Chapter Text
By the time night fell, the sisters’ and Port’s encounter with Tukson was still the closest anyone had gotten to catching the man. Patrols doubled, a perimeter was set up around the block, with another perimeter around that, but nobody had seen hide nor hair of the man.
From the top of a building, Tukson stared down at the swarming soldiers. From his vantage point, the blue uniformed men looked like ants. To get to the Fuhrer he might have to crush a few.
They’d lost his trail a good few hours ago, but thought he’d give it a little longer just to be safe. With all these soldiers running around searching for him, plus the State Alchemists that had been sent after him, it was very possible that someone had noticed at least one of his circles by now.
He just had to hope that anyone who saw one either didn’t know what it was or didn’t care. Shifting his gaze from the streets below, Tukson looked over the rooftops at the distant walls of Central Command. Tonight. It would all end tonight.
“It’s been a long time, Freezer,” called a voice behind him, a voice he recognized. The wind caught in the uniform jacket he still wore and his eyes narrowed. Not moving from his spot on the ledge, he turned to face whoever had spoken, cursing internally that he’d apparently been so focused on his own thoughts that he’d allowed someone to sneak up behind him.
And not just one someone, looked like the whole army was here. “Well well, Lie Ren,” Tukson chuckled darkly, and Ren’s eyes narrowed in acknowledgment. He stood by the entrance to the rooftop, flanked by several soldiers, all with their guns trained on Tukson. Ren was unarmed, but Tukson knew better than most that he needed no gun at all to kill a man. “So the Flame Alchemist came out to play.”
“You can make this easier on both of us,” Ren called, taking his hands from his pockets in a move that would’ve seemed casual to anyone who didn’t know what the white gloves he was wearing meant. “I’d rather not have to fight an old war buddy.”
Tukson bristled at that. “War buddy?! Don’t flatter yourself, I knew no friends in Ishval” he snapped, squaring his shoulders as he turned his back to the city behind him. “Only military bastards,” the soldiers flanking Ren tensed, “And their damn dogs!” And a guilty fire burned in his heart at the memory of being one of the military’s dogs.
Ren’s expression turned grim, even from this distance. He snapped with his right hand, the noise echoing in the silence left behind from Tukson’s tirade. A spark jumped into the air from the friction, and that spark turned into an arc of flame whose roar drowned out the sound of the snap that had caused it.
Flames flew towards Tukson nearly faster than he could react, and his eyes widened in instinctual panic. He crouched to the ground, hand pressed to a pipe embedded in the roof, and sent a plume of water up to block the flames. He’d felt the heat of them on his face.
Glaring past the spouting water pipe at Ren, who was already poised to snap again, Tukson roared and slammed both hands into the water. Alchemical light lit the roof blue instead of red from Ren’s flames, and Tukson felt the surge of a successful transmutation.
Nearly uniformly spaced holes burst in the pipes lining the roof as the pressure of the water inside them grew too great for the metal to restrain. As soon as the water filled the air, Ren gritted teeth and stared at the arcing water in wide-eyed panic. The soldiers were a little slower on the uptake, and before they could even truly react, the water fell back to earth and thoroughly soaked everyone standing on the roof.
Great, well wasn’t that just great . The soldiers didn’t know what this meant, but Ren was cursing internally at the higher ups for sending him to fight against someone who used water.
Tukson, making his escape before the water even fell, glanced back at the military men and smirked. “When water meets flame.” Behind him Ren peeled his soaking wet gloves off his hands and tucked them in his equally soaked jacket. “The flame goes out.” He almost laughed at the expression on the Flame Alchemist’s face.
Reaching the edge of the roof, he pressed a hand onto the soaking concrete. Ice arced across the gap between two buildings, the ringing sound of transmutation drowned out by Tukson’s footsteps as he crossed the newly formed bridge. Reaching the other side, he paused for a moment, turned the bridge back to water, and leapt onto the roof just before it melted.
