the bill."

"So? I pay for that with my tax dollars!"

"You don't pay taxes, Fullmetal," Roy asserted. "Unless you've had a lobotomy and converted to the straight and narrow. What were you using it for, anyway?"

Edward sighed and rolled his eyes, crossed his arms in an exaggerated gesture.

"I'm not getting rid of you, am I?" he muttered. Roy didn't bother dignifying that with a response; he knew a rhetorical question when he heard one.

"Just put it back and I'll show you."

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on," Roy shot back, equally as firm. "If this is for a lab, Fullmetal..."

"LOOK, you dick," Edward snarled. In the deepening gloom, his hair was the only feature that stood out, preternaturally gold, the same color as his alien eyes. They looked more like a lion's than a person in the closing night.

"It's for my new place, I just finished it! Got lights and a heater and everything. So you gonna stand out here and play games all night, or are you gonna come in where it's warm?"

Slowly, Roy lifted his foot back off the cord, though he made no move to plug it in. After a moment, Edward grumbled and leaned down to do the honors himself.

"You are such a bastard," the boy growled as he waved for Roy to follow.

As they neared the mouth of the alley, it became obvious this particular dark blight in the streetscape was rather less dark than it properly ought to be. The glow seemed to be radiating outward, not from a security light, but from a rather strange construction nestled halfway down the alley, stretching neatly between the brick walls of the two neighboring warehouses. It appeared to be a wooden shack, not unlike a slightly larger version of an old-fashioned kid's clubhouse, constructed from a hodge-podge of different painted boards with a dilapidated men's restroom door accessing the inside. It was also glowing. Edward grumpily yanked the door open, at which point the reason for the eerie glow became clear. The extension cord was cut apart at one end and the copper inside sussed out and hot wired into an eclectic chain of holiday lights, a ripped Xingian paper lantern, and a single bare lightbulb, swinging overhead. Also of note was a radial heater, with its own separate ball of wire and electrical tape coaxing it to put out warmth. It was nearly as tall as Edward's hip.

Edward pulled a couple of stained bed pillows off the sleeping bag in the corner and flopped down right next to the heater, sighing with obvious content. He made no move to find something for Roy to sit on.

"You know you wouldn't need the heater if you wore more clothes," Roy pointed out, appraising the boy now that they were in the light. Edward was dressed conservatively, by Edward standards, which was to say he might not be thrown out of a truckstop diner. The black long-sleeved 'shirt' he was sporting barely came down to cover his nipples; the fabric below that line had been shredded into holes so large the divisions between them were little more than strings. All the better to show off the wares, Roy supposed. Edward was inhumanly ripped, and his abs were individually defined; an actual six-pack, as opposed to the beer belly Patrolman Breda liked to slap and joke was his six-pack. There was a light line of down shooting straight down the middle of them too, disappearing into the top of the seemingly shrink-wrapped leather pants the boy was wearing. The treasure trail, a bonafide sign that Edward was going through puberty. That was good, he wanted Ed to be at least that age. It made not thinking about the nature of his job easier.

Ed's answer was an extended middle finger.

"Don't show up wanting shit if you're gonna be judge-y. I delivered as promised, I took down your cat burglar."

"Indeed," Roy said. "Along with the majority of Aquaroya's National History Museum. The cost of restoring some of those exhibits might possibly exceed the value of the heirlooms you were supposed to recover."

"What, you questioning my methods now?!" Ed actually looked affronted. "I get results. That's what matters to you people, isn't it? If you don't like my tactics, don't use me."

A tense, shrewd expression flashed across his sweetheart's face, twisting it into ugliness.

"Which reminds me...you got the other five thou you owe me?"

Roy sighed and pulled out his wallet, peeled off several bills and tossed them to the sulking boy. Ed flicked through them quickly, counting them with practiced ease, before concealing them somehow in the pocket of his skintight pants.

"Ten thousand, as promised," Roy said. "Go buy yourself a real shirt."

Ed nodded and finally seemed to relax a bit, slouching back resplendently into his glamorous throne of cast-off pillows, eminently pleased with himself. Now that he'd been paid, he even offered Roy a hint of a real smile, an unusual gesture that left him disarmingly pretty.

Roy said nothing. Technically, the department had offered thirty thousand for the capture of the infamous Psiren, but there was collateral property damage to be considered, and ten thousand cens was still nothing to sneeze at for a couple day's work. Plus, no matter what Edward promised him, Roy knew full well that in a matter of days he would be flat broke and scrounging again. Ed might have the distinction of being the only genius-level repeat offender in the tri-county area, but the depressing reality was that his intellect had no effect on his ability not to shed money like water. He would blow through this ten thousand and go right back to his same old tricks, until Roy cornered him again and sent him off on another mission for hire.

Roy looked up at the cheery little string of lights and shook his head. All that talent and drive, so very horribly misplaced. Edward might be brilliant, but Edward was still an addict, endlessly, hopelessly enslaved. No matter how beautifully the boy smiled, he had to remember the nature of the beast.

Ed saw him looking and scowled. Now that the magic of his smile had broken, he quickly reverted to form, impatient and energetic.

"So what is it this time? I know you didn't come all this way just to pay me. Tight ass."

Roy ignored the insult, though the attitude, as always, was starting to get to him. He wondered sometimes if the kid even understood Roy was trying to help him. Hughes didn't see it of course - Hughes was always on him to bring Edward in with them, for fuck's sake - but Hughes didn't know what it was like, the hunger. There were many designer drugs and they went by many names, the Crimson Elixir, the Red Stone, the Dragon, but any way you picked your poison, the desire was the same. A man searching for the stone was a man possessed, and when an addict was still caught in that thrall, nothing and no one could stand in their way. The courts had tried sending Ed to rehab. He'd snowed even the most seasoned social workers and escaped in a matter of days.

"Information, Fullmetal," Roy said brusquely. "I need to know if you've seen a particular symbol around."

"All right, then I need to see some particular dead politicians," Ed said without missing a beat. He extended one gloved hand, gesturing for more bills, and the cocky way he spread his legs as he did so (was that possibly reflex!?) set Roy's teeth on edge.

"You know technically, I wouldn't have to pay you," he growled. "You could cooperate because it's your civic duty."

Ed leaned forward and grabbed the cuff of Roy's uniform pants, looked at him and tugged hard. For one heart-stopping moment, Roy thought the kid was actually coming onto him -- did he really think Roy was holding out for him to sweeten the deal!? -- but then Ed released him and gave him his very best shit-eating grin.

"So far nothing jingles. Or did I pull the wrong one, for the bells?"

And now the delinquent was taking his own words and mocking him with them. As though it was perfectly normal for a detective to go out of his way to pay known addicts, and thus bankroll their continued attempts at clandestine synthesis. Little bastard, he never changed.

"And if I took this place apart right now, you're telling me there's not a single thing the D.A. would find disagreeable."

"Illegal search and seizure," Ed whipped right back at him. "No warrant."

He did sit up a little straighter in his pillow nest though, Roy noticed with a practiced eye. The way Ed now leaned to the left, the stash was probably in that side's pocket. It made sense - like a thief was actually going to be able to get a hand down those pants.

"Probable cause," Roy fired back. "You being you. And I wouldn't need a warrant, anyway."

He gestured to the ramshackle construction above. "Unless you've got a deed and zoning permit I don't know about, technically, you're squatting. And stealing electricity."

He looked over at the dingy sleeping bag, the mismatched pillows next to it. "Dumpster diving's illegal too."

"Bastard," Ed muttered under his breath, but subsided.

Roy reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a notepad and pen. He wasn't as talented as Hughes but he could at least assemble a few shapes together, enough to capture the relevant details.

"Here," he said simply and handed it over, watching closely for Edward's reaction. Unlike Greed, he was acutely in tune with all of Ed's tells. It was a curious thing. For all that 'Fullmetal' fronted he was hard, for as much trouble as he tended to get in, the boy's poker face was still laughable. His feelings were always right front and center.

Right now, his countenance was saying "confusion".

"It's supposed to look like this?" Ed waved the pad up at Roy. "What's with the fangs growing out of the egg?"

"The ellipse is supposed to be a circle, and the circular part is supposed to be a snake," Roy grudgingly explained. Damn, he really ought to have waited until the crime scene photos developed. "The ouroboros is a serpent from an ancient tradition--"

"Xerxian, yeah," Ed interjected, waving his hand. As though it were perfectly normal for a street rat and addict to know the ins and outs of classical literature. "They thought it was responsible for earthquakes, planetary rotation. Though how the fuck you think something's both squeezing the planet together AND making it spin, I have no idea."

And more details than he'd been able to remember himself. It figured Ed would do that. He was staring at it just a little too hard for history, though. Ed was staring at the paper as though it personally offended him, and Roy was willing to bet the animosity ran a little deeper than Ed's usual dislike of 'theistic idiocracy'.

"With the wings, one could also say the ouroboros counts as a 'dragon'," Roy prompted smoothly. "I was thinking perhaps your crowd would know something about that."

Ed licked his lips, now clearly nervous.

"My 'crowd'? What crowd, do you see a crowd here?"

He raised his right arm and swept it defiantly around, showcasing the emptiness, then leaned back against the wall of his shack, trying to front that he wasn't the least bit concerned.

"In case you haven't noticed, I don't exactly play well with others."

Roy just arched an eyebrow, kept it arched, its ire trained directly at the middle of Edward's forehead. After half a minute of unrelenting skepticism, Ed invariably cracked. Hard, indeed. Sometimes, he thought that Hughes was right. If this kid ever did cross paths with an actual street-for-lifer, the real gangbangers would eat him alive.

"Look, I'm not dealing, if that's what you're getting at!" Ed blurted finally.

"But you still use," Roy growled, seizing at the obvious omission. He didn't even bother waiting for the half-hearted protest. In the same breath as he was bristling to proclaim his maligned innocence, Ed was leaning even farther over to protect his special pocket. It was a move so transparent it would have been laughable if Roy had time to be anything but irritated.

"Fullmetal, I know you know something. Don't make this difficult."

Ed squirmed again, hunched pathetically over his hip stash, before finally giving in.

"I've seen it around, yeah," the boy said slowly. "There's a guy who's got it as a tatt."

"Who?"

"Dunno. I never got his name," Ed flushed a little. "We partied a couple of times."

Translation, got blasted, probably exchanged sexual favors for hits. Ed wasn't known to Vice as a regular spread, not the way Greed's girls were, but Roy knew what it meant for an addict as young and pretty as Fullmetal to be on the streets. The next high was the only value that mattered to a junkie. Anything and everything else was negotiable.

Ed was glaring up at him, just daring him to comment, and Roy bit down on his cheek hard. Diplomacy and grace, that was what he needed. Their usual bickering would get them nowhere.

"This 'guy', can you at least describe him?" he asked instead.

"Like your long-lost kid brother?"

Roy gave him a look and Ed flailed.

"No, seriously! The guy was Xingian."

Ed reached up with his left hand and pulled the corners of his eyes into an outmoded racist squint. Roy had never bothered to enlighten him that he didn't actually find the gesture offensive.

"Tiny eyes and everything. Longer hair than you, though. He had it in one of those fake ponytails, what do you call 'em, rat tails."

"Where was the tattoo?"

"Back of his hand." Ed thought for a moment. "Left, I think."

That didn't seem like a fatty enough area to have produced the chunk they had found at the crime scene, Roy thought. Unless the man was extraordinarily meaty. He supposed it wasn't completely impossible. Inspector Armstrong was a bodybuilder and he had inhumanly beefy hands.

"How was he built?" Roy asked, just in case.

"Wiry, real long legs."

"Not overweight, then?" So much for that idea.

"Nah, he was cut." Ed nodded appreciatively, leaning back on his own muscular arms. Even through the dark fabric of the boy's shirt, Roy could see his biceps pop out.

Again, so much wasted potential. Edward might not have the height to be a model yet, but he certainly had the face and body for it. And Roy didn't believe for a second the boy was really eighteen and done growing, the way his IDs inevitably claimed. The boy had been 'eighteen' for at least three years now; it was a running joke at the office. Roy looked down over Ed's exposed abs again, the tight angles of his pelvis leading down beneath his waistband, and something inside him twisted.

"Anything else?"

Ed shrugged.

"He had a pretty wicked accent. Lots of clipped vowels, like he was fat."

"Fat--ah, right," It took Roy a second to process the acronym. "Fresh About Town", or more originally "Freight Ain't Ticketed", the catch-all for immigrants sneaking in via trainyards.

"Said he was a martial artist, though I didn't get the chance to test that part."

"You tried him out in other ways, I take it."

So much for diplomacy. The jab was out before Roy could think twice about it. It was just so natural to argue back and forth with Fullmetal. Their trash-talking banter had a rhythm that was more natural than most polite conversations. Most of the time, he secretly even liked it.

"No, actually," Ed growled. He actually had the gall to sounded offended. "You want to know the truth, he was kind of a dick. Stuck me with his entire tab at Atelier Garfiel. I think he ordered damn near everything off the menu. That place, a glass of water costs a fiver for the lemon."

Ed looked up at him suspiciously. "Why do you need to know all this, anyway? Is he not good people?"

Leave it to Edward to ever describe fellow addicts as "good people."

"It depends," Roy said evenly. "He might be dead people."

Ed visibly faltered. A shadow fell across his face and he picked at rung in the string-ladder pretending to be his shirt. So young, he looked so very young like this. Roy swallowed hard as something inside twisted again.

"...oh," Ed said after a moment. "Damn."

"'Damn' is right. You sure there isn't anything else you want to tell me?" Roy pressed. "Who else this guy parties with, what kind of business he's into?"

Ed shook his head.

"Last time was Garfiel's, two weeks ago. Private party, he was crashing."

"And you were invited?" Roy asked, eyebrow raised. Atelier Garfiel was known to be a "discrete" club, but still too high-end for the scene Fullmetal usually frequented. Garfiel's type of vice was gentlemen seeking gentlemen; closeted politicians with their consorts, not barely-clothed addict rent boys.

"Yeah, I was invited! People know me!"

Spoken defiantly, as though he expected Roy to contradict him. As if Roy didn't know full well. Ed's reputation as a clandestine chemist was what he took advantage of to get his informant into sensitive situations; despite his lack of regular mob or gang connections, everyone had heard of Fullmetal, the 'alchemist'. Everyone wanted a piece of the magic Edward's talent could create.

"I'm fucking famous in Central, in case you forgot?"

"I'm just trying to get the facts," he said. "Fullmetal, I don't have time for your ego. Someone's been murdered in connection with that symbol. If we're going to solve this, I need everything you can give me."

Again with the shifting. Roy had half a mind just to go flip him over and dump out whatever he was trying to hide so at least he would stop that distracting wiggling. In those pants it almost looked painful.

"Well, like I said, this guy was new around town. He didn't seem to know anybody. He glommed onto me pretty hard though, once he found out who I was. And don't get pissed, but..."

He looked up at Roy furtively.

"He hit me up for the big time, okay? Said he was a prince."

For a moment, everything shut down.

"A prince," Roy replied flatly. "As in the mob kind."

If Ed saw heard the edge that had come into Roy's voice, he gave no indication. He waved a hand dismissively, looking vaguely bored.

"I guess. He claimed to represent some cartel back east. The Yao family, like anyone's ever heard of them."

Roy had in fact heard of them, and the Yao clan, an subdivision of the infamous Imperial Family, was definitely the last thing the city needed. Central had enough gang war and ethnic tension without a foreign outfit trying to move in. It would make sense though. Unlike the local thugs who played at being brothers-for-life, until they couldn't agree what color bandanna to wear, Xingian organized crime was fanatical and disciplined. Their hierarchy was clearly defined and absolute, in some cases leadership passed down for generations. Literal crime families, with business fronts and resources built up over many years.

Greed's words from earlier reverberated through his head. "Harder action", indeed. If a clan from Xing was trying to break into the Central drug market, it would be more coherent and competent than any scheme the city had seen before.

"This guy was part of a mob family," Roy said incredulously. "And you didn't think that detail was relevant to mention?!"

"I'm mentioning it now, okay!" Ed hissed. "Look, I thought he was shitting me! A lot of idiots make up things to get into a party. This guy was talking big, but it was pretty clear he had no idea what he was saying. He said he wanted the Red Stone, pure. That's not possible, it's volatile as fuck. Precipitates into all kinds of shit, no one's ever even come close. And sticking a guy with the bar tab don't exactly inspire confidence either. 'You can't pay for booze you can't pay to use', that's what I always say."

He grinned up at Roy anxiously, as though the cute rhyme was to somehow make up for this clusterfuck. Damn it, the little shit always did this. He waltzed into things blind, expecting his wits to carry him through; thinking he was so hard, when the reality was he had no idea what kinds of forces he was toying with.

"Actually, Fullmetal," Roy ground out, trying to keep a lid on his temper. "That part adds legitimacy. A clan leader never pays for his own things around subordinates. The bottom tier members are expected to take care of everything. 'Paying your dues' is part of the mob's initiation process. "

"Guess it's good to be the kingpin," Ed said breezily. "Sucks for the idiots who fall for it."

"You don't understand. If a prince left you a bill, and you paid it, that could be taken as a sign you're accepting his protection!"

"Yeah, well what was I supposed to do?" Ed snapped. "Somebody had to. Garfiel's good people, I wasn't gonna stiff him. Even though he overcharges."

First Greed, now Fullmetal. Great. Roy ran a hand over his face. Leave it to him to get stuck with the criminals with an inconvenient sense of honor.

"If the mob's involved, it gets complicated. I spent a lot of time working with that crowd back east. If this prince thinks you're interested, they're going to pursue you, aggressively. These people don't tend to take no."

"They'll take mine," Ed breathed. "I'm pretty aggressive, myself."

He pressed his hands together and did something complicated beneath his right sleeve. There was a slick metallic click and suddenly a wicked blade presented itself from Ed's right sleeve. Not a simple throwing knife, like Hughes kept secreted for emergencies; this baby was six inches long and worn over Ed's forearm like a gauntlet. A retractable quick-stick, the real reason he was called 'Fullmetal'.

It was also illegal as hell. Roy could feel his blood pressure rising already.

"Fullmetal!" he growled. "Put that away, I don't want to see it!"

"What's the matter?" Ed grinned. Back to flippant. He spread his legs coquettishly and dropped the blade-arm between. "Yours not big enough?"

Roy gave him the eyebrow treatment again, mostly for the painful double entendre.

"Do you really want to add to the list of reasons I should take you in? Central doesn't have concealed carry."

"All right, fine!" Ed rolled his eyes and pressed his hands together to make the blade disappear. It retracted with a neat, nearly silent ssschk.

At no point did he let either sleeve roll up, Roy noticed. Interesting. Was that because of the knife? Or was he hiding something else...like fresh needle tracks?

"Did the prince talk to you about anything else?" he asked. "Mention a contract, or offer you something?"

"Besides the Stone? No, not really," Ed said.

His eyes darted hard to the left, though, and he leaned over his pocket so fast his pants creaked. There was something in there, Roy could almost see the outline. Round and defined, like a pill case.

"'Not really'. What does that mean?" Roy ground out, voice tight. "Other drugs? Is that it? You used with him, didn't you?"

"We partied, like I said," Ed bit back, glowering. "Figure it out."

"So you shared," Roy growled back, staring at the boy's pocket. "Or was he selling to you? You were flat broke before I sent you out to Aquaroya. What exactly did you use to pay?"

As if it wasn't perfectly clear what currency Edward traded in, that tantalizing glimpse of skin. Such a waste, of brains and beauty and talent and energy...

You have to want to change, Hughes's voice echoed back to him over time and space, and somehow the memory only made him angrier.

Ed's eyes followed his down to the tight V of Ed's own legs, and the boy's temper visibly ignited.

"None of your business, how I get anything," Ed snarled. "I can take care of myself."

"And you've been doing such a good job of that, I see," Roy drolled, reaching up to tap the broken little paper lantern. It swung crazily in circles, splaying light unevenly from the tear in its side, an unintentional disco ball.

He glared down at the bristling boy.

"On the contrary, it is my business, Fullmetal. When homicide gets involved, then it's my business. This dealer may be dead, or he may be implicated, if that fancy snake is what he uses as a calling-card. Either way, it's bad news."

"So I'll tell him to fuck off, end of story," Ed glowered. "And you can fuck off too, if you're going to get all judgmental."

"'Judgmental'," Roy repeated flatly. "You traded favors with a mob boss! For what? One hit, two? Fun and done, Fullmetal, and you are about to experience a whole new world of pain-in-the-ass. These people don't compromise, they don't quit. They will get their claws in and they will not let you go. They will make you make the Stone for them, they will make you make it pure, and if you can't? They will farm your ass out on the street corners, or they will kill you. You tell me - was it worth it?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, cut the crap already, Mustang!"

Ed's mouth twisted down into one long drawn-out sneer, an ugly expression marring his pretty face.

"We both know you're just as big a user."

An icy rivulet ran down the back of Roy's spine and he stiffened in spite of himself. Hot eyes were on him, boring into him; wolf eyes, honed sharp with the greatest of man's intelligence, and all Roy could think for a moment was that he knew, Ed knew, son of a bitch, somehow he knew.

Except that was impossible, he realized a second later, when breath returned to his lungs. No one knew, not even Hughes; he was always careful. So what...

Ed tossed his head to the side, trailing his uneven, beautiful hair with it, sweeping it over the pillow beneath him. Every muscle in his defined abdomen tensed and then rippled all the way along his tawny treasure trail, right down to the top button of his pants.

"Yeah, that bastard wanted me," Ed said, arching his hips up. The ugliness was gone now, replaced by a knowing, predatory smile. A pro's smirk, somehow worse for its artificial cheer. "You know you wanna to pump me too."

"That's enough!" Roy snapped, leaning over him, almost ready to smack him but not wanting to touch. The boy's street persona was downright disturbing. He wielded his sexuality like a knife, pointed and to the point; an act of aggression, not of affection.

"Oh that's right, for information. Like that makes you better? News flash, you're still using me. I'm still using you. That's how this works."

Ed rolled his tight shoulders and leaned his entire body back, cascading his shimmering hair down around him in a sinuous motion. Roy watched, dry-mouthed, at the way the boy's chest and stomach tightened, his arms and legs spread. In the low, uneven light, the shift of the dark holes of his shirt made it look like he was writhing.

"Everything comes at cost," Ed husked, looking up at him. Challenging.

"Like it or not, you need me."

He couldn't hold it back anymore, the rage/embarrassment/shame was too strong to contain. Roy lunged down to seize the belt loop just above Ed's suspicious pocket, jerked the boy's hip toward him. He could only get the very tips of the fingers of his other hand into the pocket itself, but it was enough to feel something smooth and round, like a pill case.

"This is not about your ego!" Roy snarled. "If you're so damn smart, what are you doing here? This is how you want to spend your life? Huh? In a shack?" Each question was punctuated by another furious, vicious yank on the belt loop. "If I were smart, I'd arrest you right now!"

"Let me go, you son of a bitch!"

Ed twisted and scrabbled like a wild thing, desperate to protect his stash. Roy saw him bringing his hands together and pulled his own out of Ed's pocket just in time to catch the boy's wrist.

"Now I've got you on two counts. Possession and assault on an officer. You want to know how long you'd be in for that?"

Ed's response was a wordless hiss. He jerked the hand with the shiv hard back and forth desperately, trying to bring out the blade, but Roy twisted it down and to the side.

"The big time, not Juvvy," he warned. "I mean it."

"You wouldn't," Ed spat back. "I'm too useful to lock up! You know that!"

"You keep saying that," Roy snapped back, "as if that makes it true."

Ed recoiled as though Roy had physically slapped him, struggled harder to get free. His hair was wild and everywhere, no longer a curtain but a mane. A feral animal, fueled by desperation now, not bravado.

"You need me to find your man! Your prince!" Ed protested. "That's what you were gonna make me do, isn't it?! I can still do that! Just, don't--"

Ed twisted his hips so hard to the left that the joints creaked. That all-consuming drive to protect the stash, that desperate struggle between pride and the hunger. Roy knew that look well, that anxious, hollow-eyed stare. He had seen it on his own face in the mirror once, a long time ago.

You have to want to change, Hughes' voice whispered again.

Suddenly, ripping into the boy no longer seemed righteous, or courageous. It just felt sad.

"I'll find him! I will!" Ed panted, trying to bring one lone boot up to kick at him. "That's what you want me to do! Isn't it!?"

