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"You're truly brave, Lieutenant Hawkeye."
Riza feels it in her back first. Cold in a way hands aren't supposed to be, although the black tendrils that climb around her legs and torso like ivy aren't really hands, are they?
"You're planning to gain as much information from me as possible, aren't you?" Pride's voice has a lightness to it, like her trembling, sweating silhouette amuses him. "Impressive. Why don't you join our side?"
"You must be joking." His shadows now caress her ribs with feigned gentleness. "What you want are convenient pawns, not allies."
Pride sighs. "Is that so? What a shame. Oh well, then."
Suddenly she can't breathe and she can't move and her already tense muscles clash against the dark restraints caging her. The fingers, if they were ever such a thing, turn to claws and dig its sharp little edges into her flesh. The one on her cheek slides swiftly across her cheek, so quick she almost doesn't notice the way the cut stings, but there's no missing the ever-familiar sensation of blood dripping.
Against all common sense, Riza feels safe for the first time since they ripped her away from her team. She's a hostage. Nobody can touch her. If they can't end her life, then she fears nothing they might do to her.
"Your threats are useless." She forces herself to remain steady and confident. Last thing she wants is to let him know she's afraid, no matter how much she shakes in her boots. "After all, what would you gain from killing me now?"
"You're quite right," Pride grants her. "Your death would be meaningless. We would be ridding ourselves of a very valuable asset. However, we could put you to… better uses than delivering files and filling teapots."
"Like what, exactly?"
Maybe her boldness is unfounded. Maybe she's pushing it, maybe shutting up would be the wise choice. But he appears to be as much of a chatterbox as his mother —is it even fair to refer to Mrs. Bradley with that title?—, so he might just give away something. She keeps talking.
"This body has its limits," he explains. The hand on her face cradles it almost delicately, as if examining her features. "Places I can't go in undetected, enemies that make me rely on others to defeat. There are plenty of advantages to being a child, but there are many downsides too. Soon I might just need a better vessel."
"What are you on about?" She mutters. "What do you mean 'vessel'?"
"Ah, the Hawk's Eye wants to know more," he snides. The title doesn't stun her like it used to, but it's still her sorest spot. "Let's make a deal, shall we? I'll show you everything you want to know, and you'll give me something else in exchange."
He could tear her guts apart before she opened her mouth, but if he is willing to talk so much, she should at least find out why. "What do you want?"
She can't see Pride's sardonic grin but she knows it's there and it means she made a mistake. "Your body."
Only darkness follows.
Roy stares down at the flowers around his feet. Just what was he thinking? There were about a hundred other ways he could have gotten the information from the woman without purchasing every single bouquet she had. He even bought unopened buds.
His pockets feel a lot lighter as he loads the glorified weeds onto his car. They get a little crushed, but oh well, what's a man to do? Just as he stuffs the last ones in the trunk, his mind comes up with truly the most brilliant idea he's had in a while. Is it really a good idea? No, absolutely not, but he likes it. He barely cares to shut the trunk before running to the closest phone booth and dialing Riza's number.
The line rings three times, then twice more, then three again. He taps his fingers against the handset impatiently and checks his watch. She should already be home. There's no way she's still at the office. Maybe running an errand? But it's so late. Why isn't she picking up? The line goes dead and he hangs up before trying again. Four tries and still no answer.
Did Bradley make her work overtime? He certainly wouldn't put it above him, but it's also so ridiculous he can't quite wrap his head around it. What would he need her so late for? Maybe she's already asleep. Weird enough, but he can't dismiss the option; her new job must certainly be tiring.
He has half a mind to drive to her apartment and check up on her, but he decides against it. If they'd gone through the trouble of separating them, they certainly wouldn't take kindly to him actively seeking her out.
So, with a car full of flowers and a heavy heart, he returns home and tries to sleep the worry off.
Voices, screaming in agony.