With Ren’s gloves soaked, that put him effectively out of action until he got another pair. All he had to do now was make his way back to the final circle before Ren got rearmed, and Tukson would finally be able to put his plan into motion. He just had to hope that no soldiers had discovered it, or worse one of those damn alchemist dogs.
Sprinting down dark alleys, whipping around corners, and hoping beyond hope that nobody saw and reported him, Tukson finally reached the alley where Port had attacked him. Rubble from their fight covered everything, and he skidded to his knees before where he’d drawn his circle.
“Dammit!” he growled to himself, heaving bricks and blocks of shattered concrete off of the chalk lines. Once the circle was cleared, he breathed a sigh of relief and allowed himself a smile. “Still there, perfect!”
“Stop right there!” yelled a winded sounding voice from behind him. Even if the shadow hadn’t been distinctive enough, he’d heard that voice enough in the past two days to recognize it. That damn Fullmetal brat just never gave up, did she?
“I was wondering what you were doing in this alley,” Ruby admitted, shifting into a fighting stance and shaking her sleeves back from her hands. After all their leads had been exhausted, Port left to marshall the troops under his command.
In the absence of his over-the-top self, she’d realized that something had been bothering her. “So I came back here to check it out, and bingo!” A single transmutation circle, one that she recognized from Tukson’s gauntlet and knew had something to do with ice, but beyond that… Why would he risk so much for a single circle?
He smiled to himself and stood. The kid sounded so proud of herself at finding this one circle, it was almost sad. At the sound of clanging metal, Tukson turned his head slowly to face the other end of the alley. Yang stood there, her armor nearly completely casting the alley into shadow. “There’s nowhere to run this time!” she yelled, and the pride in her voice did make him chuckle this time.
“Clearly,” he grinned, glancing behind him. With Ruby standing on the entrance to the main street, and Yang blocking the other end he was well and truly trapped by the two girls. Smirking, he casually stepped into the middle of the circle. “But who’s running?” he asked, spreading his arms to the sides, his grin only widening at the girl’s confused expression.
Ruby’s eyes narrowed. Why wasn’t he trying to run like he had before? Couldn’t he see that they had him trapped. Tukson spread his arms to his sides, grinning triumphantly, and she tensed for the fight ahead. But no ice appeared, and no steam rushed towards her.
Instead, the circle beneath his feet pulsed with alchemical light.
Red alchemical light, she realized, instead of the usual blue. In spite of herself, she hesitated and her jaw dropped open, staring in shock as a discharge of red alchemic light arced up into the sky. Following the path with her eyes, she stumbled back into the main road so she could see it, and definitely not from fear.
The light from this circle was soon joined by similar, no identical lightning-crackling beams of alchemical energy that shot up from various spots in the city. Standing in the middle of the street, she rotated slowly, eyes wide with shock, her hands trembling slightly by her sides, breath catching in her throat in fearful gasps. Three, five, ten, twenty-five, who knew how many she couldn’t keep track of them all. The city was bathed in blood-red light.
“An alchemic reaction,” she murmured, eyes wide enough that the silver there was tinged red by the energy. One giant alchemic reaction, all activated at the same time by the same person. “On this scale…” she trailed off, mind scrambling to piece together what she hoped beyond hope that this being possible meant, all while trying to stifle the fear of what this could mean.
“It’s impossible.” Yang took a step backwards, shifting her gaze from the beams of light to look down the alleyway at her sister. “Unless… you don’t think he’s got-”
“-A Philospher’s Stone!” Ruby came to the same conclusion, spinning back around to face Tukson. For one moment she grinned as she barely dared hope that she was right, but the next moment the grin dropped from her face.
The transmutation had started. She’d been so focused on how this was possible and what it meant for them that she's completely forgotten about Tukson.