Roy blocked the blow and thrust the boy away from him. He stood and backed toward the ramshackle little door. As he did, he looked out across Ed's empire, the nest of old pillows, the single sleeping bag, the dog-eared stack of books, and shook his head.

"No," Roy said. "I think I'll find him just fine on my own.

He moved toward the rusty door and tugged it open, forcing himself to turn away from the sad little tableau.

"Hey! Hey!! Don't you turn your back on me!" Ed called after him plaintively. His eyes were large and luminous in the light he had created, the torn little lantern still swinging overhead.

"I'm a prodigy, you son of a bitch! You need me!"

"No," Roy said, "I don't."

---

(Look Ma! I have internets :D)

[fic] "CSI: Amestris" (Detective AU)

2009-11-17T09:30:24Z

Title: CSI: Amestris
Genre: AU
Rating: R
Summary: Originally written for this prompt on the FMA Kinkmeme. Detectives Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes are caught up in a web of intrigue and murder as a series of brutal murders rocks Central city to its core. Along with their informant Edward Elric, a brilliant but troubled young man, their investigation will take them into the darkest reaches of Amestris's underground, and uncover a secret so dangerous they may not live to betray...

His life really was cursed, Roy thought sourly as the patrol car rumbled through the rain. The rain had followed him from East City, the same endless days of gray, and now his social luck was turning out the same. The same night he had finally thought it safe to plan a celebration dinner, he had received an urgent call as soon as he'd arrived at the restaurant. Brandi (Or was it -ie?) had been gracious enough, but if there was one thing he had learned throughout his long tenure on the dating circuit, it was that leaving a girl for a body never got you a second date.

The scene was in South Central, one of the sectors closest to the city core. An old district, one of the most historically significant; also one of the most decrepit and dangerous. To say someone had died in South Central on a Friday night was to proclaim that night was dark. Detective Hughes greeted him at the scene, already awash with blues and boundary saw horses, and Roy found it hard to contain his irritation.

"Today was my off-day," Roy growled, ducking under a thick mess of crime-scene tape. "I had Brandi at Novarti's."

Hughes shrugged in his amicable way, a little roll of the shoulders that managed to convey both apology and apathy at the same time.

"Chief wants two D's on this case," he said. "I knew where you were, so I made the call."

His green eyes flicked briefly down over the edge of his glasses.

"He thinks this one's going to be big."

Roy nodded, mollified. Also, a little ashamed. Hughes had worked hard for him to be transferred here after his promotion, had fought tooth and nail to recommend him above several other, more senior candidates. So far, he had yet to get the chance to prove old friend right. The few cases he had undertaken since arriving were textbook crimes of passion, drug or domestic violence taken too far. Half the time the murderer had still been standing there holding the weapon in shock. But his reputation was for handling the rough cases, the cold ones, the unsolvables, and Central had other ambitious young detectives with more connections, more hard-solves. Keeping his overall solve rate good wasn't going to be enough to distinguish himself here.

Roy loosened his tie, rolled up his shirt sleeves.

"Where's the DB?" he asked.

"Alley," Hughes said, inclining his head toward a dank patch of shadow. It was little more than a slit between two decrepit buildings, both equally boarded up and depressing.

"Recent?"

Hughes shook his head.

"We haven't gotten a hold of the coroner yet, but I'd guess at least a day. Definitely not a come-and-cuff-em. Whoever did this is long gone."

Roy nodded. A cursory glance toward the graffiti-covered billboard posted in front of the buildings confirmed that they were in fact condemned. Not likely to be many witnesses then, either. A good place for a murder, insofar as there was such a thing. Roy rolled up the cuffs of his jacket, starting to feel the first real tingles of excitement. In a morbid way, it was good to have a challenge again.

"Well, let's see what they left us already," he said, striding toward the first cheery string of yellow tape.

Uncharacteristic for Hughes, the detective was hanging back. Usually he was the first one to a body, snapping pictures before the morgue's office showed up to mess everything up. As Roy approached the alley though, Hughes actually blanched and stepped over to the side.

"Roy...you might want some menthol first."

"If you don't use anything you'll get acclimated faster," Roy said stodgily. Some officers (particularly rookies) rubbed camphor beneath their noses to try and block out the scent of death, not realizing there was no perfume on earth strong enough to block it out. Instead, it just complicated the adaptation process.

"It's worse than usual," Hughes admitted.

"That's they pay us for," Roy turned and marched into the alley, ready for anything.

He regretted it.

The thing in the alley was a body only in the sense that strands of gristle still tethered its lumps loosely to a skeleton. It might have been human once, before its torso was bashed open; now the clotted pile of bone fragments and gore housed a miasma of flies. Its face was smashed in so hard it was nearly concave, as though a vacuum inside had come on to suck the features into one gaping, continuous maw.

And then, hideously discongruous, its one identifying feature: a circular excision of flesh, laid neatly over the V that might once have been a groin. Instead of genitalia, a smooth patch of its own skin advertised the nature of the beast. Whatever body part the lump had been taken from, it had born a tattoo. Red ink, iconic; the unmistakable logo of a serpent curled round to bite its own tail.

Roy backed away hard to suck at fresh air, eyes watering, fighting the urge to vomit. Normally he would stay close until he acclimated to the sight and smell, but in all his years of service, he had rarely come across a scene as gruesome.

Hughes said nothing, just stood back at a respectful distance and let him breathe. When he thought he had control of his gorge again, Roy risked speaking to him.

"Who found it?"

"Girl walking her poodle. Animal went nuts, wouldn't leave the alley alone. She thought they'd found a drowned rat." The corners of Hughes' lips curled up in a vicious smile. "Dead rodents come pretty big, this part of town."

Gallows humor, as only a homicide detective could employ. There was nothing that compared to the stench of a rotting human body; cadavers carried a particular quality of putrescence that was impossible to define. Equally impossible to forget. Roy had left a girlfriend once because the herbal body soap she was enamored with reminded him of it. Something about the undertone of wet leaves. Every passing whiff brought him right there to long nights in dark alleys, to chill flesh and wet pavement and ooze sliding down storm drains. Patrolman Havoc had thought he was crazy for quitting Monica (Monique?) over a matter of suds, not tugs, but Roy had never been able to slide into bed without imagining her pale skin even paler, her thick curves grown puffy and livid.

"She'll know the difference now."

Roy looked over to the witness in question, a small, unhappy thing clutched around her poodle, standing out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of patrolmen and productivity. East side girl, from the clothes and cluelessness. Her purse was brand name, the double-d of Dublith Design prominent even at a distance; he'd dated enough society types to guess it probably equated to at least two of his paychecks. He shook his head.

"Surprised she's not our DB, walking around dressed like that."

"Yeah. Says she only moved to S.C. recently. 'Boyfriend'." Hughes' smile grew even more knife-like, a slash across his handsome face. "Whom she was strangely resistant to calling, even though she's got no ride. Her own sheet's stark white, but what do you want to bet we know her beau?"

"Uptown girl who likes bad boys?"

"Or bad boys who play nice. Greed likes the high class ladies."

"Greed likes to think he's high class. Our good old knight in tarnished armor."

"This close to the Nest, it's worth checking out."

Roy shook his head.

"Greed wouldn't soil his own turf like this. He's too smooth an operator."

"True. He's more the type to disappear you outright."

Hughes craned his head around the corner of the alley again, pushing his glasses up in that compulsive way that meant he was thinking. Roy followed suit. A few of the braver techs were finally circling in on the flesh pile, though their faces were drawn and pale. Roy recognized Broche, one of their newer ident techs, poking glumly at what remained of the thing's arm with a printing spoon, trying to find a finger intact enough to ink.

"Fingerprints probably not going to happen with this one," Hughes observed sagely. "Even once the rookie remembers he can tent it."

Roy nodded. Draping a DB in plastic and fuming it with chemicals was the next step at a scene where traditional ink and paper failed, but this one's hands had been flayed until there was scarcely any flesh left clinging to the bone. Roy wasn't a forensics expert - he preferred to direct investigations, not dally in their minutiae - but he had seen enough dead hands to know a lost cause when he saw one.

"Dental records, too," he said, pointing to the ruined face. "Whoever did this, they sure didn't want us to name the Doe."

"Somebody's supposed to recognize it, though."

Hughes moved forward with a frown, staring down at the transplanted tattoo grinning gamely up from between the body's legs. The circular snake bore a wicked smile, its one eye gazing cheerfully off into space.

I know something you don't know, its endless grin seemed to say.

"Get a picture, we'll ask around."

"Sure."

An identifying marker, repositioned on purpose. The tattoo had to have significance. Roy waited for Hughes to whip out his needlessly complex SLR set, running through his own mental photobook of gang emblems, mob signs. The Xingian cartels were known to be partial to dragon-and-tiger body art, but those tatts were large and intricate. The more details a thug suffered through, the badder he was; most bad-news brothers wound their serpent up a leg, or across their entire chest. This beastie was little larger than his palm, scarcely any lines to it at all. The shape of it was wrong too. A winged snake, biting its own tail...

"Ouroboros," Roy tasted the word out loud, found that it was right.

Hughes paused.

"You know it?"

"Mythology-wise. The Xerxians wrote about it." Roy rubbed at his temples. "It was the god that wraps around the equator, holds the world together."

"You read Xerxian?"

"No, of course I don't! It's been dead a hundred years," Roy snorted. "I took a semester of Classic Literature back in Academy. Gen Ed."

"And you still remember anything?" Hughes grinned. "Either way, you're a prodigy."

Roy was about to elbow him when an officer in blue approached, waving cheerfully. Havoc was a competent trooper, easy-going and unflappable; a lanky man whose baby blue eyes belied a sharpshooter's skill and much sharper mental processes than most people gave him credit for. Roy trusted Havoc, trusted his judgment - if Havoc thought it was wise to interrupt, it was probably wise to listen.

"Heya, big boss!" Havoc saluted roguishly, nodded to acknowledge Hughes. "Lieut."

"Yes, Patrolman?"

Havoc jacked a thumb back over his shoulder at the girl with the poodle, who was edging further and further away from the bright runners of crime-scene tape. Her expression was decidedly non-plussed.

"The witness is getting antsy. Wants ta know if she can 'get the hell out of here already, pardon her Drachman'. Real piece of work. You want to take over?"

"I thought she needed a ride?" Hughes asked.

"Seems like she's changed her mind," Havoc said. "Not too keen on giving out address or phone number, either. Maybe I should switch colognes?"

Havoc's tone was light, but his neck was tensed hard with irritation. Roy understood. Although it probably wasn't likely in this case that their tip-off was the perp -- contrary to the penny dreadfuls, the murderer did not always return to the scene of the crime -- the girl was still the first one to discover the body. Protocol dictated they needed a contact.

Not to mention that a 'helpful bystander' willing to phone in a body, but not willing to give out her phone number, was highly suspicious.

"Let me talk to her," Roy said. Hughes raised an eyebrow, but Roy ignored it. Havoc was a decent interviewer - by the book, polite - but not very creative. Roy had a better knack for reading people, noticing what buttons to press. And in the case of a pretty lady, when to lay on the charm. If there was one thing he'd learned, in the dating scene or otherwise, flattery would get you anywhere.

"Want me to come?" Hughes said, nonchalantly enough, but Roy caught the gleam behind his friend's glasses.

"Sounds good. I could use a second set of eyes." Hughes was not as good at suave-flirtatious but he was exceedingly observant, good at reading people's tone and gestures and body language. He also knew how to put a perp at ease; subtle licks of humor and empathy, until suddenly those laughing eyes turned cold and his voice twinged sharp as the knives he hid in his boots for self-defense. Together, the two of them were a force that had sussed information out of some of the country's hardest criminals. If this girl had secrets, they didn't stand a chance.

Roy ran a hand through his hair briefly, setting his look for "tousled", and strode back toward the witness with his head and shoulders high. Hughes followed at a distance, amicable and non aggressive. She was pretty enough, if your taste ran to 'high maintenance', Roy mused. Chestnut hair kept short in a tight, well-coiffed bob; slender, polished features accentuated by careful touches of makeup. Like the bag, her clothes also seemed to be designer. Her gray shirt flowed along her curves like butter, the short skirt beneath it sporting the logo of a popular Cretan clothing couture. Definitely out of place in South Central, where the median income was scarcely above the subsistence line. He exchanged glances with Hughes. Either an eastsider slumming it...or a new high-ticket pro for the Vice books.

"Good afternoon, Miss...?" he purred, offering her his very best smile regardless. Especially with the ladies, he had always caught more flies with honey than with vinegar.

"Lyra Eubanks," the girl supplied primly. Her dog, a little white powder puff in her arms, raised its poofy head and huffed.

"Detective Roy Mustang. And my partner, Detective Hughes."

"We met, briefly," she said stiffly, looking over at Hughes. "Can't I leave yet?"

"You have somewhere to be?"

"I'd like to get Peaches home," the girl complained. "We both need a bath."

"Peaches. That the name of your poodle?"

"Yeah."

Roy bent down to look at the frou frou thing. It eyed him disinterestedly, whuffed a long strand of drool down toward the ground.

"He's adorable," Roy attempted.

Lyra stared at him like he'd grown a second head. Roy made a mental note. Some people responded to talk about their animals. This was apparently not one of them.

"Look, I've done my civic duty," she said. "You have no right to keep me here!"

"Of course," Roy purred quickly. "I'd be happy to escort you anywhere you like. I heard you were in need of a ride...?"

Lyra's eyes shifted sharply to one side and her slender throat worked for a moment.

"Forget about it," she said. "I can walk."

"It's getting late," Hughes pointed out. "This part of town isn't safe at night."

Or anytime, Roy resisted the urge to point out. As hostile as she was coming on, harping on her wasn't likely to have a positive effect.

"Where do you live?" he pressed again. "We'd be happy to drop you off. Before it gets dark."

Lyra licked her thick, plum-colored lips, eyes flicking back to their uniforms. Over to the shadowy mouth of the alley.

"I can take care of myself," she said, though her voice was a little less confident. A little more uncertain. "I have Peaches with me..."

Not that the dog looked likely to run off a mugger. On the contrary, it was so docile it seemed ready to fall asleep in her arms. The girl seemed to recognize it too. She stroked over the animal's head a little harder, roughly enough that it deigned to curl up a lip.

"It must have given you a turn, finding what you did," Roy said gently. "We appreciate that you stuck around. Not many people would."

Lyra jerked back to stare at him once more, scrutinizing his face as though she expected the compliment to be a trick. A pro's seasoned bullshit detection? Or just a scared girl, in a scary part of town, not sure who was safe anymore?

"I didn't know what to do," she said finally, as though the admission pained her. "I knew I ought to call, but..."

"But?" Hughes prompted. His voice had the slightest hint of edge to it.

"Hughes," Roy warned. He offered her his most practiced smile again.

"We're not here to make your life difficult," he said, guessing that either way, she could use the reassurance. "We just need to know how to get in touch with you, if something else should come up."

"Something else," Lyra repeated, clutching her dog tighter. "Like what?"

"If the culprit is found, there's a small chance we'll need you to be a witness at the trial." In truth, it was bullshit, both he and Hughes knew it; 'small chance' meant nigh on infinitesimal. Lyra's discovery was so far after the fact there was no chance her testimony would have bearing on a conviction, but he wanted to try to appeal her supposed sense of 'civic duty'. Not that he expected that to be anything but a smokescreen.

The arrow must have hit home though, because the girl inhaled sharply and licked her lips harder. The lipstick was starting to wear off, revealing a much lighter swath of natural color beneath the eggplant purple. Roy rather thought he liked it better.

"He's not going to like it," she muttered.

"Who?"

"My boyfriend."

"He wouldn't like you talking to the police?"

"No!" Lyra said, a little too quickly. "He wouldn't like me getting involved in something dangerous."

"Testifying in a court of law is perfectly safe."

Roy winked.

"You'd have me there to protect you, for one."

The girl snorted, but didn't shy away. The tightness in her shoulders was finally starting to ease, her death grip on the dog also letting up. Roy judged it was time to give it to her straight.

"Where do you live, Lyra?"

"...Four thirty-one Baker."

Hughes' eyebrows lifted.

"That's awfully far for a dog walk."

Now that she was vulnerable, the girl's nerves were clearly done for. When Hughes made for the weak point in her story, she jumped as though he'd raked her up the back with a red hot poker.

"I was visiting my boyfriend at work, okay!?" Lyra yelped. "He works near here, I rode in with him, and I gave you my real address, now can I leave or do I have to call a lawyer!?"

"No, it's okay. You haven't been accused of anything! We'll take you wherever you'd like to go," Roy said quickly. Nothing spelled 'headache' like the L word. He had been much happier before the movies had started including that part of the procedure. Still, he was curious.

"Your boyfriend...his name wouldn't be 'Lawrence', would it?"

Lyra tilted her chin up valiantly and said nothing, but her miserable expression answered loud and clear.

Hughes looked down at her and smiled, not without pity.

"In that case you might as well come with us. We were going to have to visit the Devil's Nest anyway."

--

Despite his fearsome reputation, not much was officially on record for Lawrence "Greed" Evans. Some of that might have been because of his reputation. The definition of an true-blue 'oily bastard', as Officer Breda liked to say, was that no matter how much shit you threw at him, it failed to stick. Various investigative agencies - Central PD Vice, Firearms, Federal Narcotics - had thrown a lot of shit at Lawrence over the years. So far, it had slid off like his skin was made of Teflon. He seemed to be impervious to prosecution, witnesses being exceedingly hard to come by and proof always turning out rather circumstantial.

The end result was a string of shady businesses scattered about the red light areas, a vague stench hanging over everything the man touched, but never any solid evidence that they could convict with. "Greed" owned a massage parlor, a poker/slots house, an off-track betting facility, several trendy nightclubs, a bar or seven, and incongruously, a dry cleaner/tailor shop. Perhaps it was so he could get a discount on outfitting his ladies at the Devil's Nest, Roy thought sourly. The Nest was a hostess club, the crown jewel in Greed's empire of vice; the first business he had ever owned, and the base for all the rest of his sketchy operations.

It was also scarcely more than three blocks from where someone had just been beaten into tartare, which Roy did find highly interesting, even though he didn't think the crime was Greed's style. Hughes was hell-bent on checking it out though, and now their whistle-blower was also one of Greed's currently favored ladies. Keeping their grisly discovery secret when Greed's girl was the one who had found it seemed impossible; they might as well interview him now and give him time to polish his alibis later.

"You on the list?"

A wiry blond in a muscle shirt eyed them suspiciously at the front door, arms folded in a fashion that said she meant business. Roy appraised her silently, aware that Hughes was doing the same. Greed was notoriously indiscriminate when it came to women -- he appreciated them all, thick or thin, tall or short, blue eyed or red eyed -- but the cues this one was sending made it unlikely she was part of his regular working stable. Her spiky, nearly army-short haircut would be right at home with the butch crowd at the Wild Rose, and the ink she sported on her face and shoulder was classic tough-guy material. Huge vertical marks, like an animal had taken a swipe at her. And while it was known that Greed did cater to counterculture -- he had a whole segment of ads devoted to the "Seven Deadly", goth and punk girls inked so heavily they could be scanned at the grocery store -- in general, his management staff were the ones who modified to the extremes. This bouncer, Roy realized incredulously, had her tongue bisected down the middle like a snake's.

"There was trouble, Marta."

Lyra stepped forward and solved two problems at once, how to explain their presence, and how to ask to the lady's name. Somehow, he didn't think "Marta" was going to respond to his usual charm-n-schmarm.

"What kinda trouble?" The bouncer's eyes flicked to Roy and Hughes', casually predatory. You might think you're hot shit now, but this is my territory, the tightness in her shoulders said. You take a step inside this door, and I wouldn't give a bent pin for your chance of survival.

Peaches struggled as Lyra squeezed the dog so hard he yelped.

"I found a body," she said.

That was their opening, and Roy inserted himself immediately.

"Detective Roy Mustang," he announced, flipping his badge open for the bouncer's inspection.

"Detective Maes Hughes."

Marta scrutinized both of their Green Lions closely, a tight pout drawing across her face. She had unusually thick lips for a Central woman. Maybe she hailed from up north, like Commissioner Armstrong in Briggs. Maybe that explained the pain tolerance for the tongue bifurcation.

"You're wanting to talk to the boss then."

"Yes, please," Hughes said.

"But she's not being charged with anything."

The woman drew back, but not aside, the way Roy was hoping, and he resisted the urge to curse.

"Not at the moment, no," Roy said as politely as possible. He hated it when the brawn also had brains. Technically, Greed didn't have to let them in. Without an actual warrant, or probable cause, they had no right to enter the building. He would have to consent to be questioned.

"Mustang..." Marta licked her large lips. "Wait here."

Marta disappeared into the club, letting the heavy black door swing shut behind her. Lyra cried out in protest but if anyone could hear through the soundproofing, they ignored her. Hughes nudged him with an elbow and Roy nodded back over Lyra's head. It would be interesting to know how long Lyra remained one of Greed's girls after bringing two detectives home.

A few long moments passed and then suddenly the door peeked open again.

"He says he'll see you," Marta reported. She seemed intensely disappointed. "But I wouldn't get too comfortable, if I were you. He reminds you this is a gentleman's club. I see anyone not being a gentleman, you're out on your ass faster than you can say 'illegal profiling'."

Hughes caught the door with one hand and pried it the rest of the way open.

"Thanks," Hughes said, pleasantly enough, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "We can't wait to see him again, either."

Marta huffed, slunk back and beckoned them all to come forward. Lyra followed right on her heels, face lit up like holiday, cuddling her dog with renewed vigor. Hughes caught his eye and Roy just shook his head. One thing he could say for Greed, the man inspired fierce loyalty, both among his minions and the many girls that he led around by the nose. If he weren't more principled, Roy would be tempted to ask how exactly the bastard did manage to command so much female interest without sparking internal trench warfare.

Inside, the decor was classy enough. Greed had obviously invested in the property since the last time Vice had raided. The Nest was originally a series of storage areas beneath an elevated city train track, but like much of South Central, that part of the former Red Line had since fallen into blight and disrepair. Greed had taken over the ignoble warehouse space and converted it into a lush and intimate series of chambers, currently decked in mahogany and red velvet. Hostesses could sit with their clients at curtained tables; the extra-discerning customer could request a private room. No two guesses what went on behind those closed doors. Again, the infuriating thing about Greed was how rarely anyone could make a charge stick. Vice had been after him for years, but the lack of anyone -- even the working girls -- willing to testify made their job nearly impossible.

There was a decided lull as they passed through the club, confronted at every turn by hostile, staring hostesses. All of them had their ID cards out, flaunting the green lion seal next to their photos that advertised they were legal adults. Not that he believed it. Several of the girls were staring far too nervously at their own driver's licenses, and if that fresh-faced red-head in the miniskirt was a day over sixteen, he would eat his badge. Still, he wasn't here to harass the working girls. He was here to harass their master, and hopefully glean something useful for his case as a bonus.

Greed was holding court in a room close to the back, perched regally on a leather loveseat with martini glass in hand. He was surrounded by men and women alike, a few hostess beauties as well as a flock of the usual suspects. Roy recognized the hulking form of Law and the smaller, angular silhouette of Dorchette, both small-time thugs now converted to the cult of Greed-worship. They both shifted closer the second Roy and Hughes set foot into the room, hands hovering over bulges at their pockets that more than likely contained nasty surprises Roy would dearly love to have cause to search for.

The big man himself seemed exceedingly unconcerned, though. He was dressed to the nines as usual, clad in an expensive looking pair of shiny leather pants and an open jacket with a ruff of pristine fur that could only be ermine. Appropriate, Roy supposed, for a self-styled king.

Greed nodded his head toward them and took a pointed sip from his glass. Not a man who appreciated being rushed.

"Good evening, gentlemen."

He smiled then, revealing an impressive row of unnaturally sharp, filed teeth.

"My lady."

"Baby!"

Lyra's voice pitched up a full octave as she sprinted for the couch, all semblance of prissy east-side decorum forgotten. Greed extended his free arm toward her and she piled right into him, snuggled up next to him and pulled his arm tight around her shoulders. If she even noticed the other girls hovering about the room, there was no indication.

"Have these men been bothering you?" Greed crooned, rocking her, dog and all, up against his side. The poodle squirmed and yelped, trying to free itself, and Lyra let it go, more interested apparently in nibbling along the curve of Greed's neck.