The light of the circle he was standing on turned blue then blinding white in the blink of an eye. Air blew past her, racing towards the circle, catching her braid and cape as it went. Air as cold as snow, and carrying particles of ice with it that cut into her cheeks. As she watched, mind still racing, the flagstones under her feet covered themselves with frost, and then snow, and then thick crystalized ice.
“He’s freezing all the moisture in the air,” Ruby realized, eyes widening. Already she could see her breath fogging up in front of her, and the temperature of the surrounding air was dropping by the second.
“Ruby Rose,” Tukson growled. Ruby gasped and looked up. The man was standing almost exactly where he’d been, the circle he’d used now completely covered by the ice it had created. He stared her down, yellow eyes like pinpricks of fire against the impenetrable and still growing wall of ice behind him.
With one sleeve rolled up, the other missing, and his coat unbuttoned, Ruby couldn’t help wondering how the man wasn’t freezing.
“You’ve sworn your life to the state as a dog of the military,” he said, paying no mind to the transmutation raging away behind him. Tukson’s voice was level, calmer than it had been any time she’d heard him, and colder than the ice he was famous for “Do you know what this country is trying to do?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Ruby yelled over the cracking of the ice, gritting her teeth. She didn’t have time for his manifesto or whatever, she could worry about whatever her government was up to later, or probably never. “What’s important is-”
“Don’t be a fool!” he snapped, a note of desperation in his voice that made her hesitate. “If you knew, you’d understand why I’m doing this!” Why he was doing this? Did that mean he had some other reason than just wanting to take down the government?
“I already told you I don’t know!” But now she was wondering about it. God dammit he got in her head, and now she was wondering about it. What did he mean?
Suddenly Yang leapt over the wall of ice, helmet plume trailing after her. She twisted in the air and aimed a kick at Tukson, who leapt back to dodge the attack. Aiming one punch after another, Yang kept on the offensive, forcing Tukson to block her metal fists with his bare arms. A final firmly placed kick sent the man flying down the alleyway, and Ruby leapt to the side to avoid being hit by him as he tumbled past.
He tumbled across the road, and the only thing that kept him from falling into the river was his impact with the railing on the other side of the road. Tukson groaned as he struggled to sit up, and he could swear that he could feel his lungs straining against the ribs that his rough treatment had broken or at least sprained.
“Thanks for the save, Yang!” he heard Fullmetal say, and he tilted his head up to watch them approach, still more winded than he cared to admit.
“But we still have to stop his alchemy!” The echo in the older girl’s voice did nothing to hide the stress she was feeling.
“Right!” Ruby turned her thankful look away from her sister, and she glared at the man slumped on the side of the road. “You have a Philosopher’s Stone, don’t you?!” she demanded. They didn’t have much time, she could still hear the wall of ice growing behind her without even turning around.
Tukson’s face split into a strained grin. “What are you talking about?” he asked in a rough voice, still grinning despite his obvious pain.
They didn’t have time for him to play coy. The ice was still growing, she could hear the walls of the buildings straining as the ice pushed against them. “I won’t ask again, where is it?!” she demanded, volume increasing with every word. Starting towards him, Ruby realized that she was afraid. Forget what they needed the Stone for, the ice was cracking with the volume of a thunderclap behind her. If she didn’t get it from him…
“And what’re you kids going to do with it, huh?!” Tukson snapped right back, his grin widening. Ruby’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. This man had no idea what they were capable of, what they’d been through, what they were still going through. “You’re out of your league!” he yelled, his grin transforming into a triumphant and terrible smile, and a chill unrelated to the cold ran down Ruby’s spine.
The ground beneath their feet rumbled as he said this, and behind him the river suddenly erupted, freezing into a glacier as it did so. Ruby gasped, eyes wide in panic, and she stumbled back. Yang caught her before the tremors sent her tumbling to the ground, but both of them kept their gazes trained on the mountain of ice.
Tukson stood, smirking. As the glacier expanded, it tore up the foundations of the river, carrying debris up with it. With one hand, Tukson grabbed onto the railing behind him just as the ice ripped it from the concrete below. The ice lifted him off the ground, and Ruby stood frozen in horror, unable to tear her eyes away from the glittering dealy wall of ice.
“Ruby let’s go!” Yang yelled, tugging on her sister’s hood to get her moving. Ruby didn’t bother replying, just sprinted after her sister as fast as she could. It was all they could do to go faster than the glacier. She thought these things were supposed to be slow, what a lie that was.
As they sprinted up the main road, Ruby’s heart clenched at the sight of so many civilians and soldiers standing on the sidewalks, frozen in terror. If they didn’t move they’d be frozen in a more literal sense, but there wasn’t anything she could do.
In front of them, Major Port stood in the middle of the road. As they sprinted past, he shook his sleeves back and shifted his feet into a solid stance. “He’s all yours, Major!” Yang yelled as they passed, and he nodded in acknowledgment, keeping his eyes locked on the glacier rushing directly towards him.
The wall of ice dwarfed him in height, and it was still growing. “Witness the alchemic art that has been passed down through the Port family-” Ruby glanced back as she ran, and saw the transmutation circles on his gauntlets crackle with alchemic energy. “-for generations!” He roared.
Port slammed his fist into the front of the glacier, sending a shockwave of light and ice cascading into the air around him. A crater was blasted into the glacier, the damage seeming to halt it in place. Only for it to somehow change directions and veer off at a right angle, demolishing some of the buildings that lined the street.
Still watching over their shoulders, the girls skidded to a halt and stared flabbergasted back the way they’d come. “That’s… unexpected,” Port admitted, standing upright and staring at the glacier, voice barely audible over the screaming of the crowds
“Unexpected?!” Ruby yelped incredulously at the same time as Yang shouted, “What the heck, Major, you’re making it worse!”
“Oh,well I was just-” Port started to defend himself, only to cut himself off when the ground bucked like an angry horse. Dust and debris flew as houses, shops, and offices were demolished by speeding walls of ice. Even from their spot down on the street, the sisters could see other walls of ice sending up spikes haphazardly as they raced along neighboring streets.
The ground roared like a caged beast and the ice cracked like thunder. With the screaming crowds thrown into the mix, the noise was deafening.
“The ice walls-” Yang yelled, soul-fire gaze following the path of one of them.
“They’re connecting!” Ruby muttered, too shocked to say it out loud, too scared that that would make it definitely true.
“But...that would mean...” Yang said, horrified realization in her voice.
“If they all meet…” Ruby muttered to herself, eyes darting from one beam of light to another, mind scrambling to put together the pieces with the bare minimum she knew about the layout of the city. They were surrounded by them. It was almost like…
A circle. A giant transmutation circle, inscribed not with chalk but with ice, probably the same one Tukson had written on the ground of that alley. If the lines met, it would complete the circle, and he had the Philosopher's Stone, so Ruby knew he could activate it when it was done. But if he activated a freezing circle at that scale…
She drew in a sharp intake of breath and stepped back involuntarily. “Dammit! It’s Central Command!” she yelled, eyes widening in panic, and behind her she heard Port swear and Yang gasp, both of them undoubtedly reaching the same conclusion she did.
“He’s gonna freeze it over!” Ruby and Yang yelled together, voices raised from the panicked realization that they may have come too late to stop it.
Ruby’s eyes hardened with determination as they tracked the path of the nearest glacier. “Major!” she yelled, whipping around to face the man. “Yang and I will try to stop him. While we do, the transmutation circles-”
“-must be destroyed,” he agreed. “Consider them erased, now go!” The sisters nodded and the two groups parted ways, Port to destroy as many of the circles as he could, and Ruby and Yang to confront Tukson.
At this point, they were just buying the Major more time. The alchemic reaction was already in effect, if the circles didn’t get destroyed, nothing that the girls could do to Tukson would matter in the end. It was up to the Major now.