"Not too badly," she husked against his throat. "But it was dreadful, baby, absolutely dreadful..."

"Miss Eubanks called to report finding a body," Roy said, cutting her off before she could spoil any more potential details. "It's been investigated as a homicide."

"Homicide, is it now?" Greed pushed his glasses up his nose, still grinning that insane pointy-toothed grin. "That's a step up. Last I'd heard, you were still shaking it on the street corners out east."

Roy gritted his teeth.

"I'm no longer part of Vice, if that is what you are implying." Though he knew damn well what Greed was implying. He'd taken a lot of flak for his heritage over the years, both for his Xingian looks and for his rather...unconventional upbringing. Most of the time, his connections to the steamy side gave him an edge over greaseballs like this one. Greed just laughed and threw it in his face.

"So they brought you back, made you full D."

Greed's eyes flicked from Roy to Hughes.

"Double D's in my parlor. Always welcome."

Greed slid a gloved hand up Lyra's arm, inward to squeeze at a breast. The girl squealed and giggled, kicking her booted feet up and down against the sofa. On the floor, Peaches huffed disinterestedly, before resuming his efforts to gnaw the carpet to bits.

"Not the type you usually entertain, we know," Hughes said.

Greed kicked back the rest of his drink, handed the empty to a hovering sycophant.

"So, who's the stiff? Anyone notable?"

"As of yet, unidentified," Roy said. "I don't suppose you'd have seen or heard anything unusual."

Greed shook his head, kicked the heel of his expensive-looking boot against the wooden floor paneling.

"Industrial-grade soundproofing. They didn't want the business owners bitching about the noise from the trains. Not that there are any. Track got rerouted when they widened for high-speed, new stop's six blocks north."

Roy just nodded. He'd figured as much. Even perfectly normal, law-abiding citizens interested in Doing Their Civic Duty tended to view dead bodies as black holes. Even if the murder took place in an amphitheater outside on a sunny Saturday afternoon, no one ever heard anything or saw anything. A person like Greed would be even less likely to pay attention.

Lyra took the opportunity to insinuate herself even further into Greed's lap, practically simpering. Roy resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He'd liked her better when she was playing at being tough.

"I didn't even think it was a person at first," she whimpered, face pressed firmly against his neck. "It looked like...like meat, like chunks of Peaches' wet food."

Even Greed winced at that.

"That bad, huh?" he asked, looking directly at Roy and Hughes.

"That bad. There anybody new in town that we ought to know about?"

A risky line of questioning with criminals. If they said anything at all, it was often a wild goose chase - sending the cops off against someone whom they had a vendetta against, or a "Joe Schmoe" who didn't exist. But infuriating as he could be, Greed was a curious creature: one of the lone, but constant proponents of the philosophy that there was honor among thieves. When he agreed to speak, he spoke frankly. He had no love for cops, but he did not go out of his way to jerk them around.

"Haven't heard anything. Especially not without a description."

"You heard the lady. There's not much of a description to give you."

"There was one detail," Hughes said.

Hughes pulled a pen out of his pocket, looked left and right and then seized on a stray cocktail napkin. Roy waited patiently as his partner sketched a quick facsimile of the tattoo they had just spent so much time taking pictures of. Hughes had a much better photographic memory than he did - not to mention a passable artistic hand. Roy watched in awe as a little semicircle became a full circle, a fanged snake, sprouted wings.

Hughes stepped forward and offered the napkin to Greed.

"This mean anything to you?"

For the briefest of moments, Greed hesitated.

"...no."

A rookie might have missed it. Roy himself only noticed because of the girl. Greed's left hand was still cupped against Lyra's breast, and when his fingers shifted she made a little silvery noise. He wasn't teasing her on purpose, though. Roy watched as Greed ever-so-slightly drew his gloved hand down.

"Is it supposed to?"

"It was found at the scene," Roy said, purposefully ambiguous, all the while watching Greed's reactions closely, his hands, his posture, his face. He didn't think he'd imagined the recognition in Greed's eyes a moment ago.

"We're thinking it might be a new gang tag."

No reaction to that. Greed tossed the napkin aside on a low table, rolled his shoulders into a shrug.

"Could be. You know banger boys. Anything to keep it hard. If they spent as much time doing all the hot shit they talk about, you'd be balls deep in real work, leave my club alone."

"Well, they definitely left it as a calling card. Whoever this was, they were putting someone on notice."

"And you're sure you don't know anything. No old pals in town, no new acquaintances."

"Heeeeey now," Greed drawled. "Let's get something straight."

Out of the corner of his eye, Roy noticed Marta peel away from the wall where she was lurking, a frown pursed across her thick, broad lips. Greed shook his head slightly and stayed her though, then turned back to fix his eyes on him.

"I'm going to own this town one day," Greed said simply. "From her tits to her bits. Every part of this place is gonna be mine, when I make it big. You and your buddy included."

"An ambitious prospect," Roy said tightly. He felt Hughes shift next to him, similarly offended. They weren't fools, they both knew there were cops on the take. Neither of them ever intended to be one of them. "It's good for a man to have a dream."

"Right, and you wouldn't know anything about ambition," Greed said. He grinned toothily. "Mister Bigshot D."

"Is there a point you'd like to make?" Hughes asked.

Dorchette and Law shifted this time, their shadows slinking closer to the sides of the couch. The flock of groupies seemed to be evaporating as well. Apparently the bottle-blonds all felt it was time to refresh their drinks at once.

Lyra was still perched primly on Greed's knee. She glared at them both defiantly, wrapped her arm a little tighter around Greed's shoulders.

"The point is, killing people ain't exactly my style," Greed said.

His right hand dropped down into Lyra's lap, right at the place where her legs met. She gasped as he dragged one long finger up along the inside of her thighs, hiking the edge of her miniskirt up along with it.

"See, the thing about people, I've found, they're a whole lot more useful alive than dead. Whole lotta stuff you can't do with a body once they're dead."

"Make love, not war?" Hughes asked. "Is that how you market these days?"

"Hey," Greed shrugged amicably, leaning back a little more into the sofa. "All I'm saying is, that kinda stiffie ain't interesting to me. I don't keep company with guys who make 'em."

His fingers dragged a little higher, cupped down and in, to shield what certainly would have otherwise been a grand view of the girl's panties.

"I prefer to take good care of my things," he growled hotly against Lyra's cheek. The girl moaned and tilted her head back to meet him, flushed and clearly exhilarated.

An exhibitionist, then. That was the problem with the gated community set. Raise your girls in a complete and utter void of stimulation, and they grew up to crave it so much they didn't care who was around to watch. And Greed still hadn't moved the left hand. Since they'd brought up the tattoo, Greed had kept it firmly hidden against Lyra's side. Coincidence? Or was there something else there Greed was interested in hiding?

Hughes cleared his throat a little, a very slight flush of pink peaked high in his cheeks. Roy allowed himself a small, private smile. For all the ugliness they saw on a day to day basis, the man could be hilariously old-fashioned about some things.

"If that's all you have for us," his partner said stiffly.

"Sorry," Greed said, twisting his hand a little, making the girl squeeze her thighs hard against his fingers. "If I were you, and I wanted to find a real nasty, I'd look where the harder action is."

As Hughes turned to leave, no doubt uncomfortable at seeing a girl writhe when he had his own wife at home, Greed's eyes suddenly turned to fix hard on Roy, twin, polished beads of heat.

"We all know the man with the most stones is the one who runs things, in these parts. Don't matter how ambitious you are, it's the truth. You can't ever get away from it."

"Good afternoon, Greed," Roy hissed. He turned on his heel to follow Hughes out. As they left, Peaches raised its head to let one solitary, asthmatic woof.

Marta flanked closely behind the entire way back through the club, herding them quickly through the twists and turns of the hallowed halls. The second they set foot into the alley outside, she began to close the heavy black door in their faces.

"Hope you enjoyed wasting your time. Don't come back here again, unless you got a warrant," she growled, and with that, the fortress clicked shut.

Hughes pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his nose, cleared his throat a bit.

"Looks like we ruffled some feathers there."

"Indeed," Roy mused. "No big surprise. Greed tends to attract the bottom feeders. You know what they say - losers make for loyalty."

Ousted gang-bangers, ex-cons, runaways; punks with unusual habits, like that Marta and her butch cut. Greed's gang was known for taking in the disenfranchised of the underworld.

"No-lifes with nowhere to go?"

"Just like any good religion."

They both shared a good chuckle for a block, before Hughes' expression grew serious again.

"Any bets on what exactly he's hiding?" Hughes asked. "Aside from the usual."

"He knew the mark. You saw how he reacted, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Hughes licked his lips. "I daresay our dark prince was nervous."

"He kept hiding his hand from us, too. Even though he was wearing gloves."

"Bruised knuckles?"

Roy shook his head.

"No, if it were that obvious he wouldn't have let us in at all. And Hughes, you saw that thing. Whoever took Mr. Doe apart, they used something a hell of a lot harder than bare fists."

"No, I agree. Just considering every angle. It's what we have to do."

Hughes' head tilted down toward him, ever so slightly. The gleam from a nearby streetlight reflected harshly off his square glasses, turning them temporarily into inscrutable patches of light.

"Which reminds me. Any thoughts about that last bit? About the 'stones'?"

Roy drew in a deep breath, rubbed a hand down along his face. Greed had been taunting him there too, and the fact that he knew was always the worst part. Hughes knew, Hughes understood, they'd worked their whole lives to find a way to bury it, but some things...some skeletons just weren't content to rest in piece.

"He was trying to get to you, Roy," Hughes murmured. He stepped just a little closer, close enough to almost touch. Meant to be a comfort. In the dank gloom of the alley, his body heat was almost overpowering. "Don't let him do that."

"...I don't think that was entirely it," Roy admitted. "He was talking about 'hard action'. On the street, that's code for a big deal."

"Mm." Hughes just nodded, neither approving nor disapproving. He never questioned how Roy knew something, just took it as truth. "Think it's a goose chase?"

"It could be a smoke screen. Everyone in the know thinks Greed's girls deal more than just curvy comfort."

"Everyone in the know", a subtle reference to his unusual extended family. Hughes just snorted and kept walking, as always, taking Roy's strange life in stride. Roy wondered if he'd ever be able to thank him enough.

"Drugs would explain why that fancy girl finds him so interesting. He looks like a lizard otherwise. Did you see those teeth!?"

"Yeah, the shark-look's new. I've always wondered about the hair, myself."

"Get 'em addicted," Hughes continued his previous line of speculation, "doesn't matter how crazy you look. They have to come to you to get their latest fix."

"Yeah," Roy said softly. "That would be one way to own people."

They continued walking in silence for a moment, watching the rats skitter aside as they picked their way through the alleys. As they once more neared the world of yellow tape and crime scene, they both paused, staring out at the busy techs.

"So. Where do we go from here?" Hughes asked. "I'm going to visit the coroner, see if we can't get a good toxicology work up. If our buddy Greed was right, and there's a drug connection, maybe the meat here will turn up poisoned."

Roy nodded. "Good idea. You want to start on the door-to-door, too? I'll join up with you in a bit."

"What? Why, where are you going?" Hughes pouted. As if he thought Roy still had a date to go back to.

"Where else?" Roy said. His mouth quirked up at the edges. "To visit a little friend of mine."

--

On to Chapter 1 - Part II

Chapter 1 - Part II

Anime Weekend Atlanta Anime Music Video Expo "Best Sick and Twisted" - Fullmetal Alche-MST

2009-09-24T20:51:27Z

This was mikkeneko's idea; it owes its existence to her :)

Anime Weekend Atlanta Anime Music Video Expo - "Best Sick and Twisted":
Fullmetal Alche-MST (FMA to the "Mentally Dull" remix of South Park) -- WARNING FOR NWS LANGUAGE

...I am still kind of freaking out that this placed O.o

ALIVE AND MEME-TASTIC

2009-09-22T03:36:02Z

Pick a character I have written/drawn and I will tell you something about them, like their favorite drink at Starbucks, their least favorite career choice, what their neighbors think of them, what cellphone they use, their favorite school subject, how they get their hash-browns at Waffle House, what kind of underwear they win, how they like their steak cooked, or anything random you think of yourself. If you want, once I answer the first question I'll answer more!

Other suggested topics:
- What kind of cellphone do they use?
- What kind of car do they drive?
- What is their position on the dreaded SKINNY JEAN?

DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT

Delicious memes are still delicious

2009-08-10T04:13:04Z

the fullmetal alchemist
ONE SENTENCE
fic meme

^-- Because everybody has at least one sentence of fic in them :)

Also the FMA KINK MEME 09 is still going, despite Russian hackers best attempts to kill it LJ :)

[pic] Inspired by real life...

2009-08-07T08:25:20Z

A sign on my commute today revealed to the true reason for the meltdown of the American mortgage industry:

Seriously, condo marketers? Alchemy is the "science" where you handwave at equivalent mass and then get whatever the hell you want. without having to think about conservation of ENERGY. No wonder our finance system failed XDDD

[fic] Icebane - Chapter 5 (zoofic)

2009-07-10T04:10:17Z

Title: Icebane (sequel to Firebrand)
Author:cryogenia
Rating: At present, PG-13?

Previous Chapters: One - Two - Three - Four

A/N: This is for each and every person who has ever requested it :) It's been a hell of a couple years here - if any of you are still about, I hope yours have been better, and I sincerely appreciate every single time you asked about me and/or this fic XD

Icebane Chapter Five (archived off site bc LJ is sucking hardcore lately)

Also, there is an FMA KINK MEME!!! Come get in on the fun :)

Icon time - the quest for content!

2009-05-06T19:28:55Z

Because a variety of RL issues have made me suck lately, but I wanted to post something that remotely resembles content:

Icon Time!

Teasers:
1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

The future is now!

2009-04-18T04:17:46Z

A hobbyist in Japan has succeeded in building a gigantic mobile, six-legged beetle-shaped robot. Totally not making this up.

Now if only someone can make me my rocket car...

"Team Edward" shirt

2009-04-13T20:07:56Z

So, if you were at Sakuracon 2009, you may have seen this shirt wandering about with me :)
Since I got some requests for more, I thought I would post the original images. All you need to create your own is a smooth cotton t-shirt, an inkjet color printer, and iron-on transfer paper. I prefer the Avery dark t-shirt transfers, if you're careful while you iron, they can really turn out seamless.

JPG (single file) versions
JPG of Team Edward (Elric) logo
JPG of Cheesecake Pic

PSD (layers included) versions
PSD of Team Edward (Elric) logo
PSD of Cheesecake Pic

If you download the original PSD, you can change the colors to suit whatever shirt you are using. I did coffee/brown because a) brown compliments the gold in Ed's hair and complexion so very well b) I only had a brown shirt XD Pro-tip is that if you change the little border to match the color of your shirt, you can cut out along that and wind up with a very seamless looking shirt.

FMA: Brotherhood Episode 001 - In Five Minutes

2009-04-10T04:42:45Z

First, in case you have been hiding under a rock with your fingers shut in a bomb shelter at the center of the Earth: yes, Virginia, there is more FMA. It is being translated as "FMA: Brotherhood", and I hear rumors on the internets that it is available in the US with subtitles for free every week.

It only stands to reason that now there is Brotherhood Episode 01 in Five Minutes:

...I'm sure we all know where this is going XD (Warning for OBVIOUS SPOILERS, bad puns, cultural references)

For the most part, I enjoyed this episode for what it was - a first episode in a series that has a very unique hurdle to straddle, explaining the premise to new fans and yet somehow not boring the fuck out of the long time fen. The way they pushed through the staples (equivalent exchange, human transmutation, etc) was extremely rushed, and the camoes were excessive, but I view that more as an attempt to hit us upside the face with YES IT IS FMA AND HUGHES IS ALIVE AGAIN AND ARMSTRONG IS IN IT etc etc. Villain of the Week was actually pretty badass. He did in fact use his talent in many different and interesting ways, and his cause was not random. If Bones is smart, they will refer back to him later on.

Unfortunately, being a Villain of the Week, his Plot was not terribly convincing :) I don't think anyone, even a newcomer to the series, could watch this ep and think he had a snowball's chance in hell of success. His entire existence was meant to show the long-time fans that YES THERE IS A PLOT AND THERE IS MANGA PLOT, LOOK AT THE PRETTY FLASHES TO IMPORTANT CHARACTERS AND KNOW THAT IT WILL BE AMAZING - and well, for that, he worked perfectly :) RIP Isaac XD

Really, the biggest objection I had was the goddamn short jokes (and 'Hughes is a picture-whore', 'Roy is useless when wet', 'Al isn't Ed', etc etc). I suspect they pulled out so many characters at once because they wanted, again, to convey a sense of urgency - there WILL be a plot and it WILL kick us all in the teeth - but they had so little time to spend with each character that they seem to have resorted to all cliches this episode. Personally, I wouldn't have minded not seeing some of these old familiar faces so soon, if that meant fewer tropes. On the plus side, maybe this means we will see less of the tropes now that they've all been fired through in the first twenty minutes XD

On the extreme plus side: the animation is gorgeous - both the backgrounds and in the motion. The fight scenes are choreographed amazingly well, and Ed and Al REALLY look like a team - they fight together, work together, they are very much equals. I am very much looking forward to more of them being amazing together.

Hope Aethereal - Original Comic

2009-03-10T05:28:23Z

Hope Aethereal - 'Maxwell and her daemon'

"Mia Maxwell is a freshman physicist just starting out at the prestigious Midvale University, a facility renowned for its research into the mysterious phenomenon known as aether. Both awed and slightly intimidated by her new surroundings, Mia is searching for an edge, a stable foothold to boost herself to greatness. What she doesn't know is that something out there in the aether is searching for her, too...."

...and this is one of the things I write outside of fandom-proper XD

[fic] Forward the Machine (AT, Action/Adventure) - Chapter 7 - Part Two

2009-02-22T23:04:06Z

After his conversation with Armstrong, it was hard to contemplate doing anything at all restful, let alone sleep, but Al was in Lior and in Lior, the afternoon meant sun-sleep. The time between two and four was the hottest, most dangerous part of the day, and in the desert, the people had adapted to holing up in the shade and dozing to avoid over-exertion in the heat. All businesses shuttered, even canteen sales ceased, and by the time the two ‘o clock bell rang out from the city hall bell tower, the streets were almost entirely deserted.

It begged to mind the question, who stayed awake to work the chimes, but Al had bigger mysteries to solve.

Rose and Armstrong were indisposed herding the children to bed, so Al made himself as useful as he could be while sequestered inside. The orphanage library was well stocked with primers and picture books, but its atlases were too simplistic to be of any use for his quest, though he did smile to see A is for Alchemy, one of his own early childhood favorites. He put in a call to his contacts in Central too but unfortunately to no avail – he had forgotten about the two-hour time difference, which meant that it was still noon back west, and while the state itself might disavow religion, there was no sacrament higher among the ranks than the twelve ‘o clock lunch hour. After a brief period of sweating, he finally deigned to leave a message coded with as much information as he dared. The on-call lunch secretary didn’t seem to be the sharpest point in the array, either, and probably the best he could hope for was that the man had taken his phone number right.

In absence of anything else to do, Al sought out the bathroom, took a shower beneath a showerhead that looked disturbingly like the Armstrong family rose crest. The water was plentiful and cool though, and he showed his appreciation by transmuting a better softener for it. Aquifer water was unfortunately hard, and without added salts it would reek like sulfur and leave skin feeling gritty. Al swapped the sodium in the ion exchanger for a quantity of potassium chloride, which would both result in less environmental damage and be cheaper to be replaced when necessary. Sylvite, natural potassium chloride salts, existed in surfeit in the surrounding desert.

He left the arrays required for replenishing the modified softener taped to its side in the machine closet and then sought out his quarters, having finally exhausted all other options. At least he felt clean, and although his wet hair smelled a little like bad eggs courtesy of the water, it no longer itched with sweat. Al flopped down on the little cot Rose had set up for him and stripped down to his boxers, laid back on the soft sheets, and tried to think of anything at all that wasn’t that array.

Four triangles, two circles. Arcana drawn in blood, both major and minor. All assembled together in an eight-point star. He had never seen that particular arrangement before, but the second Armstrong had said it had been his, he had known it was the truth, as true as sylvite and sulfur, as true as the blood rushing through his veins. Al reached into his battered suitcase and pulled out a piece of paper, sketched it absently, ran his fingers over the lines again and again and again.

Was Armstrong right, that he could lose pieces of himself using these arrays? He felt whole. The few times he had lost control of a soul transfer, he had just opened his eyes back in his regular body a couple seconds later, alchemically exhausted but physically all right. Though if he deactivated the array before that happened, he was always far less worn out. That detail was troubling…but correlation didn’t equate to causation. It was also highly likely that he lost control because he’d become tired, not necessarily that the tiredness was caused by a rebound reaction. The man had certainly right about one thing – he needed to test this.

Al dragged his thumb idly over the central focus of the star, considering, and that was when the bottom of the world abruptly fell away.

A flash went off in the back of his head, not in front of his eyes but behind his eyes, and all he could see was a brilliant fuzzy splotch of yellow, like he’d just closed his eyes after staring at the sun. Nothing seemed to change whether he opened his eyes or closed them. Al blinked around in panic, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, not even the bed beneath him. He tried to reach out and feel for the sheets, but his arms didn’t seem to move.

Maybe I’m inside the paper, he had the sudden, terrified thought. He’d been thinking about testing it, yes, but he hadn’t thought he’d actually activated the array - surely he had better control than that! - but if he thought about it, the ceiling over his cot was made of adobe. In the afternoon light, the off-white clay looked yellow.

Think, think, have to think, not panic. It was just a bad transfer, he’d had it happen before when he’d attempted to affix a part of himself to a ceiling. As much as he’d wanted to believe that ‘the walls have ears’, he’d discovered the human mind rebelled against being trapped in a flat plane. The point of view was too broad, all reference became skewed, and it was easy to panic. Al took a deep mental breath and tried to open the eyes in his true body.

Nothing happened.

He closed his current ‘eyes’, though the yellow haze remained exactly the same, and concentrated harder, willing himself as hard as he could to shift his view back to his proper self, but once again he looped right back to where he was. It was as if this paper-self was the only self he had. It just didn’t just feel like there were two of him.

::but there are, there are two of you::

A voice suddenly inserted itself, like an iron curtain dropping down. It was simply there in his mind, without preface or preamble, spoke with his own mental voice but the words were not his. His train of thought had not just been derailed, it felt hijacked, and Al had the hideous sensation of something crawling all over him, prickling like bug feet, like invisible centipedes crawling inside his brain.

::two of you, or three of you, many of you, many many many many many many MANY::

Each ‘many’ grew increasingly louder, more distorted, and the voice became Winry’s voice, became Armstrong’s voice, became a cat’s voice, became a crow’s. There was something right outside his field of vision, he was convinced now, something just behind him, and it was watching him…

Who are you? He screamed without words, terrified.

::we are myriad, we are nothing, we are one, we are legion::

There was a feeling of great movement just beyond his reach and a deafening yet inaudible toll, a sound like the inverse of a bell. He thought if he ever heard it again, he might go mad.

Let me go, leave me be! Al gibbered, squeezing his eyes closed, willing himself to see nothing, above all else, hear nothing. Armstrong was right, he was coming undone, his mind couldn’t exist like this, he should never have tried to transfer his soul into anything, now he was lost –

“…what in God’s name are you doing?”

The Other was hanging in the nothing-yellow in front of him, staring back with a curious expression.

It was a dream.

Numb relief washed over him so hard he felt he would be sick from it, but in his dream, apparently he was incapable of physically becoming ill. Al realized he was huddled down (if there was such a thing as ‘down’, in this place) in a ball, arms clutched around his knees in a fetal position. He had arms, and legs, and toes and fingers too. When he raised his head, he found that it moved.

“You again,” he said tiredly to the other boy. “Alfons—Haydrich?”

“Heiderich,” the Other said with a faint tinge of annoyance. “My family name is Heiderich.” He pronounced the ‘ich’ with particular flourish, with a hint of an accent Alphonse couldn’t place.

Al laughed, low and relieved. At the moment, he couldn’t care less if the man’s name were Alphonse Is-A-Doody-Face Fandango, so long as it was his voice talking and not that…other one. That voice had felt like it was reaching into his very soul and turning him inside out.

What was wrong with him that he could even imagine that?

“What are you laughing at?” ‘Alfons’ asked, looking alarmed.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry…I was having the worst dream, before this…” And now he was having the best, because here he was again, here they were – himself and the Other, the person who had claimed to be his brother’s friend. Someone Ed had lived with.

Someone who knew that city with a river running through it.

Al bolted to his feet, although the emptiness gave no resistance at all beneath his shoes. If not for his Alfons as his reference point, he wouldn’t have reason to believe he were standing up at all. Without the other boy in front of him, he could have just as easily unfolded his legs down and he never would have known the difference.

“Where’s Ed?” Al asked eagerly. “Where do the two of you live?” He hadn’t gotten an answer the last time they had met like this, and this time around he would not be denied. If he only had the address, the city, the country, something he could work with!

“I-I don’t know,” Alfons stammered, looking deeply unhappy. There was the briefest impression of a hallway behind him, a heavy door that opened and shut in the ether. “I told you, he left.”

Because there had been some kind of confrontation, Al remembered with dark fury. Because apparently you drove him out. The world twisted around them, reacting to his thoughts the way it had before, and that same tableau spread out around them, a darkened hallway, stairs. His brother, lying helpless halfway down them. It was a caricature only though, his brother’s golden eyes and hair and then a rough slash where Ed’s mouth ought to be, hardly any nose; a cartoonish parody of a person. His face couldn’t seem to decide whether it was a child’s or a man’s either, the jaw line kept wavering around the edges, like a picture show reel caught in the projector, flickering back and forth between frames.

‘Alfons’ gasped audibly and made a sign like an X in the air in front of his body – some kind of ward? It reminded Al of the Ishvarites’ sign of penitence – and as he stared, Ed’s features came in to stark relief, one second a preimage, the next a complete photograph. Al gaped himself, amazed by how real Ed was, how much he expected him to jump up and start talking. He could even see slight stains on his brother’s shirt lapels. Those details hadn’t come from him, of that he was certain.

A wave of hot jealousy spiked through his core and he found himself even more furious with the stranger. His hands clenched into fists. He did not understand the mechanic exactly, but he knew the dream seemed to react to things he pictured in his own mind. That was how he had shown ‘Alfons’ his research data, all the images he had found of Ed. Presumably also how Alfons had shown him Ed’s…’girl’, an unfamiliar woman who’d appeared Lioran. But if that was the case, and his brother only resolved when Alfons looked at him…in the language of dreams, did that mean that this stranger knew his brother better than he did now? Al had the maddening feeling it might.

He had to focus though, had to focus. If this was anything like the last dream, there might not be much time. He wanted to snarl about it but Alfons’s fight with Ed was not the issue. Ed’s whereabouts were.

“What is this place?” Al pushed instead. “Where did you last see him? You owe it to him to tell me, people are trying to find him.” This Alfons seemed (rightly so) to feel guilty for having hit his brother. Maybe he would actually answer the question this time.

“…it is our boarding house, in Munich,” Alfons whispered. He was visibly paler, clutching at the nape of his shirt like the rough fabric was choking him. Not that he had been robust to begin with. In the yellow light he looked jaundiced, and his skin seemed paper thin. It reminded Al eerily of the cadavers at the state research facilities, of illness and of death.

This is not a well man, he realized for the first time.

“Where?” Al asked again, feeling a twinge of sympathy, but he needed to know. “Where is Munich? Is there a river there?” Come to think of it, Alfons had mentioned a river the last time he’d seen him. Al had to fight a sense of mounting excitement. This person was real somewhere, he had to be, too many coincidences were starting to add up.

The floor split behind them, sunk down into a small ghostly parody of the river Al remembered…smooth as glass, just a few drifting leaves to suggest the current might be moving.

“The river Isar,” Alfons said, sounding confused. He was staring at the vision with something akin to relief though. Apparently he was glad not to look at Edward’s face any longer. “And Munich is in Germany.”

“Is that a territory name? Or a colony? I’ve never heard of it.”

“No, it is a nation! My fatherland.”

That seemed to hit a nerve. Alfons jerked his head back haughtily and his nostrils flared.

“Sorry,” Al said hurriedly, though he wasn’t sure why he was apologizing. This person had hit his brother, he reminded himself again, he’d admitted to casting Edward out.

“Where is it in relation to Amestris? Is it in Libya or Asias?”

Al concentrated hard and the river disappeared, replaced by a map hanging in between them – the two great continents of the civilized world in bas relief, northern and southern, with jagged marks roughly apportioning the countries whose boundaries he could best picture. Xing hulking to the east, Drachma looming across the north, the scattered smaller nations to the south and west, Creta, Aerugo. Amestris stood out at the center as a glowing landlocked territory.

Alfons was giving him a strange look now, deeply thoughtful. He reached up as though to touch the map, but his fingers stopped just shy of making contact.

“Amestris…?” Alfons said slowly, as though tasting each syllable on his tongue. “Edward used that name.”

“Yes,” Al said, hardly daring to breathe. “That is where we’re from. My ‘fatherland’. Ed’s too.”

“…it’s all true, isn’t it?” Alfons asked in a raspy voice. His pale eyes were wide, searching Al’s face with quiet amazement. “You’re real.”

“Yes,” Al said, meeting his gaze as best he could. Alfons had expressed doubt before too, and he hadn’t known what to say. “Aren’t you?”

“I think so,” Alfons said slowly. “Insofar as this is a dream.” He tilted his head to one side, appearing to consider, one index finger pressed just to the outside corner of his lips. The effect was so over the top ‘THINKING’ that Al had to restrain himself from laughing. The man looked like a gangly crane cocking its head over a fishpond, stymied by having a selection. Al had to work to banish the image from his mind before it finished materializing beside Alfons.

“I’m dreaming too,” Al offered. “It started out as a nightmare…then I came to be here again, with you.”

Alfons’s lips twitched down slightly and he frowned. “I was not dreaming of anything else, I do not think. Unless I dreamed the alchemy…” The map between them shifted into the shape of a broom for some reason, then winked out altogether.

“Alchemy!?” Al yelped, darting forward a few steps, hardly able to breathe. Something stopped him before he reached Alfons though. It was as though he were wading into a thick, invisible liquid – the further he went the harder the resistance became, until by the fourth step he couldn’t lift his feet at all. Al looked down at his stuck legs in surprise, reached down to try and pull at one with his arms.

Alfons moved forward as well with a curious expression on his face. He took four very deliberate steps before stopping dead himself, cocked his head to the side again.

“We seem to move easier this time,” Alfons noted. “But not very far.” His tone was clinical, detached, a scientist solidly in observation mode. Al recognized that demeanor well. Sometimes, he even played that part himself.

He was less interested in observing the dream phenomena right now though, not when Alfons had just spoken that tantalizing word.

“What were you saying about alchemy!?” Al pressed again. He let his legs be, concentrated on trying to drill through Alfons’s skull with his eyes instead.

“I work for a…society of gentlemen,” Alfons said, and was it Al’s imagination, or did he seem uncomfortable? He took a shallow little breath, coughed a little before he continued. “Today, they showed me something that I thought was impossible.”

The floor beneath them rolled back like a carpet in toward Alfons, then out again in every direction. There were dark circles marked in even intervals across the ‘room’ they were in now, each a highly ominous shade of black. Like burn marks, or the char from a bad transmutation. And that was their purpose, Al realized with sudden delight, he could see the marks of what was clearly meant to be an array in the circle that was now positioned between them.

“You work for alchemists!?”

Alfons nodded reluctantly. “Apparently this is the case. Apparently…I am one too,” he said, and he looked up with a stare so fierce Al nearly laughed again. It was like Alfons expected him to take issue with it.

“You didn’t know?” It was unusual, but not inconceivable, that someone could grow up a latent alchemist. Most children were tested by the time they left grade school, but if they were homeschooled, or missed a lot of school for some reason, it was possible to go years without exposure to the discipline. Al had a hard time picturing it himself because he and his brother had had their father’s old books; they had read about arrays since the time they were three. By the time his brother was four they’d both already experimented enough to know they had the gift. Not knowing at all was hard to imagine.

“Of course I did not know!” Alfons sputtered. There was color to his skin now, little spots of flustered red on his cheeks. “It is madness. Alchemy is a pseudo-science, no one has taken it seriously for hundreds of years. How could I have been expected to know!”

He seemed legitimately perturbed, a brilliant scowl written all the way across his face. Al blinked. The Ishvarite people disavowed alchemy for religious reasons, of course, but they were at best a ‘nation’ of nomads. Bush people, whose traditions were immune from modern technology only because of the remoteness of their encampments. Alfons did not look like he was one of the desert peoples. His skin was fair enough to belong to a society girl in Central.

The broom appeared again, spinning in slow circles, and Alfons stared at it with a despondent look on his face.

“Edward told me about alchemy,” Alfons said. “When he was drunk sometimes. I thought that he was shell-shocked. The circles never worked when he drew them...the only logical conclusion was that he was ill.”

His eyes shone with a sudden brightness and Al shifted uncomfortably. This person hurt my brother, he reminded himself again, but the rage was increasingly difficult to summon. Alfons seemed to radiate hurt when he spoke about Edward, like he was genuinely penitent. And it wasn’t as though he and his brother had never bowled each other over in a fit of pique. When he was nine he had once thrown his brother down a flight of stairs at the Master’s house because Ed had absolutely refused to accept that their sparring match was over. He remembered that afterward, he had felt horrible (and not just because the Master had spanked him).

“What do you mean, the circles didn’t work?” Al asked, trying to summon objectivity again. Whatever Alfons’s feelings were, he needed the information Alfons had even more.

“Just that, they didn’t work,” Alfons said. He still looked wretched. “Edward did not know why they didn’t either. He drew them everywhere, when he thought I wasn’t looking. Once, he even drew them on his bed sheets.”

A miniature bed appeared between them in the ether and a tiny Edward jerked out of it, looking incredibly disgruntled. As the vision opened its mouth to rail wordlessly, Al realized there was half an array printed on Ed’s cheek, traces of the array that was drawn across its pillow. The image was so powerfully, inexorably brother that Al couldn’t keep from laughing for a second.

“He does that sometimes,” Al explained, and now the Ed in the vision was six again, looking over at a little Al in the bed they shared with the mark of Mercury stamped across his lower chin. “He gets ideas in the middle of the night, can’t wake up enough to find paper to write them down.”

Alfons blinked for a second, then slowly, he also grinned, shaking his head a little in exasperation. He had a very nice smile, Al realized for the first time. It was the first time he had ever seen it.

“Well, if it weren’t for Miss Gracia – our landlady – he would look like a vagrant all the time,” Alfons said. “She says she boils and boils his shirts to get the ink out of them.”

“That sounds like him,” Al agreed. “The master used to have to bend him over the sink and scrub his face for him when he came in from outside, else people would think he was Ishvarite.”

He left out the part where she’d also had to do the same for him. Left to their own devices, the two of them had tended to ignore their appearances. Dirt might even be said to build character.

“Where is your boarding house, anyway?” Al asked again, still smiling at the other man. He focused once more on bringing up a map between them. “On a map, I mean. I’d like to come and look for Ed. We haven’t seen each other in two years…we’ve all missed him here at home. I’ve missed him.”

Hopefully, Edward was missing him too. More than once, it had occurred to him that maybe, just maybe the reason his brother had not turned up so far was that he no longer remembered where home was.

Alfons’s smile seemed to falter as he looked at the map again, and his pale eyes flicked back and forth between it and Al.

“I can show you, I think…but…”

A small part of western Asias lit up, in the region the ancients had called Europa. It was slightly north of the infamous boot-shaped peninsula of Aerugo - maybe in the contested part of Creta? Al narrowed his eyes at it, trying to commit the location to memory, when suddenly the map exploded with lines.

Unfamiliar borders raced across the western part of Asias – at least he thought they were borders, but none of them were right. If this was correct, there were at least…thirty, maybe forty territories to old Europa, some so small they were barely even visible next to their neighbors.

“What is this?” Al asked, absolutely befuddled.

“Europe,” Alfons said, and his eyes were deeply sad. “The Europe that I know, at least.”

“I don’t understand,” Al said, inhaling sharply, although a horrified part of himself was starting to get an idea.

Alfons shook his head a little, reached one finger out to hover over the ghostly map.

“Edward told me once that he was not part of my ‘world’,” he said quietly. “I always pretended it was just hyperbole.”

Al swallowed thickly, reaching out toward the map as well. There was gibbering at the edges of his hearing again and the world was starting to glow brighter.

Alfons’s eyes were glowing as he looked at him now, twin sapphires cutting through the increasing yellow haze.

“But now I think, he was not so crazy,” Alfons was saying. “His alchemy, his other world, all of it…”

His face was fading away now, obscured by the increasing light, and Al just barely heard him whisper.

“If he is crazy, then I am crazy now too.”

Al opened his mouth to speak, to scream, but the sound seemed to congeal in his lungs. Light poured down his throat, thick enough to feel gelatinous, and something – a hand maybe – invisible and strong swiped fingers along the back of his head.

::now you see, now you see::

A cock’s voice, his mother’s voice, a million dark things at once crowed in triumph, and then the hand holding him twined hard into the base of his ponytail and jerked hard.

The world exploded in light once more, and then Al saw nothing at all.

[fic] Forward the Machine (AT, Action/Adventure) - Chapter 7 - Part One

2009-02-22T01:54:39Z

Title: Forward the Machine - Chapter 07
Genre: Action/adventure, AT (diverging from mid-CoS)
Rating: R
Summary: (AT diverging from mid-movie): What if the Thule Society hadn’t opened the Gate on that fateful November 8th? What if Alfons Heiderich had yet to fire his rocket? What if Alphonse Elric was still out there searching? And what if Edward Elric...disappeared...

Previously:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Now:

A/N: Sorry for the delay there – I had to take some time and devote it toward my Green Lion contest entry =) (For those who don’t know, scimitarsmile.com is having an FMA AU fanfic contest that I’m super excited about =) Check it out!)
***
“I’m sorry,” Al said for what felt like the thousandth time, staring down into his cup of sagebrush tea.

They were out on the back veranda of the orphanage, a large semi-circular porch that had once served as a meeting place for Leto worshippers. Rose had explained that there had been a time when priests would give sermons out here under the sun, to bask beneath the sun god’s presence and be humbled by His all-illuminating rays. Al was sitting next to Citizen Armstrong on one of the many long, curved marble pews, and although he followed no religion himself, he was feeling decidedly penitent.

Armstrong made a soft rumbling noise through his moustache, the way a horse might nicker to reassure a foal. His great bulk shifted as he leaned back to finish his own glass in three dramatic, audible gulps, and Al could feel the stone itself vibrate beneath them.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Al asked. Rose had made herself scarce ever since their altercation and he wondered if his presence bothered her. She had appeared long enough to provide them both with tea, but then she was gone again, claiming that the children needed to be put down for a nap.

“Maybe I should book an inn for the night.”

Armstrong favored him with an attempt at a quiet smile, five hundred watts instead of a thousand.

“Do not fear, Alphonse. Miss Rose is a kind and gracious woman. She would never bear a grudge over momentary unpleasantness. ”

“I know,” Al sighed. That only made it worse. He kept trying to tell himself it wasn’t his fault, and part of him was still seething -- his family had all lied to him, what kind of family was that? – but it wasn’t fair for Rose alone to bear the brunt of his rage. He ought to feel angry at Winry and Gramma and Master Izumi too.

“You will always be welcome here. Any time you require it, a place will be made for you,” Armstrong said quietly. The gentleness in his eyes offset the rest of his chiseled features.

“I appreciate it.”

He took another sip of tea and tried not to grimace. Desert sage was a bitter plant and most of the time he couldn’t drink it without at least three dollops of honey. He hadn’t wanted to bother Rose any further though. Even when she’d brought them drinks, she’d still looked wan and strained around the eyes.

“The Liorans say that sageleaf tea is good for cleansing the body and soul,” Armstrong commented. Al forced himself to smile at his cup.

“Oh?”

“Yes. They believe its noxious properties encourages the digestive process, and its bitterness makes men painlessly sweat out their cares!”

And Armstrong certainly was sweating, Al noted with minor horror. Whether an effect of the tea or the blazing sun above them, the man seemed to be glistening from head to toe. It was a miracle really, that Armstrong could go shirtless in this climate and not wind up broiled to a crisp. Al didn’t dare go out without his arms and legs covered.

“Which is a noble sentiment, of course, ridding oneself of one’s worries,” Armstrong continued. “It is quite unhealthy for one to hold dark thoughts within. It poisons the body from the inside out.”

Armstrong raised a thick eyebrow at him and Al ducked his head a little, uncomfortable. He could see what the man was angling for, but he wasn’t at all going to take the bait. Whatever relationship they might have had Before, without any memory of it, this man was effectively a stranger. His quest already forced him to bare too many private things to strangers.

“The Ishvar have a ritual like that,” he said lightly, ever-so-slightly changing the subject. “They set up these little sweat baths in the dunes. You dig a hole in the sand and make a fire pit with rocks, and put a tent up over it. Then you sit there and bake until you can’t take anymore, and then you get out and rub down with a wet cloth.”
Al shrugged. “I did it a couple of times, it works well enough. I think I prefer scrubbing with sand, though. I sweat enough in the desert as it is.”

Another trick when there wasn’t enough water to go around was to rub clean sand over one’s body, which Al had taken to after a fashion. It left his face and body red from the abrasion, but he never got light-headed and overheated because of it.

“But does sand cleanse the spirit as well as the skin, young Alphonse? I think perhaps not!”

Armstrong tilted back on the bench and spread his huge arms wide, nearly sweeping Al off the bench in his eagerness to proletize. His biceps were nearly bigger than Al’s face, Al realized in wonder as he ducked the one bulging next to his head.

“In this great state of Amestris, we advocate training oneself, do we not?” Armstrong inquired. “To hone oneself into a tool of the nation!”

“I guess…” He’d had a grade school teacher who had said things like that a lot, that it was the reason they must all learn their multiplication tables, the “glory of the state”. Not that he had needed any encouragement to get good marks. Normal school had been effortless and he hadn’t spent any more time than necessary on it; after their mother had died, no one had seemed to notice when he and his brother just stopped going.

The man rose and struck a series of impossible flexes, each exhibiting an even more ludicrous assortment of sculpted muscles than the last. He supposed he’d read in books before that it was possible for a man’s back to ripple, but before this afternoon, Al had never had an image to put to the phrase before.

“You can flex your latissimi dorsi independently?!” he squeaked.

“Countless generations of my family have dedicated themselves to honing their minds, bodies, and souls for the glory of the empire,” the man rumbled back. “These muscles bear witness to the years I have spent in service!”

Armstrong beamed and bowed low with yet another grandiose flourish, flexing every inch of said thick back muscles, then rose and contemplated him seriously.

“But physique is not the only thing that must be trained, Alphonse,” the man said. “A gentleman’s mind and heart require discipline as well.”

“And tongue, right?” Al said bitterly. If he’d been more ‘disciplined’ earlier, he never would have snarled at Rose and driven her away. Because like it or not, regardless of his anger, he needed to know what she had to tell him. And although he didn’t know all of it yet, it was clear that the way he’d pressed her – pushed her too far, too fast into territory that he was coming to understand was painful – had become counterproductive. He needed her to open up to him, she owed it to him to open up to him, but if he wasn’t more sensitive he would only hurt both of them in the long run.

“I should have watched how loud I was getting,” Al said.

“Right,” Armstrong said quietly. “Constant vigilance, Mr. Elric. Constant vigilance. But I can promise you this - an outlet does help.”

He sat down again and a few beads of sweat dripped off the ends of his fingers to sizzle on the pavement below. Al offered him the remainder of his tea, and Armstrong finished it in a single draught.

“I am sorry that I yelled,” Al told him. It was the truth, he could admit that much. “It’s just…”

“Hm?”

The man’s piercing blue eyes were on him again, endlessly attentive. Gentle. Kind. Al sighed and tilted his head back, squinting up into the fierce Lioran sky.

“It feels like I was set up to fail,” he confessed. “I know I’ve been a pain in the neck, but it’s been two years! Why didn’t anyone just tell me what really happened? Gramma, Winry, Miss Sheska, Miss Rose…probably Master Izumi too…they all just kept saying ‘okay, if you insist, go look for him’, but the whole time I could tell that they thought Ed was dead. Why didn’t they tell me why!?”

“Perhaps they did not believe you were ready to hear it.”

“Well perhaps I would have made different choices if I had!” Al snapped. He couldn’t help himself. Even talking about the betrayal hurt. Thinking about it made him feel raw on the inside, like he had scoured with sand from the inside out.

“My life is this huge mixed-up jigsaw puzzle and I’ve been trying to put it back together for years. And now I find out everybody I know has been hiding pieces. Do you know what that feels like!?”

“I am not saying you are wrong to be upset, Alphonse,” Armstrong said gently. “I am asking, would it have made a difference if they had?”

And that was the trillion cens question, wasn’t it? Without a body, would he – could he – still accept that his brother was really gone? That he had given himself for Al? An eyewitness report, an unknown array, but still, all circumstantial evidence. Nothing that amounted to definitive proof. If he had known then what he knew now…all it would have meant was that he would have been even more sickened at the prospect of writing his brother off. Now that he had a clearer picture of what it might have cost to get his body back, he could not conceive of accepting Ed’s life in exchange for his. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t equivalent.

“No…but not for the reason you think,” Al said quickly. Armstrong might be right that nothing could have changed the outcome, but Al would be damned if he went along with this pretense that ignorance was bliss.

“Tell me then, what do I think?”

Al looked up and realized that Armstrong’s face could be hard when he wanted it to be. Without his smile the man’s face was a sculpture, elegant but set, absolutely inscrutable.

“I’ve had some…interesting experiences, lately,” Al said, staring right back up at that stony gaze with a challenging glare of his own, racking his brain for a way to explain. He could accept sounding crazy, he was slowly growing used to that, but he would never accept sounding defeated. And Armstrong was an alchemist himself - a formidable one by reputation, half-naked statues notwithstanding. If he left out the dreams and focused on the scientific side, maybe this didn’t sound quite so insane. He had made the mistake of telling Gramma and Winry about the other-self and his dreams, but maybe he didn’t have to mention that part. It wasn’t so much lying as just…not telling the whole truth, he tried to convince himself.

“You saw last week how I was controlling those armored things, right?” he began. “I made them all start fighting each other.”

“I did witness the results,” the man said a bit stuffily. “Though not the method.”

Al raised his gloved hands to show the array he had embroidered on each palm, a nested circle enclosing a large isosceles triangle, with three smaller isosceles triangles bisecting each side. Aside from those central shapes, they were completely devoid of symbols, a boilerplate for any transmutation he might attempt. Alchemically speaking, tabula rasa.

“It was these,” he said with pride. “They’re my own design.”

Armstrong leaned forward to inspect them and his eyes widened. “A blank slate?”

Al nodded. “On the road, you need to do so many different kinds of transmutations…this is the template that’s worked the best for me.”

Armstrong’s blue eyes twinkled and he slapped one knee with a great meaty palm. It echoed like a shot across the small amphitheatre.

“Nothing less from the great Alphonse Elric!” Armstrong crowed at him. His cheeks were jubilantly ruddy. “Not many young men your age have created their own multipurpose array! That’s quite the accomplishment!”

He gave Alphonse a ‘friendly’ tap on the shoulder that nearly bowled Al off the bench. Al struggled to right himself, scrabbling a little for purchase on the stone. The man’s praise was literally overwhelming and he grinned, feeling hopeful.

“In the process of developing it, I discovered I could transmute parts of myself into things too,” he said, a little more hurriedly now. “Like those armors. I was able to move them without an array directly on them all the time because I was part of them. And it’s hard to explain, but once I do I can see through it, hear through it – here, give me that tea cup. I’ll just show you.”

He chanced a look up at Armstrong’s expression, hoping the man was still open to the idea. He had advertised his new ‘soul alchemy’ only a handful of times, and so far it had rarely gone over the way he’d expected. Gramma and Winry had been disturbed by it. His master had forbidden him from even mentioning it in her home. The few others who’d seen it had brushed the miracle off as alchemical rouse. But Armstrong simply nodded and handed him an empty tea cup, and Al’s heart started to beat again.

“Watch!” he said and set the cup down on the bench between them. He pressed his palms together, drawing in on himself through the lines of the arrays, and then seized the cup with both hands at once.

As always, there was a rush of noise and a feeling of bright light, a hint of yellow at the edge of his vision. He could feel himself sliding out of his body through his fingertips, like the world around was dilating, closing in on him, but it was only that he was entering the cup, he told himself, the cup was his world, and nothing more. Just enough, not too much, he needed to fill the cup but not be contained by it, just enough, a little closer, yes right there -

Al pulled his hands away and stood up, breathing just a little heavier at the eerie sensation of being in two places at once. He was aware of the cup and its dimensions the way he was aware of any of his limbs – where it was positioned in relation to his body, how much space it would take up if it were to be moved to the left or the right.

Armstrong was staring at the cup with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Just wait,” Al said, before the man could even speak. He turned and walked halfway around the little amphitheatre, aware at once of the sun’s heat on his skin and also the lack of it on the tea cup’s porcelain. Its ‘face’ was open straight up at the sky, its empty well filled with sun instead of liquid, but it did not feel painful to stare at the sun through the tea cup’s ‘eyes’. It did not feel like anything.

Once he felt he was a decent distance away, Al closed his real eyes again, focused on the ones he had left across the veranda. From the cup’s perspective, Armstrong was even more of a giant. His face alone blotted out half the sky. Al concentrated on the atoms in the sides of the cup, the bottom, let his will flow through them and excite them, let that energy spawn off into waves.

Can you hear me? He could hear his voice saying, though the words sounded unnaturally hollow. Echoes, probably, bouncing off the steep walls of the cup.
“Alphonse!?”

Armstrong’s moustache spread out like the milky way and day turned to night as the man’s face crowded down over his cup-self. Al shifted his attention from sound waves to vibration, starting a ripple of energy in the walls of the cup that made it rattle back and forth.

Yessir, he said again, willing his voice to be there, willing his focus to stay. It was exhausting to throw himself into a body so alien, and he was tired enough from his travels as it was.

I want you to whisper something to the cup. A word or a phrase, a name, anything.

“Why so?”

To prove that I’m really there. You can lift the cup if you like, to make sure there is no radio receiver.

The world spun crazily as Armstrong did just that, and he had to fight not to be ill in his physical body. Then abruptly he was righted again, brought up right next to Armstrong’s bulbous lips. The man’s moustache was so large in his field of vision now that he could see individual pores where the bristles started. It was like a silky wheat field, each yellow hair another waving stalk.

“Dum spiro, spero.”

Doom-spear-oh, spare-oh? What is that, Ancient Xerxian? He recognized the cadence of the language but not the words themselves.

“Yes, do you know it?”

Not that particular phrase. I only know Xerxian as it pertains to alchemy.

Any alchemist worth his salt knew at least that much. The language had been dead for hundreds of years, but modern alchemy had started in that part of the world, so some of its lingo survived. Even today, new discoveries were given honorary names in the Xerxian classification system. If he had a dictionary in front of him, Al could decode a fair bit, but off the top of his head, all he could tell was that Armstrong’s sentence had two nouns in it.

“Excellent! It shall make for a fine test then!!!” Armstrong’s quivering moustache proclaimed. Up close, his speaking voice was so powerful that Al could ‘feel’ it vibrate all the way through his porcelain side. His cup-self was aware of it as a change in energies only, nothing more, nothing less, but in his mind he could imagine how loud that would have been in his ear. His physical body winced.

Yes. Stay where you are, I’m coming back now.

Al turned his mind’s eye away from the teacup back to his proper body. Though he was still acutely aware of the part of himself he’d left behind, like an invisible itch he kept needing to scratch, it was no trouble at all to resume using his real eyes. The cup was too inhuman to focus on for long, and seeing from its perspective had felt like being trapped at the bottom of a well with a very wide mouth. If he had stayed there much longer, he rather felt like he would have drowned.

Al crossed the veranda back to where Armstrong was still hanging over the teacup, and activated the arrays on his palms once more.

“Dum spiro, spero,” he said triumphantly, and pressed a hand to the cup to reel back in the part of himself that was waiting. Armstrong’s applause echoed like gunshot across the little amphitheater.

“Intriguing,” the man rumbled. He hoisted the tiny cup up and cradled it in his hands with a tenderness Al would have sworn such massive fingers could not possess. “Does it matter what manner of thing you attach yourself to?”

“It’s easier with things that have an obvious point of view,” Al said, trying to think how to explain it. “The closer something is to having a human face, the easier it seems to be for me to see through it. Dolls, statues, things like that, I can sustain control longer.”

“And suits of armor as well, I take it?” The man had a peculiar look on his face, a strange mix of recognition and resignation. If anything, it was his lack of shock that was shocking.

“Yes,” Al said. He took a deep breath. “Last week, I was able to hold on to one of those armors for almost an hour…even after it went through that array. I saw my brother on the other side.”

“Other side of what?”

On the other side of the bruise light, he thought about saying for some reason, but the words were nonsensical. He discarded them quickly. Soul transmutation was utterly exhausting, but he couldn’t afford to show that weakness right now.

“The other side of the array,” Al said instead. “Where the armors came from. I don’t understand the mechanics, but I think that somehow, somebody’s figured out an array that actually transports matter from one place to another. When I came through to the other side, we were inside this huge atrium, and there was an array on the floor, an insanely complex one, at least seven points that I could see.”

He licked his lips. “I didn’t get much time to explore it… the next thing I knew, everyone was shooting.”

“Shooting at you!?”

“At my brother. There was a lot of commotion, a lot of uniforms – not ours, I didn’t recognize the colors. I picked Ed up with one of the armors.” He wrinkled his nose as he realized how strange it must have looked – a hunk of plate metal flailing away like its metal ass was on fire, with Ed hanging on piggyback style. The image felt strangely nostalgic.

“After that, we just…ran.”

“And that is everything you remember?”

“Yeah,” Al said. “I got him somewhere safe, a bank across a river…and that’s something, there was a river! Wherever we were, it was close to a river.”

“Did you recognize anything else? Architecture, landmarks, other points of interest?”

Al shook his head. “The buildings were a lot like the historic district in Central, lots of brick, except Central isn’t on a river. It was sunset outside, everything was really dusky. If I had pictures I might be able to recognize it, I suppose.”

“And have you consulted an atlas?”

“Huh?”

“An atlas, Alphonse. The geography of the known world is well-documented,” Armstrong said. He raised one bushy eyebrow. “Would it not be prudent to determine which cities lie upon water? Winnow down the possibilities?”

“I—haven’t yet, no.” Al’s ears burned with embarrassment. Why hadn’t he thought of it? Research was supposed to be his forte. He had probably spent half his life in libraries. Every lead about his brother, every new bit of information, he had always tried to treat the way he would an alchemical hypothesis. Collect data, verify, analyze and deconstruct…reassemble into a new whole, a theory based on the knowledge he’d gained. But this past week at home, the only thing he’d been able to think was that he needed to return to Lior, had to get to Lior, above all else. It was not theory, it was fact. Since when had he become so impulsive? When had he ever been so rash?

The arms of the red coat tied around his waist seemed to squeeze even tighter for a moment, and Al shivered despite the blazing heat.

“My first priority was to return to ground zero,” Al said. He was aware that he was rationalizing, but that was fine. He could use rational. And there was a good argument for what he had done, he realized, it wasn’t that he was jumping to an entirely inappropriate conclusion.

“I want to see the array the terrorists were using before it gets disarmed, and probably classified.” And classified higher than his contacts in the government could get him. Higher perhaps than anyone could. He had been through that when he’d researched the original False Rapture. He knew that intelligence had once existed regarding it, because there were multiple documents that referenced ‘balloon surveillance photographs’ – but when he’d finagled his way into the Central archives, all known copies, along with the negatives, were listed as ‘lost’ to a suspicious warehouse fire. There were images of that.

“What do you intend to do, if you are able to reconstruct this array?” Armstrong asked. His blue eyes were intense, chips of glacial ice peering out from his craggy face.

“Analyze it, deconstruct it. Rebuild it out in the desert, where it can’t hurt anyone. If it is meant to transfer matter between one place and another, maybe I could send a piece of myself through again, try to figure out where the other end comes out. A marionette maybe, something smallish. If there is an enemy line to break through, a tinier body might be better.”

“Hm.” Armstrong brought one hand up to cup his face, stroked the pad of his thumb along his moustache thoughtfully.

“And supposing your avatar was unable to return, or heaven forbid, destroyed. Do you know what would happen?”

Armstrong dangled the teacup from his other thick hand. It glinted briefly silver in the sun, a product of its glaze finish.

“Was it a correct observation that you deactivated the transmutation you set upon this vessel? Right now, it does not contain your essence.”

It was a statement, not a question, and Al nodded.

“I am not versed in the art of soul alchemy,” Armstrong said. He lowered the cup to his lap again, still teasing at the edges of his moustache with his thumb, still obviously troubled. “But I observed your brother manipulate your armored form once, before you regained your body.”

“You did?”

“Yes. There was an incident in Central, you and your brother had been assaulted. Ironically, by the very same Ishvarite terrorist who became Lior’s bane. Edward’s automail was torn asunder, and even your vessel was rent in two by his pagan alchemy. In the aftermath, I was assigned the honorable duty of escorting you home to recuperate.”

Al nodded, trying to think, searching for resonance somewhere deep down in the murkiness. Rent in two…he could picture being in two places at once, soul transfer allowed him to do that all the time. But to have a part of himself completely missing, an arm or a leg lost and nonfunctional, it was not something he could remotely understand.

“Define ‘in two’?”

Armstrong shifted a little.

“Your chest plate had been torn in half, quite nasty business. It was necessary to ship you as cargo. No one could have believed a living person was wearing you. But,” he said, reaching up to swipe sweat off the back of his neck, “your brother assured us you would be quite all right…as long as the array that bound you was intact.”

He reached into one of his slack’s pockets and withdrew a tiny nubbin of chalk, dwarfed by his sausage fingers. Emergency chalk, most likely, not surprising in the least; it had long been a joke that one had only to turn out a man’s pockets to identify an alchemist. The alchemist would be the one with old chalks crushed to powder all over the insides of his clothes. Al watched with interest as Armstrong bent down and began to sketch strong, thick lines in the space between them on the bench.

“This was the array your brother used,” Armstrong said. “I have never forgotten it.”

He moved his hand away to let Al see, and Al’s breath caught in his throat.

“Familiar, is it not?”

For safety’s sake, Armstrong had not completed the outer circle of the array, but the form was still obvious. A circle containing four isosceles triangles bisecting each other at equal points around a second inner circle, overall arranged like an eight-pointed star. There were no other symbols. A blank slate array, yet somehow he knew it had only ever seen one use.

It was RED, was all he could think. Red like rust seared into a plate of metal, except it wasn’t rust, it was blood, and that circle at the center wasn’t actually perfect, it had come out more like a squiggle, drawn hastily by a hand whose owner had already been deep in the throes of shock. But that squiggle had been his eye, that squiggle had been his core, and looking down at this gave Al the uncanny terror that if he tried to shift his focus, he would find a part of himself looking back through that little circle even now.

“Alphonse?”

Armstrong was watching him closely, and not at all subtlety, Al realized. A man that size could not just ‘happen’ to lean into one’s personal space without being astonishingly obvious. Al was grateful for his concern though. In the searing noon sun, sweat pouring down his neck and chest, Armstrong smelled vaguely porcine, and just the reek of it was enough to lend gravity to Al’s senses again. It was not a pleasant scent, but it was undeniably human.

“…it’s like my array,” Al summoned his voice. He sounded a good deal steadier than he felt. He wondered if Armstrong could tell. “The components are the same, just arranged differently.”

He turned a palm over to compare, traced the embroidery shakily with a finger from the opposing hand. The triangles he had used weren’t right triangles, and his array was much more elegant overall, but the process was coded exactly the same – points to all four cardinal domains, fire, earth, wind, and water, with the circle at the center representing ether in both designs. He had designed his blank slate independently, but he had the sickening feeling that were he to replace his array with that other one tomorrow, his soul transfers would work just as well.

“According to your elder brother, your soul itself was affixed with this array,” Armstrong said, brushing one a finger along the edge again. “If it had ever been compromised, it would have torn your spirit apart.”

“Y-you can’t say that for certain,” Al said. He had to be logical about this, had to approach it rationally. Analyzing gave him a sense of power, security, it was how he ought to address any problem. “It’s never been tested. Ergo, it’s never been proved.”

“But it has never been disproven, either. And the theory is solid. You were clearly bound specifically to that armor by use of an active array. And now you place ‘pieces’ of yourself in inanimate objects via the same process. Have you in any way tested what happens if a piece is destroyed?”

“Not…as such, no,” Al said, considering. The very idea felt disturbingly distasteful for some reason though. Armstrong spinning the cup with him in it had been bad enough. Trying to imagine being inside something as it shattered made him feel even more ill.

Armstrong frowned.

“By your own admission, you piloted a suit of armor for perhaps one hour’s time. But you were unconscious for far longer than that. Might it not be hypothesized that being separated from a piece of your soul had an ill effect on your physical body?”

“It could also have been simple alchemical exhaustion. I’ve lost control of soul transfers before, but I haven’t ever lost a chunk of myself,” Al said stubbornly, though privately, his conviction was wavering. Going through that strange array had been the first time he’d ever been substantially separated from a part of himself, and when he had lost his grip on that armor…

I was in the bruise-light, he thought again, and shuddered.

“Are you quite certain?” Armstrong mused, looking down at him. His eyes flicked down to Al’s coat, lingered there. “Have you a way to measure before and after? How much soul one begins with, how much soul is left? I ask in the spirit of healthy inquiry, of course you understand.”

“Of course,” Al said, though he felt his hackles rise. Armstrong’s formidable bulk was crowding him, even the man’s soft smile felt invasive. “And I recognize your concern. I’m aware I need to test the process more thoroughly. For right now, it is merely one option, and much preferable to the alternative.”

He plastered a smile on his face and batted his eyelashes as meekly as possible, though again a deep disquiet reverberated inside him. His master had forbidden him to even mention his soul transfers, let alone experiment with them. And for better or worse, until her passing, he had obeyed. He had obeyed much more in general.

“When I saw you in the plaza, last week,” Armstrong continued quietly. “I must confess I was alarmed. You remind me eerily of your brother, though not because you are dressed in his guise.”

“I needed access to state files,” Al began his usual defense, frustrated. It was logical, it was, if anyone would listen they would surely understand.

“And this means you must emulate him? Run from your family, leave them to worry? The Alphonse Elric I knew longed to be cared for, appreciated the concern adults have for their children!”

“And I’m not him,” Al said. His throat felt tight, raw and painful at the admission. “I can’t remember being him.”

“Have you tried?” Armstrong’s volume increased again. His deep voice cascaded out over the little amphitheatre and boomed back in waves, like the crash of the ocean. Incessant, relentless. “I ask you this because all I have seen is your search for your sibling.”

He swept a hand out to touch the fiery cloth cradling Al’s sides. “Why not search for yourself as well?”

Al’s voice froze mid-protest, trapped between rage and sick recognition. It’s complicated, he wanted to say, but the words rang hollow even in his own mind. At the core, it was fundamentally simple.

If I find him, I feel like I will find myself.

But why? What about being Ed’s brother – the Fullmetal Alchemist’s brother – was so intrinsically appealing? He didn’t even know his brother as the Fullmetal Alchemist, only that he owed a life debt to him. That for all his fire and temper, he had apparently done great things. That on record it was always the Fullmetal Alchemist, front and center and smiling. If The Armor was even in the picture, it was silent in the background, a great gray shade haunting him. But staring down at his brother’s coat now, his brother’s pants, his brother’s shoes on his feet, for the first time he saw the inescapable truth.

He was clad in human flesh now, but he was still a ghost.

Armstrong rose and picked up both tea cups. Shook his head at them, but smiled at Al, and that was somehow worse.

“You have lost so much of yourself already. Were I you, I would be more careful to hold on to the parts that you still have.”

Armstrong retreated back toward the old chapel, still shining like neon, head up, shoulders back, every bulging inch outlandishly, inexorably, himself.

“…yeah,” Al said numbly after the man’s shadow. “Sometimes, I miss being me too.”

Armstrong paused in the shade of the door. He turned around, one hand still holding the knob.

“But Alphonse, all is not terrible,” he said, and his smile this time was a thousand and ten watts. “Dum spiro, spero,” the man said, spreading his hands up toward the sky, and in that moment, all his statues paled in comparison. “’While there is yet breath in my body, there is hope in my heart.’”

He leveled his gaze at Alphonse, and the warmth in his eyes made even the desert heat pale in its wake.

“Keep aspirating, and you may yet reach your aspirations,” Armstrong said. “Just as long as you remember to live in the meantime.”

Second part to come when LJ stops hating my word count @.@

Various awesome things!

2009-02-19T05:27:55Z

fmadesignawards is a weekly icon contest that is a lot of fun! You get to enter up to three icons a week, and vote on Sunday.

Also, DISTRACTION TITS. Girl!Ed in a bikini OM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

More shoops

2009-02-08T04:06:39Z

Roy as Klaus:

(With a few additions by sky_dark

CHANGE AMESTRIS CAN BELIEVE IN!

2009-02-08T00:10:03Z

This is entirely Sky_dark's fault:

(Sadly it's also a few months too late to be truly epic XD)

[fic] Forward the Machine (AT, Action/Adventure) - Chapter 6 - Part II

2009-01-30T00:50:52Z

Eckart lead him back along the corridor several paces, much faster than Dr. Kessler had. Alfons kept up gamely, though he could feel himself starting to wheeze. His lungs were like a pair of billows in his chest, fanning the flames that were searing him with each additional inflation.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” the director said in a conversational tone. She did not make eye contact, but continued to charge briskly forward, clearly a person used to being followed and obeyed.

“All good things, of course.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Alfons managed to speak without choking, but his eyes were beginning to water. He was starting to wonder how much more of this he could endure. This strange, trouser-clad woman walked like a man too, with purpose and speed.

Eckart pulled up abruptly next to a tall oak door, and Alfons tried not to sigh in relief. The door was labeled, he noticed, with a small white placard. Laboratory Space #7, it proclaimed.

Below it, more troubling, was a stark, machine-typed warning:

Hazardous Materials. Authorized Entry Only.

GUARDS POSTED. DO NOT ENTER.

Eckart seemed to read the questions in his eyes. She offered a gracious smile.

“The Society sponsors many types of scientific research,” she explained. “All of it cutting edge. Like your rocketship.”

Alfons got the sense that this disclosure was meant to win his trust. He made sure to smile and nod.

“Naturally, we have need to keep these things a secret.” She rubbed a thumb briefly over the word ‘guard’ on the sign. “The technology we’re working with is years beyond anything the world has ever seen.”

“For the glory of the nation,” Alfons said, though the words sounded hollow now to him. All that he had seen so far today…the armed guards, Kessler’s sweating face…Noa…the pieces were adding up to a whole he was no longer sure he believed in.

Your sponsors are planning something, Edward had tried to tell him. War. And even though it had been couched in the terms of Edward’s usual madness, the vexing thing was that once again, it was looking like Edward might in fact be right. Edward had known.

And if Edward had knowledge of the Society…if Noa was here…

Could Edward be here somewhere, too?

Eckart turned and leaned back against the door, hands on her hips, obscuring the placard. Shielding the lab from him.

“What I am about to show you is proprietary,” she said. “And we are at a very crucial stage in the development. If I am to show you this…I will need your word that no one else will know.”

That came uncomfortably close to impugning his honor. Alfons clenched his jaw.

“I signed a non-disclosure agreement when you commissioned me to build the rocketship. You can ask anyone in the aerospace community, not a soul knows.”

Another reason to be concerned. He had put all his eggs into this one last, rickety basket, in a hopes that he might be able to realize his legacy…but outside the Society, no one even knew he had this contract. Miss Gracia thought he was working for a professor. His family was dead. Edward was the only one who had known the importance of what he was doing here, and now Edward was gone.

The corner of Eckart’s lip quirked up, again, as though laughing at some private joke.

“Indeed, you have proved very trustworthy. It’s time the Society trusted you as well.”

She turned away from him, still smiling in that bemused fashion Alfons was increasingly coming to dislike. She did not reach for keys to unlock the door but instead raised her arm, rapped her knuckles thrice against the door frame, and it opened immediately. There were indeed guards posted just inside the door, two of them at least, both wearing that same dyed-brown uniform. One of them held the door open for the director. The other saluted. Alfons followed her in, wondering not for the first time if he was only digging himself deeper.

Not that it mattered much, he supposed. His grave was already waiting for him.

The door closed behind them and the guards moved to stand at either side of it, stiffly, each one the very picture of military discipline. Alfons could feel their eyes boring into the back of his head.

The ‘laboratory’ itself was exceedingly sparse, nothing like the work spaces he had been accustomed to at the University. The outer edges of the room were ringed with filing cabinets and crates, a plethora of fire extinguishers, and chairs here and there holding personal belongings but no other furniture. The center of the room was completely bare, save for six large circles painted on the floor at evenly spaced intervals. There were a few men huddled around one of them, looking down at a pile of…something at the center. The stench of ozone was absolutely everywhere.

The researchers were wearing thick protective gloves and lab goggles, though a couple of them had the eyepieces pushed up onto their foreheads. They seemed to be debating something vigorously amongst themselves.

“Gentlemen,” she acknowledged, and all of them immediately fell silent, made room in the circle for her. Whatever she might be ‘director’ of, her authority here was abundantly clear.

“I would like to introduce Mr. Alfons Heiderich. He’s the aerospace engineer in charge of designing our rocketship.”

There was a collected murmur of how do you do. Alfons ducked his head in acknowledgment, not sure what he ought to say or do. These men were all older, and more than a few of them were eyeing him in obvious disbelief. He straightened up a little taller and stuck his chest out, set his jaw in a firm line and tried to think ‘older’. If only he were capable of a beard like his father’s. That was another axis on which fate had cheated him. The best he had ever achieved was a ratty patch of down across his chin.

“I need a space,” the director said, and a couple of the men nodded toward one of the circles on the far side of the room. She gestured for Alfons to follow her to it.

“A broom as well, please.”

Alfons was still trying to figure out what the lump was that the men were experimenting with. It looked a bit like metal that had been liquefied and stretched like spun taffy, then cooled into an amorphous mass. It had a lustrous finish to it. Alfons wondered if it were actually some kind of glass. The confusing part was that as far as he could tell, the room had no heat source at all. Yet the material must have been heated…because the test area’s boundary line was not just dark paint. It looked as though the shape was charred into the floorboards.

“Mr. Heiderich, if you would?”

Eckart was waiting for him with two of the men, looking rather impatient.

“Of course, ma’am,” he said, and hurried to join them.

They were now standing at one of the empty circles, a space perhaps three meters in diameter. A bold scrawl of red paint next to it noted that this section of the floor was ‘Test Area Five’. It too bore deep gouges and what looked like burn marks at the edges.

Eckart directed the men to sweep the circle clean with a big corncob broom, then seized it and tossed it to Alfons.

“Mr. Heiderich?”

“Ma’am?”

“I want you to break that.”

Alfons stared at the wooden broom handle for a long moment, not comprehending in the slightest. He figured he must have heard her wrong.

“You want me to break your broom?”

The men around them snickered openly. A few of them exchanged knowing grins. Again, it was as though they were all in on the same joke – one he wasn’t privy to.

“Yes,” Eckart replied, and her smile was just as broad as the rest of them, anticipating and eager.

“Into as many pieces as you like. Just make sure they’re all in there,” she gestured at the ‘test area’ with a great flourish, obviously enjoying the spectacle she was creating. She reminded him of a ringmaster at the circus.

Feeling increasingly put upon, Alfons hefted the broom up and snapped it in half over his knee. The thin wood made a satisfying crack as it gave, and he broke each of the resulting pieces in half again for good measure, then looked up to judge the crowd’s reaction. A paranoid part of him kept conjuring the image of Noa, fenced in by poles not unlike the shaft of a broomstick. The jagged edges of the sticks he’d made looked like weapons.

“Set them there and stand back,” Eckart said, waving an impatient hand at him. Alfons dumped the pile of broomstick bits into the center of the test area and stepped back over the boundary line, waiting to see what came next.

The director walked over to one of the filing cabinets pressed against the wall and withdrew a single sheet of paper from one of its many hanging files. A respectful hush went over the crowd as she returned with it. Alfons strained to see what was so special about it, but from the angle he was standing at, all he could see was the blank backside of the sheet. Whatever secrets it held, apparently they only filled one side of one page.

“You said the charge we have given you is impossible,” Eckart said. She was standing directly opposite the circle from him, staring at him, clearly meant him to answer. Alfons nodded on cue and she beamed at him.

“But the theory is there, correct? Dr. Kessler has informed me you have come up with several hypotheses regarding liquid propulsion systems in the past.”

“Correct,” he replied as he could tell she wanted him to. This was the director’s show, and it was increasingly clear his participation was required if he wanted to learn anything.

“The problem isn’t a dearth of ideas, it’s practical application. To achieve the kind of thrust you’re talking about – the force that lifts the craft from the ground,” he translated, unsure of his audiences’ jargon level, “you would need a constant supply of an oxidizing agent – a chemical, like liquid oxygen – and it would have to be injected into the combustion chamber -- the place where the fuel is being ignited -- at an incredibly high pressure. So far, no one in the astronautics community has found a way to do that. Liquid oxygen has to be kept under a hundred and eighty degrees Celsius, and it’s prone to explosions if you’re not careful…and it’s expensive, as I said previously. I’ve never had the luxury of being able to use it.”

Because the University was uninterested in funding his ‘science fiction dreams’, that was, especially not in the hell that was the shattered remnants of the financial system. He felt the need to keep harping on the expense, not only because the bottom line was the bit that the others were most likely to comprehend, but because there was a chance they would be able to give him the funding. A part of him was starting to expect that Eckart was going to turn that paper around and show him a bank note in some foreign currency actually worth a damn. That would be a dream come true.

Except, that pile of broom shards…that still made no sense at all. Not even as a loyalty test. Alfons tried to shift discretely to the side to take a peek at what she was holding, but Eckart chose that moment to wave the paper with a flourish, high up over her head.

“What if I told you there was a way to take your oxygen from the air itself? Not by fractional distillation, but instantly, right in the center of your combustion chamber? In whatever quantity you needed, for however long you need it. Air separated on the atomic level.”

She knew what fractional distillation was, which was fascinating. The rest was science fiction, and he told her so.

Eckart brandished the paper again, and this time, he thought he caught the faintest impression of dark pen lines shining through the sheet from the overhead lights.

“Ours is a technology, Mr. Heiderich, that may seem like science fiction, but I assure you, what we are developing is real. I would ask you to keep an open mind.”

She set the sheet down right at the center of the test area, on top of the pile of broomstick remains, and Alfons’s heart turned over in his chest, because he knew this.

Right in the center of an otherwise unassuming piece of paper was a stark glyph, a circle bisected by a large triangle, with several other unrecognizable symbols interspersed in the union of the two larger shapes. He thought he could pick out the roman numeral two, and perhaps, a crescent moon? Not that it matter. The details paled in comparison with the fundamental truth: this was an alchemical symbol, what Edward had called an “array”. Alfons had seen too many of them not to recognize the basic structure, those damned polygons superimposed on circles, physical symbols of what was wrong with his friend’s mind. Symptoms of Edward’s disease.

“The ancients once labored over the pseudoscience known as alchemy,” the director said. It seemed she was searching his face. “They believed that with sufficient understanding of the art, man would be capable of anything.”

Eckart reached out and a man handed her a phial and an eye dropper that Alfons had not noticed him procure. She unscrewed the cap and plunged the tip in, squeezed out exactly one drop of a dark liquid down onto the broken broom.

“They were right.”

The woman pressed her other hand to the very edge of the paper and then it was on fire. There was no other way to explain it. The lines of the array lit up like the hottest coals of a fire, a white so bright it was edging into blue. Tendrils of electricity started crackling all around the woman, almost to the edges of the boundary lines on the floor, and Alfons could smell ozone so sharply it seared at his lungs. The symbols turned orange next, then yellow, then white themselves, and then the entire paper was glowing so brightly that he almost couldn’t see what happened next.

Inexorably, impossibly, the shattered pieces of the broom shaft writhed on the floor and began to slide toward each other, twisted around each other, as though they were made of putty, not wood. The glow was racing over them accompanied by an audible crackling sound, as though the broom was burning – but there was absolutely no smoke and there seemed to be more of it now, not less. Alfons watched in awe as the broom’s handle slowly but surely grew up once again from the lowly bristled head at its bottom, glowing white but otherwise in the exact same shape it had been before he’d savaged it.

The array flared once and then faded, leaving spots to dance in his eyes, and questions to dance over his heart.

Eckart stood and hefted the newly repaired tool in one hand, looking slightly paler than before but her smile was radiant. The lab technicians dutifully clapped.

“How was that for empirical evidence?”

“…it can’t be real,” he gasped. Choked hard, wound up coughing. He was beyond caring about suppressing it, beyond rational thoughts like self-preservation. He had just watched…he had just watched every known law of physics be turned on its head. How was he supposed to feel? She had applied no energy to that system…unless the floor itself held a forge beneath it, but in that case, how had she not been burned? How had the wood not been burned? How had wood - which he knew was wood, he had touched it himself, splintered it himself - twisted back together so seamlessly? It was a trick, some kind of parlor game, it had to be.

It had to be a trick, or surely he was going mad.

Eckart strode over and thrust the broom into his hands, forcing him to acknowledge that it was, impossibly enough, solid and whole once more. He ran his fingers up and down the shaft in the places where he’d snapped it and didn’t catch so much as a splinter.

The director seemed to know what he was thinking. “If you like, we can run the demonstration again,” she said. “I’ll get a pen and you can write your name on it, if you want to be sure this isn’t sleight-of-hand.”

There was a slight murmur of discontent from the researchers around them and a mousy little man stepped forward. He looked to be some kind of authority figure himself, the way the other men deferred to him. Alfons knew the type – he was a small man, but probably endowed with big brain, if he was research lead, and threw that fact around to make up for his other ‘short’-comings.

“Director, I apologize, but that phial’s nearly empty,” Mousy told her. “And we’ve got other arrays slated to test.”

And there they were using the same damn word. “Array”. Like a series of numbers, or a collection of reference books, or a regiment of soldiers. “Array” was supposed to mean science, logic, order. Nothing about this witchcraft was orderly.

“Dr. Kessler shall be arriving shortly with fresh stock. You should be more than set for the next two days,” Eckart told the discontented research lead. He seemed to cheer up immediately and offered no further resistance. The director turned her gaze back to Alfons, looking very pleased with herself.

Alfons was only half-listening. He had no idea what was in the phial they were going on about, but that was the least of the many questions the past few minutes had raised.

“How?” he asked finally. “That energy had to come from somewhere. Thermodynamics requires it. There was so much light…”

Energy, in the form of light and sound and motion…but energy had to be conserved. For all that to have happened, something should have been consumed, petrol or electricity or even the broom itself. But not even the paper with the array on it showed signs of degradation.

“That’s part of our work here,” Eckart said. “We’ve been trying to determine the mechanic behind transmutation, though so far, we haven’t had much success. We have a number of reliable, reproducible properties that I can detail, though.”

She smiled at him, the way one might do a favored student, or a pet.

“For now, it’s easiest to think of alchemy like gravity…a force that we can observe and categorize, but not entirely explain.”

Alfons wondered if she’d thrown in the reference to the theory of gravity because she knew it was crucial to his own field.

“Such as?”

“The design of the array affects the type of transmutation. The skill and experience of the particular person activating said array affects the quality of the result. Not everyone is capable of activating an array in the first place,” Eckart ticked them all off on the fingers of her right hand in rapid succession.

“All these things have been rigorously tested using proper experimental controls, and the effects are reproducible. I have the data if you’d like do your own analysis.”

“I would,” he said. Statistics, numbers, hard science…that was something he could believe in, at a time when he didn’t trust his own senses. Too many miracles required faith, and faith unfortunately had yet to provide him solutions when he needed them.

“If the phenomenon can be studied scientifically, I’ll believe it,” he admitted.

Eckart nodded as though she’d expected that would be his response.

“Dr. Kessler has spoken highly of your analytical mind,” she said. “We have been discussing whether we ought to test you. So far the ability has proved relatively rare among the general population, but there is a high correlation between alchemical and academic aptitude. As is beneficial to our overall work. One of the Society’s guiding principles is to shed light on the mysteries of nature, how some races of man came to be so dominant in their stations. There may be a specific innate relation between high intelligence and important skills such as alchemy. If we can find a pattern in the breeding, it would benefit all humankind. Imagine, a world in which every man knew his best potential! We could shape the course of history – with our skills, create a better and brighter future!”

The men around her nodded in proud agreement, glad to be named part of this new intelligentsia. Alfons wasn’t sure how he felt. The world seemed to be spinning too fast beneath him, and his heart was skipping beats in his chest.

“There’s a test for this?”

If he too could do what Eckart had just done --assuming he even understood what it was that she had done, which seemed to be fusing many parts into a whole -- what possibilities would be open to him then? If he could line say, sheets of metal up next to each other and touch a funny bit of paper to make them seamless, how many rockets could he build then? If alchemy was real…

Edward had spoken of buildings springing up from his hands, geysers rising in the desert, entire cities demolished overnight. If this power was real, it would change the world as they all knew it.

Eckart came over and took the broom from his hands, stepped on one half and yanked up with her hands to break it once again. She set both pieces right next to each other in the center of the test area, and lined the edges up as though the broom were not actually broken. Alfons gaped after her, a little insulted that she had just ruined the miracle.

“If you have the talent, the array ought to respond to you. Even in a minute way,” the woman said. She pulled out the eyedropper again and dabbed a bit of whatever her phial contained down onto the broken section of the broom handle.

“What is that?” Alfons remembered to ask this time, now that he was actively analyzing this insane procedure.

“A catalyst. For the time being, it is necessary, though we are looking into a number of work-arounds.”

She lay the paper with the array down on top of the broken section very gently, then stood up and backed away from center stage for the first time since they had entered the room. She brushed her trouser legs off – such a very effeminate gesture, despite her male clothing – and gestured for Alfons to take her place. He did so with trepidation. The ring of faces surrounding him was becoming claustrophobic, expectant, hungry stares in every direction.

“Just touch your fingers to it and picture what the broom is supposed to be like,” she instructed from the sidelines. “Imagine the broken places coming together, how smooth it used to be.”

This was sounding like science fiction again – no, not even, this was pure and utter fantasy. But now that she had put the idea in his mind, there was no way he could avoid thinking about it. It was like trying to tell himself to forget something; the paradox was he had to remember what it was that he was supposed to be forgetting. The image of the broom was there in his mind, a long, perfectly cylindrical staff with a bundle of bristles at the bottom, as well as the memory of Edward, telling one of his apparently no longer crazy stories.

Transmutation? It comes from within you…you know what you put in, and what you want to get out, and if there is equivalence, it flows the way you picture it.

It’s as easy as putting two hands together.

If he was going to join in this insanity, at least he had a fine guide. Alfons touched his hands together briefly, the way he so vividly remembered Edward doing, and pressed a careful hand down over the array.

He was so primed for something to happen that when it actually did, he nearly jerked away. A faint tingle ran through his fingertips the second they brushed the dark lines, like a current running through his hand, and his fingers spasmed violently away from the unusual sensation. Paper wasn’t supposed to hold an electric charge. But then, broken wood wasn’t meant to restitch itself either. Down was up, and up was down, night was day, and Edward would be so happy if he knew Alfons were trying this.

The lines sputtered light for a moment and there was a sputter of crackling, and then it was gone again, as his imagination strayed toward the thought of Edward’s reaction instead of the broom. No, that wasn’t right. He had to stay focused. Edward was amazing at focusing. Edward could calculate for hours without coming up for air, Edward drank books like water, if Edward were here…

Alfons took as deep a breath as his cramping lungs could hold and pictured the broom again, pictured Edward beside him, guiding him through this.

Light blazed up from beneath his fingers, enough to shine right through them, making his flesh seem transparent, highlighting bones like an x-ray. White light, blue light – yellow light, and then as his vision receded it felt as though that was all that he could see. There was a roaring in his ears now, a popping noise like the breaking of bones, and then an immense rushing sensation. His body was heat, his body was light, and he could see nothing, hear nothing, and he was hurtling toward something very quickly now, a darkness amid the yellow.

There was the image of the opening of doors, and something in there was reaching out toward him. Alfons cried out and stretched his arms out, wanting to embrace it back – and that was when it all started pulling away from him, as though he had reached the apex of his flight and now, inexorably he was falling back down.

The broom, the broom! He tried to bring the image back, but it did not slow the free fall. The energy was bleeding out from him, a vast shuddering release like a long orgasm, terrifying in its beauty. He thought of Edward’s face, and of flying, and then his eyes were his own again, and he was once again aware of his own body.

The array’s light dulled, then dimmed, then went out completely.

For a moment, he didn’t feel capable of movement. When he did, he first felt himself all over, making sure everything was all there. He was aware the process hadn’t completed – it had felt wrong, he’d lost his concentration, he’d let himself get distracted – but it had been enough, he realized with abject fascination. He pushed the paper to the side to see the broom handle was once again whole. It wasn’t perfect – there was a visible seam, a hairline crack where the wood wasn’t quite together – but when he pushed at it with shaking hands, the shaft held.

I did it. I did.

…Edward was right.

“Let me see!”

In an instant the director was on the floor with him, nudging him over. The broom handle was yanked from his hands.

A triumphant smile spread across Eckart’s face as she held it up. Her compatriots crowded close too, examining what he had done.

“Not bad,” the mousy researcher pronounced. “The junction is stable…”

Alfons just let them shove him, feeling strangely drained, like he wanted to lay down and sleep. He knew he ought to feel elated, energetic, any of the emotions associated with a breakthrough, but somehow fatigue was all there was, and a deep rattle in his chest. He leaned to one side and then found he could not stop. Luckily, the floor was comfortable.

“Alfons?”

Someone was calling his name, far above him, but it was too much work to speak. Lethargy washed over him in a crushing wave, and he closed his eyes against it. The only thought that was running through his head was that for the first time in his life, he thought he must understand what it was like to be Edward Elric.

If he told anyone now, who would believe him?

On to Chapter 7

[fic] Forward the Machine (AT, Action/Adventure) - Chapter 6 - Part I

2009-01-30T00:49:50Z

The more time stretched on, the easier it was for Alfons to imagine all the bad things that could be happening. Dr. Kessler could be discussing how displeased he was with Alfons’s boldness, have him dismissed. The soldier guarding him – pardon, escorting him, with a gun and all – could decide to dismiss him in a more permanent fashion. The ceiling could collapse, dismissing them all. Any number of things could happen, as long as the situation remained a mystery.

Alfons tried to stay calm and avoid staring too openly at his guard’s half-melted face.

“Ah, there you are! Alfons, my boy!”

A voice cut in from above and Alfons looked up eagerly, though as always, he heard Kessler long before he saw him. The man’s deep baritone preceded him as he strode out from one of the doors on the landing, looking as jovial and nonchalant as always.

Only the twin spots of bright color in his cheeks hinted that perhaps he had not just ‘happened across’ Alfons the way his greeting made it seem. Kessler’s preferred pace was an indolent amble. The man was a textbook example of ‘always busy, but never in a hurry’.

“I would have been out sooner, but I hadn’t been expecting you,” Kessler said, peering down over the railing.

“My apologies!”

Unlike Kessler, Alfons found himself needing to shout. The good doctor was most charitably described as a commanding presence, and he had a particular brand of elocution that was often audible despite pneumatic rivet busters, metal grinders, and all other attempts to tune him out.

“I was headed into the hanger and I thought I’d pay you a call. I would have rung ahead had I known it would be a problem.”

Alfons was still wary of the gun in Melting Cheek’s hands, its hungry little mouth gaping at a point just below his left clavicle. The guard had not moved an inch since Kessler had appeared. If anything, he was making an effort to look even more serious about his duties, lest this man from the higher circles find his performance lacking.

Kessler descended the stairs two at a time, eyes fixed on Alfons, puffing just a bit with the effort.

“Come now, there’s no need for all this,” he said, waving a hand impatiently at Melting Cheek’s gun. The soldier looked incredulous, but Kessler would not be deterred.

“Stand down,” he ordered and put a hand on the very barrel of the man’s gun to push it away. “Alfons here is no threat at all. I can personally vouch for his identity.”

For the first time in his life, Alfons realized he might be genuinely happy to see Dr. Kessler.

“He wasn’t on the list,” the soldier grumbled, but at least he had the decency to look contrite. The malleable half of his face grimaced and he dropped his weapon down immediately.

“Then you’ve got the wrong list. I’ll have someone send an update.” Kessler said shortly. “You may return to your post.” The way he said ‘may’ implied that he actually meant ‘must’, with severe penalties to anyone who happened to disagree.

The guard nodded curtly and then saluted them both, though his gaze lingered on Alfons a second longer than was comfortable. Alfons watched him walk away with similar unease. The Thule Society was gaining in members, gaining in visible assets, gaining in layers of bureaucracy and complexity…to what end? Alfons wasn’t a fool. He’d certainly considered that this supposed ‘society of visionaries’ might be a front for a rebel movement. And he’d told himself that it really didn’t matter. The current government was worthless, a shriveled fruit certain to fall sooner rather than later. As long as they wanted to build his rockets, he hadn’t cared who was funding him. He wanted his creations, his sweat, his blood and tears, to go down in history as one of the world’s greatest triumphs, attributed forever to a proud German.

But if the Thule’s focus was now truly militaristic in nature…who was to say they would continue to fund him at all? Who was to say they wouldn’t abandon his creations? And if that was all that was to become of his legacy…who said he should continue to stay with them?

Alfons drew himself up, up, up to his proper height.

“I’ve come to speak with you about the rocket,” he told Kessler. “I’m afraid it cannot wait any longer.”

“I see.”

Kessler reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a handkerchief half again as large as his ham-sized hand. He was sweating profusely about the face and neck. Alfons watched with disgusted fascination as his boss dabbed at the rivers of moisture running down his neck.

“Let’s walk and talk a bit, shall we?” Kessler offered. His smile seemed pained. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a bad moment, I’m not sure how much time I can spare, but I’ll try to--“

“You said when the team started work that this project was ‘central’ to the Society’s interests,” Alfons interrupted. “Surely you can afford a few minutes.”

“Well, yes, of course, normally I could – but I’m scheduled to appear at a very important function, the best I could do would be to ask you to accompany me there.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem.”

Kessler’s eyes glimmered intently for a second. He looked as though he were privately calculating something. Alfons could feel the man’s gaze crawling over his skin, weighing him, judging him, particularly his fair hair and eyes. It left him with the strong urge to scratch.

“Actually, I’ve been wanting to introduce you to some of my colleagues for a while,” Kessler announced. “I know you haven’t chosen to attend any of the Society-sponsored lectures-“

“-I’ve been in the lab-“

“-but,” Kessler held up a hand, “I’m sure they would be willing to overlook that.” His patronizing tone suggested this was some great favor; Alfons thought it a pittance at best. He had opted out of the Thule’s most recent meeting because he was certain he already knew the point. Pompous old men who wanted to speak more on how destined for greatness they were, instead of actually doing something about the Jews and Communists and war profiteers. He got that drovel straight from Kessler all the time, he didn’t need to attend formalized lectures. Pamphlets in his inbox were bad enough.

Then again, given the presence of the soldiers…the recent, dramatic swell in membership…perhaps the Thule was finally ready for more push and less pomp. All the more reason for him to understand what it was they were planning for his rocket. Two months ago, Alfons had taken it on faith that the Society meant to show off his creation at one of their soirees, invite other notables from the academic world just to prove that they were Great Minds and Great Investors working for the common good of Germany.

Now…

“I appreciate your generosity,” Alfons said at last. “I admit, I have become more curious about the Society’s activities of late.”

Kessler beamed as though he thought that was a good thing. He gestured toward the stairs with a meaty hand.

“Come with me then,” he said, all smiles, though the sweat still pouring down around his face made him seem nervous. Why should his supervisor, of all people, be nervous? Alfons was starting to feel the butterflies of nausea flitting about at the pit of his own stomach. Things were wrong here, he couldn’t help but think, and going wrong-er all the time.

The guard with the disfigured face watched them as they mounted the stairs. His eyes followed them all the way up.

***

The interior section of the villa turned out to be disappointingly normal. After so much buildup, Alfons had half been expecting for Kessler to usher him into a wholly separate universe, where fairies danced and served ambrosia to the Thule’s Ubermensch in brandy snifters the size of thimbles. Instead, what he found was…corridors, mostly. Alfons followed Kessler dutifully through a maze of long, narrow stucco hallways and tried not to look too disappointed. Whatever secrets this place kept, it did not keep them in the open.

Although it was clear they were in a hurry, thankfully, he didn’t need to beg Kessler’s indulgence very much. Alfons focused on extending his long legs as much as possible on each stride, to ensure he was covering maximum distance for minimum effort. Kessler himself seemed to be in poor shape for athletic activities, which helped. His breath whistled like a tea kettle, and more than once the man stopped to cough into an elegant kerchief. Alfons took advantage of the breaks to catch up with his own breathing.

The man looked unusually wan as well, Alfons realized. Kessler’s formerly ruddy skin was a blotchy, sickly white. The only color to him was the flush across his cheeks. A look that Alfons was unfortunately intimately familiar with.

For a moment, the time bomb ticking in his chest seemed audible.

Could I have given it to him?

Alfons watched the man cough with a growing sense of dread. He didn’t like Kessler much, but nor could he find it in him to hate the man. Especially not enough to wish him dead. Alfons sunk down a bit as he guiltily tried to decide – wet cough or dry? Fever flush or exertion?

And then there had been Noa, literally held at arm’s length by the men with her. Driven like an animal, with poles. He was starting to think of himself that way too. No longer a man, but a plague rat, a monster; a horrid little beast who cared not for the suffering of others, but contaminated everyone around him.

“Almost there,” Kessler huffed, then thumped himself hard across the chest. He coughed again, and horribly, laughed at Alfons.

“Though I do believe you’ve given me your cold, young man! Tsk tsk!”

“…sorry, sir,” Alfons said. And he was, desperately so.

Kessler gave him a strange look, and Alfons forced himself to grin. He could only imagine what his expression must have been like.

Thinking of Noa reminded him though, and although he knew he was probably already damned for it, Alfons could not help but ask.

“Sir, while I was waiting for you,” Alfons said, “there were some men who were escorting a gypsy?”

“Oh?”

Kessler’s tone seemed nonchalant, but his beady eyes were very sharp all of a sudden, like a crow eyeing a choice bit of tin foil. Alfons wondered what that meant for him.

“Forgive me if it’s not my place sir, I was just concerned because – you know gypsies. They aren’t exactly known to be trustworthy domestics.”

He made sure not to mention that he knew her, though it didn’t help him feel any more at ease. Even though he was at work, he couldn’t help that paranoid feeling that everyone could see he was associated with the girl, like his thoughts were transparent.

At home, in his neighborhood, everyone did know. The widows at the flower shop twittered about his ‘guest’ every time he came in, and Constable Hughes had read him the riot act. It hadn’t helped to explain that Noa was Edward’s fault. From their point of view, Edward was Alfons’s fault.

Alfons, the loner, consorting with thieves and eccentrics.

Kessler was still sweating like a stuck pig, and the kerchief was no longer doing any good at all in staunching the rivers of perspiration pouring down his face.

“If you’re worried about your possessions,” Kessler grunted, “I can personally guarantee you have nothing to fear. Security is, as you know, of the utmost importance.”

A comforting answer, if that had actually been what Alfons was concerned about. He cleared his throat ever so slightly, trying to fight back the maddening tickle of a cough, and tried again.

“Is something the matter with her, though? The men with her were holding her with poles…” Alfons ended lamely, not sure how far he dared to go. He wanted to know once and for all, but at the same time he was terrified to give name to the specter. It felt like suspicion might come hammering down at any moment.

Alfons, the loner with the delicate constitution. Alfons, who was always so pale, with bruised eyes even late in the day.

There was a pause – and was it him, or did Kessler appear to be mulling his answer over? He could practically see the gears turning inside his mind.

Kessler’s thick hands tightened at his sides.

“I wouldn’t concern yourself with the gypsy,” he said. There was a hint of forced cheerfulness bleeding into his voice. “She is, as you guessed, a servant, to the Society. We simply take precautions…for security’s sake, of course. Though as you experienced yourself, sometimes our men are simply too good at what they do.”

Again, his piggy eyes were scouring Alfons’s face for a reaction, almost desperately, it seemed. Alfons schooled his face into a careful, non-judgmental indifference. That was one trick he’d had to learn, living with Edward.

“Indeed. Your guards had me at gunpoint for quite a while.”

“Which was absolutely ludicrous,” Kessler huffed. He looked genuinely apologetic, which Alfons was grateful to see. “And I will be certain to have them reprimanded. Their zeal is appreciated, but highly unnecessary.”

“And it’s necessary for a woman?” Alfons pried again. He tried to act offended that Kessler would imply a mere woman to more of a threat than himself, clearly a strong, healthy young man who in no way was associated with the creeping death. “I should think you’d get rid of her, if she were that much of a problem.”

“Some servants need a firm hand, Alfons,” Kessler frowned back. He looked like a mournful professor, disappointed by his star pupil. “It’s our duty as men of better reason to guide those of lesser capacity. The gypsy race cannot help their baser tendencies.”

‘Guide those of lesser capacity’… Did that mean they were keeping her as a charity case? Was she even ill at all? Alfons had the disquieting realization that perhaps the Society really was that zealous in their distaste for the lower races. He might not particularly care to associate with gypsies, but he’d never gotten the sense that they were so unilaterally dangerous that they needed to be driven like cattle.

Unless Noa had done something, perhaps taken something? This was an opulent villa, far grander than his rundown little flat. Except if that were the case, why not call the local constable and have him deal with it? Why the business with the poles? How could Noa have come here in the first place? She couldn’t have wandered this far into the country by chance.

“Of course,” Alfons said, licking his lips. “Though one might question the ‘reason’ in keeping servants one cannot trust.”

He eyed Kessler sideways, watching him closely for a reaction, but the man disappointingly failed to do anything but mop at his brow. He seemed increasingly nervous the farther they progressed. Obnoxious as he was, Alfons felt a pang of sympathy for him.

“I must have caused you a lot of trouble, interrupting like this,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kessler waved a hand, but his voice was short, and Alfons did not bring it up again.

They rounded one final corner and Kessler reached inside his lapel pocket to retrieve a thick ring of silver keys. They were standing before a particularly elegant door, heavier and thicker than the ones they had passed along the hall. It was fashioned from a particularly dark wood – something exotic, perhaps? With that lacquered finish on it, it almost seemed closer to black than brown…dark wood, that seemed to swallow all light…

-except for the yellow light, oh god that insane bruise-light, and behind it now are eyes, the watchers that don’t sleep-

“Alfons?”

“Yessir?”

Kessler was looking up at him, one hand stroking his thick moustache, the other clasped firmly around a slender key.

“If you could wait here for a moment,” the little man said. He literally reeked of nervousness now, noxious and rank in the close space of the corridor, the rancid stench of an animal waiting for the butcher’s knife.

“It would be prudent of me to let the Director know you are coming. You wouldn’t mind waiting here a moment, would you?

“Of course.”

Kessler eyed the door as though it might eat him.

“She’s rather…particular, at times, when it comes to surprises. Though I’m sure she will be delighted to meet you!” he added hastily.

“She?” was all Alfons had time to ask, for at that moment, the inky doors burst open.

He had the briefest impression of a grand cathedral, for surely that must be what lay beyond those doors. The corridor opened up into an inexplicably huge atrium, ringed with what seemed to be windows at the far side. This must be the large dome he had previously seen from outside the building, a circular atrium. Sometimes, the excesses of the rich were truly astounding.

What commanded more of his attention, though, was the woman striding toward them. She was short but powerfully built, in a fitted suit jacket with shoulders padded so heavily they extended far past the limits of her actual arms. She was a handsome woman, neither stunningly beautiful nor dreadfully plain, and her blond hair was cropped in a similar style to Miss Gracia’s, with a hint of natural wave. She was also wearing men’s trousers, a perverseness so unexpected that his eyes jumped back and forth from her chest to her legs, just to be sure that she really was a she.

“Director,” Kessler said, all but simpering. Alfons just gaped.

The woman pulled up short as the doors swung shut behind her. She crossed her arms, visibly nonplussed.

“Dr. Kessler,” the woman acknowledged. Her voice was calm, but it was the sort of calm that came before a thunderstorm. Her pale eyes seemed to flash.

“And whom is this?”

She had an ageless face. She could have been anywhere between twenty and forty, and he had absolutely no idea. Alfons swallowed hard, wondering how he ought to introduce himself.

“This is Mr. Alfons Heiderich, Director,” Kessler cut in, solving the problem for him. “He’s the Aerospace Engineer?”

“Chief aerospace engineer,” Alfons felt it important to use his title whenever possible. Many of the Society members were academics, and academics loved to spend their free time coming up with new and innovative ways to describe each other. “Assistant Professor in Charge of Experiment Design.” “Co-chair of Quality Control.” In this woman’s case, “Head Secretary of Fashion and Shoulder pad Overhaul.”

“Ah!”

The woman’s stern look softened a little around the edges, and she unfolded her arms, extended a hand.

“I apologize for my rudeness. How do you do?” she asked, and there was no choice but to shake. Her grip was surprisingly strong, for a lady’s. Alfons had to force himself to keep his eyes fixed on her face. He had the sense it would be an extremely poor thing to be seen ogling her chest, even if his intentions were pure.

“I am Dietlinde Eckart, Director of the Society.” She flashed him an attractive, if brief, smile, showed a hint of two pointed white canines before hiding them again.

“My pleasure, ma’am,” Alfons replied, releasing her hand. Kessler was looking back and forth between the two of them, very visibly relieved.

“And what brings you to the inner chambers this morning?” she asked him, though her eyes quite obviously flicked to Kessler. The man reddened even further, embarrassment adding to the stain of exertion in his cheeks.

“Mr. Heiderich is interested in learning more about the Society,” Kessler explained hurriedly. “He was kind enough to pay a call on his day off…and as per our previous discussion, I thought perhaps if you had a few minutes to spare, you of course would be the perfect one to introduce him.”

“I would specifically like to discuss the Society’s plans for the rocketship premiere,” Alfons cut in. “The first craft you commissioned has been completed, and is ready to be tested.”

Kessler’s frantic glare said that he ought not to have mentioned it, but to hell with this. He was fast running out of patience with this whole strange situation. The death dogging him at every breath felt closer by the day, and the more that he learned, the more the whole situation disturbed him. Those guards… Kessler’s idea of security, as though every commune of activists needed men in uniform to protect them.

“I would like to arrange a time to have the craft moved outdoors, where it can be launched,” he said, staring the strange woman down. He was nervous enough that he could feel his chest start to contract, but he clenched his hands and willed himself not to cough, willed himself to get through this. “With all due respect, ma’am, in order to move forward, we need to test our current design that we may improve upon it. And the new commission—“

“Alfons—“ Kessler reached out for his wrist, as though he were physically trying to steer him away from the subject, but Alfons slipped out of his sweaty grip easily.

“The new commission? Is frankly impossible,” Alfons said, and he was proud of himself that only a hint of the venom he felt came through in his voice.

“The theory is right – I’ve actually been considering liquid oxygen as an oxidizing agent for some time, and I’m convinced liquid fuels are the way of the future – but right now we don’t have the ability to store it in a rocketship. Not in a light enough fashion, anyway. Oxygen is corrosive, it makes metals brittle. We’d need a whole new alloy to stand up to it and still be thin enough to let the craft lift off the ground. And the materials are exceedingly expensive, and require special handling…”

He trailed off when he realized he was just babbling endlessly, uselessly, about the technical aspects of the project. She wouldn’t have any idea what he was saying, and as cathartic as it felt to rant about the absurdity of it all, this was the Society’s ‘Director’...the way Kessler was deferring to her said that she wasn’t just in charge of afternoon tea.

Eckart was looking at him with an amused expression, her full lips quirked up as though she knew something he did not.

“You’re worried about the viability of your project?”

“Yes ma’am.”

The director nodded.

“And you came out to argue about it, am I correct? You must be very dedicated,” she said.

“Yes ma’am…” Alfons replied, trying hard not to look insulted. What did she think, that he could do such a complex project as a lark? Of course he was dedicated, he had his blood, sweat and tears in that baby.

“I believe Dr. Kessler is right, perhaps it would be good for us to chat.”

She turned to Kessler and gave him a polite, if inexplicable, brush-off.

“The Collections team is waiting for you to debrief them,” she told Kessler, jerking her head toward the inky doors. “I had intended to be there too, but it’s not important. Let me know what the news is.”

“Yes ma’am!”

On the whole, Dr. Kessler looked very happy to be dismissed, Alfons thought. The man all but jogged over to shove his key into the lock. He had a hand on the doorknob even before the key was turned.

He gave Alfons one last, strangely relieved look, and then disappeared through the door as soon as the crack was large enough for his bulk to fit through.

Eckart turned to Alfons, looked him right in the eye. Her watery blue eyes were deep enough to fill oceans.

“Come with me, Mr. Heiderich,” she said, smiling down like a sculpture. “I’d like to show you something.”

***

On to Part II

[fic] Forward the Machine (AT, Action/Adventure) - Chapter 5

2009-01-20T06:42:08Z

Title: Forward the Machine - Chapter 05
Genre: Action/adventure, AT (diverging from mid-CoS)
Rating: R
Coauthor/beta credit: My lovely livewife mikkeneko and partner in crime sky_dark
Summary: (AT diverging from mid-movie): What if the Thule Society hadn’t opened the Gate on that fateful November 8th? What if Alfons Heiderich had yet to fire his rocket? What if Alphonse Elric was still out there searching? And what if Edward Elric...disappeared...

Previously:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

By the time Al woke on the morning of the second day, the train was already far east enough the grass had turned desert. Sand made for slow going, it seemed, or perhaps it was only that there was so much of it. The world outside his window looped over and over for hours, nothing to see but endless hills of sand.

Lior happened suddenly, like a heart attack.

He had last approached the city by motorcar, so he was unprepared for the city’s best side – that it even had a best side, out of its cacophony of ruins and high rises. Approached head-on by rail, it almost came together. The city was sheltered by a wall of adobe, forged first by nomads to keep their oasis clear; modern alchemy had re-envisioned it to be twenty feet thick and two stories tall. There was a gate set into it Alphonse was sure he’d never seen - it was clearly meant to allow rail access into the city itself, and the train line from Central had only recently been completed – and it cut an impressive figure into the side of Lior’s boundary wall.

Literally so. The ‘Atlas’ figures holding up the archway to either side were a familiar nuisance, grotesquely muscled likenesses of the similarly grotesque Citizen Armstrong himself.

The train swept through Armstrong’s overly gaudy archway and into the city itself, to Al’s fascination. He liked Lior, on the whole. It was intriguing to see how the people had taken advantage of its destruction. Two years ago, more than half of its structures had been deemed uninhabitable – damaged to the point of instability by the insurrection, and ultimately, the Event. Where others had called for relocation, or costly rebuilding, the Liorans had responded by razing their city, cauterizing its wounds and starting over fresh…primarily with alchemy, donated by the Amestrian government and privately funded charities like the Armstrong L.I.V.E.!!! Foundation. Al had read about it in the paper first, and he had been impressed by their resilience even then. For a populace that had experienced the most catastrophic act of alchemical terrorism in Amestrian history to turn around and embrace the science as a solution…it was downright inspiring.

It was also advantageous. Because so much of the city had been completely deconstructed, the Liorans had been able to plan the rebuilding effort from the ground up and cut much of the cruft from the city’s infrastructure. The new train lines were part of that. According to the Lior Railways Information Guide plastered as an advertisement on the back of Al’s seat, Lior was the “most accessible city” in all of the Eastern Territory. Tracks ran in to the main depot at the center of the city, and then out again like spokes on a wheel, to connect to a huge loop running right along the inside of the city wall. A series of trams running up and down along the spokes, and also around the circumference of the city, meant that “citizens enjoy economic and expedient transport, for much less than the cost of a private motorcoach”.

The guide also offered a timetable for the tram lines, as well as a station map. Al peeled it off the seatback and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He didn’t think it likely anyone would be looking for him, but the fewer people he had to ask for directions, the better.

The train began to slow as it neared the station at the heart of the city – Central Hub, his rail map helpfully identified – and then came to a halt entirely, a good several hundred feet shy of any platform that Al could discern. He pressed his face against the window, along with every other passenger in the car, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

The switchhouse is reporting some technical difficulties, ladies and gentlemen, the engineer cut in via radiophone. We apologize for the delay. It will just be a few minutes while they get the track operational again…

A ‘few’ minutes turned into ten, into fifteen… Al played with his ponytail and tried to be patient as the noise level increased.

It figured.

A baby screamed. Someone farted. People wandered aimlessly up and down the aisle. Curious passengers in the other seats were rapidly turning furious, and by the thirty-two minute mark, Al had had enough. He looked down at his gloves, wondered

More importantly, what would the Fullmetal Alchemist do?

Al reached in his pocket for a piece of chalk, sketched a quick array on the side of the train car, and made his own exit.

Predictably, the transmutation drew attention. He had just enough time to jump out with his suitcase and seal up the hole he’d made before three alarmed-looking men came barreling toward him from the front of the train.

“Hey! YOU!”

A pale man who looked to be the train’s alchemist was hollering at him, and Al turned to face him, palms out and facing downward in a gesture of supplication. He got YOU’d a lot by people. He’d learned that it paid to look nonthreatening.

“Ye--ah?”

Yeah, not yessir. He always had to catch himself. His brother had by all accounts never been known for his command of formal military address. People who had genuinely met his brother invariably saw through his ruse right away – which was good, because then he knew it was safe to grill them for information. One of the first things he’d learned about Easterners was that to hear them tell it, everyone and their mother had been bosom buddies with the great and powerful Fullmetal Alchemist. And generally, the more someone professed to have known his brother inside out, the less likely they were to have ever set foot in the same room with him.

People who hadn’t met his brother, on the other hand, were often just familiar enough with the details to be taken in by Al’s ruse. A small, criminally young boy, out on his own, clad head to toe in black and a red jacket –and also a highly skilled alchemist? It wasn’t as though there were a lot of them out there. Al tossed his ponytail back and grinned at the men approaching him, waiting to see which they were.

The rail company alchemist pulled up short and eyed him, showing no sign he recognized the significance of a small, unassuming boy alchemist in a red coat. There were two Lioran men following after him though, and their eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

Al leveled his gaze at them and went for broke.

“I’m the Fullmetal Alchemist,” Al said. “What seems to be the problem?”

****

In the end it was laughably mundane. The switching mechanism for the passenger rail had stuck just shy of the platform and refused to move back to the correct direction, pointing the train obsessively at the switchyard, and each side blamed the other for the malfunction. The train’s alchemist blamed the switchyard for not keeping the tracks clean and oiled. The switchhouse workers countered that the rail lines inside the city limits were maintenanced daily, and that the alchemist had been too eager in bending the track.

Al had ignored the lot of them, and in five minutes he had worked out the true cause of the problem. Modern alchemical sandcatchers were the only way trains could make it into the eastern desert expanses, but like a lot of commercial devices, they weren’t designed with finesse in mind. The array in it was keyed simply to draw up the steel of the track and then separate it from whatever compound was polluting it, rust or sand or, in this case, the oil the trainyard workers used to grease their switches. Once he’d determined that, he was able to transmute the switch mechanism open so they could lubricate the mechanism. He cautioned the railway alchemist not to activate the sand catcher near switchyard limits, and told the switchhouse workers it was now their responsibility to keep that section clear.

On the whole, both parties seemed pleased. One of the Lioran workers offered him an all-day rail pass, which he gladly accepted. The Fullmetal Alchemist was not a mercenary, but he would not frown upon a reasonable reward for services rendered.

His real prize was information, anyway. The other Lioran worker knew which tram stop was closest to Plaza d’Oasise, confirmed that was where the other ‘government investigators’ were stationed.

He took a brief detour to the restroom to freshen up as best he could, then consulted his stolen rail map, only one destination in mind. The map advised that the famous ‘plaza of the oasis’ was not actually located at the exact center of the city, as most people thought, because the city’s borders had changed since Lior’s founding. It was instead billed as ‘the spiritual and mercantile ‘heart’ of the city, a place where travelers gather to drink in each other’s culture’.

It was also a single tram stop to the north on the Red Line. Al caught the very next trolley headed out from the station. It was empty save for himself and a sour-faced driver.

The trolley platform was a rickety little island in the middle of what looked like should be a busy, dangerous street. Al saw all of two motorcars before he was able to cross.

A sign at the plaza’s west entrance explained why:

FORMAL INVESTIGATION ONGOING!

TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN.

The message was repeated in six languages and stamped at the bottom with the seal of Amestris, a stylized green lion atop two sheaves of wheat. Accentuating the point were two armed soldiers standing beneath it, lions themselves. And no hope they hadn’t seen him. They were watching him with a predator’s interest, laid-back but exceedingly attentive.

Al’s heart started pounding high in his throat; a hummingbird’s rhythm, almost painfully fast. He slid his hands into his pockets and tried to pretend that he wasn’t thirteen and horribly conspicuous, wearing bright red and all black in the heat. Al was also uncomfortably aware again of how very pale his skin was. At home, he was freakishly tan for November. Back here, in the arid east, he was what the Ishvar called a ‘desert rose’ – a delicate flower that reddens, and withers.

Al hung a right and turned away to the south, zagged into a side alley and waited for a second to see if he was being followed. His intuition proved unfortunately accurate. The larger of the two soldiers – a Lioran man with thighs about as big around as a tree trunk – was poking his head around just a few yards away.

Al gritted his teeth and retreated quickly to the opposite connecting street. If these goons were police, he wouldn’t bother with them, but these men were actual military. Actual military, he didn’t cross without a plan. Unlike the schlubs at the trainyard, the actual military had ways of verifying his identity. In a pinch, he could put in a call to Miss Sheska and her mysterious boss, ‘Major Fuery’, in Central, but he didn’t want to trouble her anymore than absolutely necessary. He was never sure just how far that line of favors ran.

Why bother, anyway? He thought, fingering the bit of chalk still stuck in the corner of his right jacket pocket. If there was one thing that being the Fullmetal Alchemist had taught him so far, it was that if there was will – and more importantly, skill - there was always a way. Still fancying he could hear footsteps imminently behind him, Al dropped down to his knees and chalked an array low on the nearest brick building, praying it was minor enough not to attract attention.

Energy hissed and crackled beneath his fingers and he drew a ley line up right through the mortar holding the building together, urging it to loosen up. As always, it felt like painting with power lines. The array set off sparks in tangential directions, gave off light and heat as though he had drawn it in neon. Al tried to lean one shoulder against the building to shield what he was doing, then promptly gave up in favor of finishing quickly.

Just enough for a foothold…no need to get fancy.

By compressing liquefied mortar around them in just the right way, he wiggled a few key bricks partway out of the building’s façade. He continued until he had several good handholds and then let the reaction complete, reforming the mortar into its solid state and leaving the wall newly uneven. Al whipped his head back and forth once, to make sure the man following him hadn’t detected the reaction, saw nothing. He took his chance and put a shoe up on one of the toeholds, grabbed for another with his hands. Al scrambled up his makeshift ‘ladder’ as fast as humanly possible and pulled himself onto the roof, very grateful he was wearing gloves.

Even though the roof was fashioned from a light-colored tile, meant to reflect the sunlight, it was still exceedingly warm. Al could feel heat radiating right through the palms of his gloves, and he hated to think what it would be like if his hands were bare. He was also acutely aware of the river of sweat running down the middle of his back, and the uncomfortable sound of his own blood roaring through his ears. He had spent some time in Ishvar, relatively recently, but that had been in more sensible clothes. Al shucked his red coat off and tied it around his waist, then pressed himself flat against the roof and started creeping toward its apex. With any luck, no one in the plaza would think to look up.

The so-called ‘Plaza of the Oasis’ had been built over an aquifer, and so named for the lush desert oasis that once stood there. The water that came up through that spot now was piped through an elaborate alchemically designed fountain system, though, and largely just for show. The biggest reserves of water were found elsewhere in the city, courtesy of a modern system of artesian wells. Even still, the Oasis Fountain was an iconic image. Al didn’t need his tourist map to tell him what it looked like. A towering, intricate spire, carved by hand from a single solid piece of desert marble, it had once flown red with wine, back in 1915 when the sun cults were active. It had been respected enough to be preserved by the warring forces even during the Lioran Insurrection. It was a balm to its people, and an inspiration to all who saw it; a joy to desert travelers seeking refuge beneath the spray that cascaded all around it.

The great fountain was all but obliterated now. Its ruins were visible in piles all around the plaza, lying on blue tarps tagged with neon paint, though he couldn’t read said labels at this distance. The marble spire lay in pieces side by side nearest the great solar dias – what was now a gaping hole, a circular wound shot through the true heart of the city. All around it, the earth was mounded up like an ant hill.

The entire site was cordoned off with military barricades and police tape, and there were a fair amount of human ‘ants’ moving all around the hill – some visibly Lioran, others Amestrian, most clad in the blues and grays of the military. There were a few olive-green Lioran Civil-Defense Force uniforms as well, mostly on truck drivers. Al could see a fair amount of mechanical earthmovers stationed all around the hole. A couple were actively being used to dig.

Al watched the action for a few minutes, trying to piece it all together.

Machines digging, not alchemists…and barricades on every side, not just at the plaza entrances, but around the site itself too. Even the flow of earthmovers going to and fro from ground zero was heavily regulated. A truck would drive in toward the broken earth, and then, incredibly, workers would start shoveling debris in manually. No transmutations at all. Which didn’t fit with Lior’s new image as an scientifically progressive city, unless…

They must be worried about activating a hostile array, Al realized. Whatever unknown method the terrorists had used to bring in those armored monstrosities must not have been discovered and disarmed yet.

That would explain why they were going through the rubble so thoroughly, too. Now that he knew what to look for, he could trace ant-lines leading back from the hill to the piles of fountain parts, to other squares of standard-issue plastic tarp holding odds and ends. The excavators were separating out anything that wasn’t just plain dirt. They were looking for the source.

Which meant, he still had time to find it for himself.

He had a solid lead for the first time in ages, and unlike the ones in his dreams, this desert excavation looked like it might hold pay dirt. He needed a phone. He needed a phone yesterday.

Al yanked the dog-eared rail map out and spread it out in front of him. He had no idea where the nearest public phone booth was, and according to the tourist information, the hotel district was back toward the west. The L.I.V.E. foundation was just a few blocks away, though – and that was where Miss Rose had her orphanage.

Bingo.

He monkeyed his way back down the side of the building and took off running in generally the right direction. The rail map didn’t have a lot of detail on the street level, but the sun was just far enough from the zenith that he could tell east from west. By trial and error, he managed to pick a route past the plaza to the Palace of the Sun. It was the former site of one of the city’s largest churches, now home to the Armstrong Foundation’s charity headquarters, and Al had to laugh when he saw what had become of the structure’s main spire.

Yet another Atlas-Armstrong, this one flexing heavenward, thrusting a cheerful fist into the eastern sky. A billboard sculpted beneath it proclaimed in florid text: Let’s Invigorate with Vivacious Energy! L.I.V.E. Proud!

The orphanage was built on a corner of the old church complex, with a pretty iron gate ringing its front yard and entry. Children were playing in cacophonous harmony, at least fifteen of them that Alphonse could see. They ranged in age from two to perhaps eleven, toddlers in a sand box and older boys playing catch. And there was Miss Rose, right there in the center of the chaos, trying to watch over the action. She was wearing a loose, white shift that hugged along her curves. Toddlers hugged her knees.

“Miss Rose!”

Al waved at her frantically through the front gate, grinning hard. It had been a while since he’d actually gotten to see her, not counting their brief, frantic encounter the week before.

“Alphonse?!”

“Yeah,” he called back, clutching at the bars. “I’m back in town!”

“Wait a moment, I’ll come get you.”

Rose still looked a tad startled, which wasn’t surprising. She bent down to peel toddlers off her and waded over toward Alphonse, reached up to unfasten the gate.

“I hadn’t expected to see you so soon. How are you feeling?”

“Fine!”

Al gave her his absolutely sunniest smile, trying to exude Health and Sanity through every pore. Rose ushered him through the gate and patted him shoulder to elbow.

“Last I saw you, they were shipping you home on a stretcher…”

“…alchemical exhaustion. I just needed to rest, I’d over-exerted myself.”

He felt a little guilty for lying to her, but what else could he do? Not even Winry believed him when he told the truth about where a part of his conscious had gone…the other world that he was increasingly sure did exist. Was the key to finding his brother again. And as much as he hated having to be dishonest, he also needed Rose’s help too much to risk her judging him crazy.

“Listen, ah, I was hoping you might have a phone I could borrow. I need to make a call to someone in Central. It’s kind of sensitive.”

Rose’s eyes lowered a little. In suspicion? In concern? Al couldn’t tell which.

“You do have a phone, don’t you?”

“Yes, inside…you should come in, we have mesquite tea on,” she said after a moment. Her voice was brisk and expression seemed a little brighter, which was reassuring. Al released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“I can ask Alex to watch over the children…yes? What is it, Eddie?”

One of the toddlers that had previously been clinging to her leg was pushing his way between them, latched on to her hand. He was a round-faced, dark-haired thing, with skin far too pale to be comfortable in the vicious Lioran sun. He was her biological son, but aside from the hair color, it was hard to see a resemblance.

Eddie peered up at Al suspiciously from beneath the brim of a wide sun hat, sucked hard on a chubby little thumb.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you remember Uncle Al? Look, it’s Uncle Al!?”

“Hey there,” Al said. He tried to stoop a little lower and look as non-dangerous as possible, but the toddler was having none of it. Eddie squirmed and hid his fat face against Rose’s leg.

“He’s been very shy lately, I’m afraid. I wish I knew why.”

Rose bent down and scooped her child up into her arms, balanced him against one hip. She pressed a tender kiss to the side of one chubby cheek.

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t expect him to remember me anyway. We last met when you were really little, isn’t that right, Eddie?” said Al.

Al caught the quickest flash of brown eyes before Eddie planted his face in his mother’s breasts, and that was it – the child simply couldn’t be convinced that Al’s intentions were good, or at least, that he was worth tolerating. Rose kissed the crest of her son’s dark head and rocked him, and Al was struck by the strangest mix of happiness and longing.

Families were things that could hurt him sometimes, in ways that he hoped they would never know.

“Watch the children for a minute, would you please? I need to get Alex.”

Rose disappeared into a side door Al hadn’t known the orphanage had, taking her fearful son along with her. Leaving him alone with her charges. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to be watching, but it seemed like the children were more or less all right playing on without help. None of them were crying or bleeding out the head, that was good enough for government work.

Several of the older boys were looking at him from across the yard with curious expressions. A couple of them waved.

“Hey!” One of them yelled. He was a taller kid with stereotypical Lioran looks, broad shouldered and barrel-chested, with skin the color of a fat dark olive.

“Heads up!”

Something small and spherical came whizzing toward his head, so fast that Al didn’t have time to think, only react. He flung an arm up to defend himself and caught the weapon by reflex. It resolved into a rag-tag baseball, cheerfully missing stitches and stained the same yellow color as the playyard dirt. Al stared at it for a few long seconds, momentarily not comprehending.

“Nice catch!”

The other boy was very near him now, wearing a grin from ear to ear. Al took a step back in spite of himself.

“I’m Tomas, who’re you? You wanna ball with us?”

“Er—“

“You got a good eye, you could be catcher. Hari kind of stinks at it, you can have his glove.”

They think I’m one of them, Al realized. They think I’m just another kid.

Well, this was awkward.

The other boys were watching now too, visibly sizing him up from across the way. Al rubbed at the back of his head, trying to think. He didn’t want to offend the orphans, and well, a part of him was thrilled at being asked. When he and his brother had been little, they’d mostly just been able to play catch between the two of them. Winry had only been interested so far as she got to experiment with pitching machines. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been asked to hit a ball around.

But he needed Miss Rose’s phone, he needed to talk to Miss Sheska and Major Fuery. He couldn’t well tear off and play sandlot games. He offered the other boy a pained grin and held his hands up.

“I’m sorry, I can’t…I’m waiting on Miss Rose…”

“For a bunk?” Tomas glanced down at Al’s suitcase. “Well the only open one’s in my room, I can take ya up there if you care. Oldest gets to pick top or bottom, ‘cept you’ll have to share with Mile and he’s big, way bigger than you, he gets bottom.”

And now it was even more awkward. Hell. There were times Alphonse wished he could just be a normal kid again. If his brother were here…Ed could show off his infamous-and-undefeatable screwball pitch, and Al could hit it high over the fence, and then Ed would probably get mad and yell a lot, but he swore to whatever deity that was out there, he really wouldn’t care.

He was saved any further frustration because the side entrance swung open and suddenly the house was giving birth to pure muscle. Al watched as a man roughly the size of a house pushed his way into the sunlight, shirtless as usual, and somehow, glistening.

“Good day to you, young men and ladies!!!”

Citizen Armstrong greeted the world with both arms outstretched, as though he were ready to hug the sky itself. It reminded him of the ridiculous statue on the church spire, and Alphonse couldn’t help it, he snickered in spite of himself.

The children seemed genuinely happy to see Mr. Armstrong though. A few of the small ones came over to hug his great knees, and the man’s boisterous demeanor turned kind. He bent down and scooped up two at a time, let them climb on his shoulders, his back, his knees. In seconds the towering figure was covered with little ones, beaming, perfectly content to play human tree.

“And how are we doing this fine afternoon?! Are all you children enjoying yourselves?”

He had a thick blonde moustache that moved hypnotically when he spoke. A child reached up to pull on it, but he let on as though her savage yanking was no bother at all.

“Yes Shari, this is the traditional Armstrong Family styling – ah-ah-ah yes, it is quite thick and glorious, and indeed somewhat sensitive, how kind of you to notice.”

Al couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t know the man well himself – only through Miss Rose’s many letters – but looking at him gave Al a warm feeling all throughout his chest.

Miss Rose appeared in the doorway behind Armstrong, sans Eddie. She slid up to him and placed a careful hand on the man’s elbow, gently guiding him to look in Alphonse’s direction.

The man’s smile, if it was possible, only intensified.

“And Alphonse Elric…I hadn’t expected to meet you again so soon!”

Tomas and the other boys eyed him, clearly curious. Rose’s eyes warned him to choose his words carefully.

“I…had some unfinished business out this way,” said Al. He bowed low, hands clasped formally against his sides. “Thank you both for helping me last week.”

“But of course!!! Anything for the glorious and noble house of Elric!”

And the man’s voice was really so kind. He might be odd, but Al was having a hard time disliking him. He was starting to get the feeling that he must have known him. He had a sense of fond exasperation that surely wouldn’t happen with a total stranger, would it?

“Won’t you come in, Al? We can have that tea now.”

Rose beckoned to him from the shaded doorway, and Al picked his suitcase up without a moment’s delay. The Fullmetal Alchemist’s coat was long and cloying, and a cool, dark building looked very much like sanctuary.

Armstrong’s eyes roamed down the back of his brother’s coat as he passed. He saw the man’s expression tighten a little, out of the corner of his eye.

“I would like a word with you later, Alphonse,” the man murmured. “Once the children are otherwise occupied.”

“…sure,” Al said, a bit reluctant.

“We both would,” Rose said.

Rose’s fingers reached out and wrapped around his wrist. For all that she was quiet and polite, Al couldn’t help but notice her grip was like velvet-padded steel.

The gentle giant remained outside, a sparkling monolith beneath the Lioran sun.

****

Once the door was shut, Rose wasted no time getting down to business.

“Winry wired that you’d run away from home,” she said. Her voice, like her hand on his wrist, was gentle but shot through with assertive strength.

Al winced.

“I didn’t run away,” he said, feeling a bit lame. “I was staying with her until I got better…then I went back out.”

Rose tugged him down a long, narrow corridor into what appeared to be a sitting room, urged him toward a chair. Al sat with his hands in his lap, feeling lost, feeling very much like a child.

“She was worried sick about you,” said Rose. “The least you could have done was leave a note.”

“I was going to wire her as soon as I got settled,” Al said. He wished his voice didn’t sound so sulky. What was it with ladies trying to be his mother? Pinako at least, she was old enough (old enough to be his grandmother, more properly). Rose and Winry…they were both the age he should be, they should be his friends.

“Al…”

And there it was, that wounded look…her chocolate eyes widened, held a vulnerable light. Like a small forest deer facing down a hunter. Al shifted in his chair, distinctly uncomfortable. When she’d been living with them, she’d gone over like that a lot, to the point he could say that he honestly hated it. When Winry was upset with him, at least she came out and screamed. They would have a row, and then one or the other could apologize. Rose just looked…injured, and that only made him fear for her.

“Rose, I saw him,” Al said, gripping at the cuffs of his sleeves. Drawing on his own strength, his own core of steel.

“On the other side of that opening, when those things were going back through? Ed was there. He is alive.”

He leaned forward into her personal space, every fiber of his being on edge - eyes locked on her dark brown ones, willing her to understand. Willing her to see he wasn’t crazy. Winry, Gramma, they may no longer have the faith – a truth that hurt, but one that he had to accept – but they had also seen less, experienced less than he and Rose. She had been with him at the beginning of his new life, when he had been born again into this strange dream, this world that had no brother, in a city with no skyline.

Rose, of all of them, had to believe.

The corners of her lips twitched wildly upward, then down again, torn between emotions. Her fingers fluttered in nervous motion, as though her hands no longer knew where to alight.

“You came back on a stretcher,” she said. “You were comatose for days.”

No, no, no, there it was again, that mothering response. Al gritted his teeth together and tried to sit up as tall as he could.

“It doesn’t change the fact that I saw him,” Al ground out. “Rose, when I fought those armored things, you remember how I put a piece of myself inside them? How I was controlling them? A piece of me was still inside one when it disappeared. That’s why I was asleep so long, I think. I was asleep here because my mind was there – in a whole other world. And my brother was there. I spoke to him. I saw him.”

He reached forward and grabbed at her dress sleeve, forced her to meet his gaze.

“I know it sounds crazy but it’s real, Rose, I swear to you. I can prove it. I need to investigate the site, I need a phone…I have people in Central, and as soon as they give me clearance, I’ll be able to look at where that array was. When I find it, I can reproduce the effect, I can show you—“

“NO!”

Rose’s cry was like a glass breaking. Al jerked back in spite of himself. The sudden vehemence was unlike her, it was unnerving.

“Al, you can’t!”

“Why not?!”

The vulnerability was gone too, replaced with a look he was certain he’d never seen before. Rose’s dark eyes seemed to swallow the light.

“Al, it’s too dangerous,” she said, and there was fire in her voice now. “You don’t remember, I know you don’t…but I do. That array…”

Her hands alighted on the ends of her chair’s arm rests and throttled them.

“It was the same as when the city was razed, Al. It’s the Rapture all over again.”

A shiver ran down the back of his spine as something about that reached inside him, struck a chord somewhere deep. In a place where strange runes crawled over his skin, behind his eyes. Black ink, dark energy, written all over his metal skin, and he was looking down at himself and he was the array…

But no, that couldn’t be true. Al had studied the records extensively. Of the few pictures of himself as a disembodied soul that existed, none of them had shown his armor to have any kind of markings, let alone arrays. And officially, what the Liorans called the False Rapture – what the rest of the world called the Alchemical Event of 1915 – had been caused by a suicidal Ishvarite terrorist. He and his brother couldn’t have been anywhere near ground zero, and neither had Rose. By all reports, the city had been completely evacuated. The only casualties had been military peace-keepers.

The Fullmetal Alchemist was on record as a hero, for erecting a barrier around the main part of the force.

“I know it might seem like the Rapture,” Al said. He tried to choose his words carefully. He didn’t want to seem patronizing.

“Arrays on that large a scale can be hard to read, even for the pros. I didn’t even get a good look at it. That’s why I’d like to borrow your phone…” Al said.

Rose’s eyes lowered for a moment as though she were considering it. Then slowly but surely, she shook her head no.

“I’m not wrong. I saw it too many times not to know. Al…how much do you know about the Event?”

“What the military knows,” he said, truthfully.

Rose shook her head again, more forcefully this time, and balled her hands into fists. The vulnerable look was fading, as impossible as that was – replaced by a quiet determination.

“Then you think it was an act of terrorism,” she said. “It wasn’t.”

“…what?”

Rose drew in a deep breath.

“Things were going very badly for us, that summer,” she began. Her hands no longer fluttered. Instead they came right to her sides, obediently, like a soldier’s. “The fighting was tearing the city apart.”

“The Insurrection?”

“The War for Independence,” Rose corrected him with a sharp look, and a fierceness Al was sure he’d never seen. “I was one of the Freedom Fighters.”

Al blinked. It was hard to conceive of Rose as a rebel. But there she was, drawing herself up in front of him, holding her chin up high, as though daring him to challenge her.

“The military had started using heavy artillery in the third week of July. By the beginning of August, it looked like we were done for. The regime was so relentless…it’s hard to explain, Al. It was like it wasn’t enough for us for us to lose. They wanted us to lose absolutely.”

“‘Crushing victory’ rhetoric?” Al ventured. The old regime had been known for its all-or-nothing ideology, especially in the east. If a strategically significant city refused to submit to the Fuhrer’s authority, the old Amestris had not been above making an example of it.

“Something like that,” Rose said. “I once saw a guerilla trying to surrender with a bedsheet on a rooftop. The snipers in the clocktower...”

She shivered hard, gooseflesh visible even from where he was sitting.

“The sheet went up white, seconds later, it was red. That is what I’m trying to tell you…it wasn’t conquest. It was slaughter, Al. Pure and simple. I don’t think they cared if there was a city left or not. They took what they wanted, when they wanted, where they wanted. That was it.”

She pressed her legs together so tightly that that her thighs trembled visibly through the cotton of her dress, her mouth set in a hard, if quavering, line.

“Then a man came out of the east, an Ishvarite. Scarred, right here across his face.”

She made a gesture like an X in the space between her forehead and eyes.

“That was what we called him, the Scarred One. ‘Scar’. I never knew his name.”

Another bevy of chills raced down Al’s spine, too powerful to ignore this time. What they’d said as a kid was a goose walking over his grave. So many images were a jumble in his head, scarred Ishvarite heretics and a short woman with arresting eyes, lines, lines drawn in the street, and himself, lying at the middle of them, at the heart of them…

“You…wore a cowl?” Al said slowly, tasting each part of the thought as he spoke it. It felt right, even though the memory made no sense to him. Rose, as a nun? She had a child with her.

Rose’s nostrils flared, as though she were surprised to picture such a thing herself. Her smile was bitter.

“You are remembering things lately, aren’t you?” she said quietly.

“Some. Maybe more, with help?”

He was trying not to push her, but it was hard. Lior was it, he could feel it…the beginning, and hopefully end, to all his great mysteries. And she had kept it a secret…why?

“I thought you must,” Rose sighed. “Yes, Al…I wore the cowl, for a time. It was both my blessing, and my burden.”

She picked at the hem of her dress, pressed her thighs together once more, so tight that this time Al could hear the muscles creak.

“The Scarred One was traveling with a woman…an Amestrian woman, we were suspicious of that. She said she knew how we could end it. That we could hurt them enough they could never come near us again. We believed her. The east, at dawn, is a powerful symbol for my people, and as I said, we were weak. We regarded them as prophets.”

Al just nodded, feeling slightly ill. He was starting to get the nasty feeling he knew where this went. That he remembered where it went.

“I’m not saying it was right. But it was what we had. In the face of annihilation...” Rose continued. The fire was starting to ebb from her voice, her posture was starting to take on the same kicked-puppy hunch as before.

“The people needed something to believe in. They were vulnerable, frightened…the false prophets took advantage of that. Eddie was born that same week they came to town, and they used that. They said it had been an immaculate birth, that he was a child of Leto. That I was a Holy One. They couldn’t have been more off the mark, but by that time…it was like I just didn’t care. Anymore, about anything. Not even the baby.”

Rose’s voice was so inescapably sad then that Al physically ached for her and Eddie. Eddie, that strange, pale-faced child who burnt the way Amestrians did in the desert sun. Eddie, whose name was so like his brother’s.

“I don’t think anyone else cared if it was true or not either,” Rose went on. “It was just a convenient banner to rally around. The woman was an alchemist, she helped us build the underground tunnels. She had me lead our people out of the city, just as the Amestrians advanced…”

And the rest was history, Al thought numbly. The nameless Ishvarite terrorist had provoked the Amestrian military contingent into advancing into the city despite the danger. He had drawn an unknown array around the entire city, an array of such magnitude that no one in their wildest dreams had believed he was capable of powering.

An array whose very image had been blotted out of all known records, because in the end, it had been all too powerful. The Lioran “Rapture” had vaporized hundreds, if not thousands, of men, turned huge swaths of the city into rubble. No one knew the mechanic that had allowed the Ishvarite to sustain it.

Rose laughed, a low and bitter sound, and not for the first time, Al wondered what price she had paid to grow so old, so young.

“We’ve had a lot of false prophets, over the years.”

They sat there in silence for a long while, as Al tried to absorb what had just been laid out.

“…why didn’t you tell me?” was all he could think to ask. He felt stunned. She had lived with them for months, back in Risenburg, and she’d never breathed a word.

“It doesn’t make me proud that I was a part of it. If I could, I would gladly forget it.”

All the fight had gone out of her, and she just slumped. She looked as though she was waiting for him to scream at her.

It took all his self-control not to. Al yanked hard at his ponytail instead.

“I can understand that, but…Rose, the Event was monumental! That was when my brother first went AWOL. You know that. You—“

Underground tunnels.

Rose, leading her people through them.

An array, on a level the world had never seen.

His brother, vanishing, and with him, the memories of Al’s old life.

Rose, leading him up through the earth, at the beginning of his new one.

The final piece slid sideways into place and Al looked at her in horror.

“It was here. Wasn’t it? That place where I first woke up. We were in Lior.”

He was aware that his voice was precariously close to breaking. He didn’t care. To hell with it. Al felt like he was reeling, like the room was spinning right out from under him. All this time…everyone…

They had all sworn up and down they had no idea what had caused Ed’s disappearance, anything about it, that they would help him any way they could.

“Is that why those armored things came up out of the ground? Because there’s a whole other city buried under us, right now?”

Rose was speaking but her voice carried no meaning. Everything was a buzz. Rose had been sitting on this. The whole time.

“You lied to me.”

Now awakened, the demon of his anger could not be reasoned with. It gibbered within his chest, sunk in invisible claws. It felt like he was splitting in two.

“No, Al—“

“If you knew where the city was, why didn’t you tell me?! I asked you so many times. Everyone else said I had dreamt it. I could have shown them—maybe then they would believe me--“

“Al, it isn’t here!”

Anger bared its teeth, aimed for the jugular. It was like he was seeing the world through slow-motion, everything was red.

“Then where? You do know, don’t you? Tell me!”

“ALPHONSE ELRIC!”

Al’s teeth clicked together painfully as he missed the start of his next word. The light in the room seemed to fade, and he looked up to see a living wall of muscle between himself and Rose.

“Deplorable,” Citizen Armstrong rumbled.

He was a different person without the smile. The man did not walk, he loomed forward into the room. Hands the size of ham-shanks squeezed into fists. Al was so used to the caricature, he had never appreciated just how powerful Armstrong was.

“Simply deplorable,” the man rumbled. “I chanced inside because I thought I heard shouting…but to think I should find you, Alphonse, bullying a lady!”

Armstrong turned toward Rose, and his expression softened ever so slightly.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, thank you,” Rose said. She didn’t look all right though, Al realized. She looked…frankly, terrified, and the shock was like cold water pouring down his back. Her nails were buried deep into the fabric of her armchair, and she was biting down on her lower lip so hard he could see groove marks in it. She hadn’t run though. She had sat right there and taken it, the brunt of his anger.

She had stood her ground, and Alphonse knew shame.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, bowing low over his knees, as low as he could manage. His red hood flopped down over his face and he shoved it back up roughly. Right now, he didn’t feel he deserved to wear his brother’s coat.

What kind of a hero throws tantrums at people?

“It’s all right,” Rose said, though her voice was slightly faint. “Don’t bow. You shouldn’t have to apologize. You have a right to be angry.”

Al straightened up but if anything, he felt worse.

“I didn’t have the right to scream at you, though,” he said. “Miss Rose…”

Rose shook her head firmly, and a bit of her strength seemed to return. The vulnerable light was there in her eyes but her expression was determined, and in that moment he loved her for it.

“It happened at Central,” she said. “When your brother disappeared. What they now call Old Central…it isn’t really the old part of the city at all. There is another layer to it, in a cavern underneath.”

--stairs leading on forever, down, down, and down, and a city like a wave, houses sliding down the sides of the world and smashing together in the center, to a music hall no one has seen for centuries, except for the things that live there, pale things, like fish’s bellies turned up to rot--

Rose was staring at him intently, like she could see through into his head, what he was seeing.

“That was where she took me, when the work at Lior was done,” Rose whispered. “To her place below the city.”

“Who did?” Al asked.

“The woman I told you about. The one who was a false prophet,” Rose said. “I never knew her name. I was only to call her, ‘master’.”

Her legs were clamped together again and her body was trembling like a kite caught in a strong breeze. Armstrong placed one of his thick hands on her shoulder, kneaded it a little, as though bracing her. His palm entirely covered her deltoid.

“The children were hunting after their afternoon snacks,” Armstrong suggested. “I left Bria in charge, but you do know how she goes on.”

“I do,” Rose murmured, and she reached up to squeeze his fingers very briefly. Something grown-up, something complicated passed between them for a moment, and then Rose peeled Armstrong’s fingers away.

“They can go on a while longer,” she said. “Al deserves to know.”

She straightened up higher in her chair, pull her dress out from between her legs. Her eyes rose up to meet Al’s again, and she looked older, older than he had ever seen her before.

“Your brother came for me. He saved me…and you, too. You were also a prisoner, I think. I don’t…I don’t exactly recall. It’s…hard to remember.”

Al nodded, though he got the feeling she meant that in a very different sense.

“A lot of things happened that I didn’t understand, a lot of alchemy. What I did understand was…Edward died. He was attacked, he had a hole right through his chest, he was on the floor and dead. But you used alchemy somehow, to bring him back.”

Al couldn’t hardly breathe. He could picture it – he thought he could picture it – but was that truly memory, or morbid fascination? He could see his brother’s eyes…those beautiful, unusual, golden eyes…could see them dimming. The very idea made him sick.

“But I brought him back,” he parroted right back, trying to keep his lunch from coming back up.

“Yes, you did,” Rose affirmed again. She seemed to understand. “And he was whole, Al. He had human arms and legs, everything…”

“And?”

He was on the edge of his seat and he couldn’t even recall moving. It all came down to this. The part of the story they had never told him, the part that he’d always felt lingering around the edges of his life. All his dreams, and nightmares.

“It was because you were gone,” she said quietly. “He came, and you went. He asked me to take Wrath and go for help…and the rest, you know.”

“I came back…and he went,” Al whispered.

“Yes,” Rose said. Her eyes flicked downward to the hem of her shift. “Now you know. Your master thought it meant that he just isn’t anywhere, anymore. Because he gave himself for you.”

Armstrong rumbled something soft, and this time she accepted his hand when he proffered it.

“But I brought him back once,” Al said, mustering the will to speak. The will to do anything. Right now, he felt frozen.

To be the subject of that much love was almost unendurable. How could he be expected to bear it? The brother he remembered was just plain old Ed. Not the Fullmetal Alchemist, not the Hero of the People. Selfish at snack times. A blanket hog at night. Even wearing his brother’s old coat, even out here retracing his footsteps… His brother’s shadow just cast so far, it felt like he would never make it back to its source.

But he had to try. If there was anything he was sure of, it was that he had to try. He owed his brother too much to let him go, and loved him too dearly to want to.

“If I brought him back once, I could do it again,” he said slowly. “Because I’ve seen him.”

“At the cost of your own life,” Citizen Armstrong said sharply.

If that’s what it takes, a part of him thought, but did not say. The impulse was deeply disturbing.

Rose was looking at him again as though his thoughts were no secret. Her face held nothing but the deepest kind of sorrow.

“You have a right to be mad,” she said. “But now you know, why we tried to keep it from you.”

“Yes,” Al said, swallowing tightly. “Now I know.”

Love, in all forms, was hard to endure.

***

(See, I told you believe in the internet again :)))

2009!

2009-01-18T09:24:12Z

2009: THE YEAR CRYO BELIEVES IN THE INTERNET AGAIN!

To celebrate, I give to you:

Alfons Heiderich as "Sage" from GTA:SA :)

Can someone check and see if they can access the CoE now?

2008-12-09T23:55:33Z

It should be accessible from the outside again :)