Ten, a hundred, no, several thousand pleads for mercy ring through Riza's brain as she… What was she doing? Her body is too far away, non-existent even. There's no floor, no walls, no up or down or left or right, just an endless void that threatens to swallow her if she sways to the side by even an inch.
It's not death; she knows what that feels like, and it's not this. Death is grains of sand on a rifle and sunburns on her wrists. Death is emptying a barrel to no avail against someone she thought had taken all she had left. Death is known, familiar. There isn't anything she can recognize in the swirl of red and black that surrounds her. She can barely feel herself as it is; the edges between Riza and Not Riza blur indefinitely. Memories of countless lifetimes swerve through her and not even a small handful belong to her.
"There is no use resisting," Pride croons. He's closer than whispering in her ear, he's in her head, sitting in the throne of her consciousness. "I will win eventually. Don't tire yourself out and give up."
A glimpse of someone she knows shines through and she clings to that. Kind hands encompassed in itchy fabric, a mundane pulse she's certain she must know by heart. It's enough to return her to her senses for a moment and that's when she notices the splitting headache that threatens to cut her skull in half. If she screams, nobody hears. Does she even have a mouth anymore?
Pride violently yanks the anchor from her and it disappears in the crimson sea of pain she doesn't know how to swim in. Riza squirms when the water begins to fill her lungs and her next breath is full of malice and arrogance.
"Sleep," he urges her. "Sleep. I'll wake you to see your friends die."
The sliver of awareness she retains allows her to remember what a Homunculus is. A fake human built around a Philosopher's Stone. What screeches in indignation at this piece of information are nothing but other souls . She's drowning in people, lives lost to selfishness. A few of them desperately flash their remnants before her: she sees families, some broken, some whole, some grieving. She sees gold in their hair and in their eyes that she's pretty sure she's seen before. Somewhere. If only she could bring herself to remember where. There are children, adults, elderly, all of them dead, all of them unable to let go of the world, bound by the devil's research to Pride's core. She didn't know such cruelty was even possible.
"Come on, Lieutenant, I'd hate to make you into one of them," Pride insists. "I'd like you to witness your failure, but I might have to skip the pleasure if you keep annoying me so much."
"Get—" She gasps. "Get lost!"
"Don't you dare talk to me like that, human ," he spits the words like poison and they grind on her like metal against metal. "Sleep, or die."
A new wave of hollowing souls washes over her and takes her under, tying her arms behind her back and closing her eyes. Riza doesn't fight it; she forgets how to. Someone once told her not to give up, but—
She can't pinpoint their face or their voice or anything other than the thrumming of the Stone around her.
Suddenly, she crashes to her knees. She has knees. Her arms tense and relax, then tense again. They feel new, fresh, and she reaches out in front of her to test them out.
Except it's not her. Pride is the one to bend her fingers one by one to get used to her body and her joints, the way they move and pop as she stands up. He stretches above her head, rolls her shoulders, cracks her knuckles, blink to disperse the fogginess. She tries to take back control, but it's no use.
"That's better," Pride purrs. "Now be good, Lieutenant. We have much work to do."
She sits at the center of the whirlwind of souls in silence, her strength waning faster and faster, and Pride spins on her heels to walk back a few steps to where Selim's body is laying, lifeless.
Wrath arrives home to find it in a quiet sort of chaos, the kind that unsettles him the most. A few servants swarm silently around the lobby carrying garden variety items, from basins to hot beverages. One of the maids holds Erika's hand and reassures her of something he can't catch. Even Pride and Mustang's woman are here.
He raises an eyebrow. Just what the hell is going on?
"Sir, thank goodness you're home." His butler approaches him, wringing his hands. "It's Master Selim. He collapsed and we can't seem to wake him up."
Hawkeye meets his eyes from across the room, and if his wife and entire staff weren't around, he would have driven his swords through her neck enough times to kill Pride a thousand times over already.
The little body the Arrogant had once occupied rests on the couch as if it were a mere broken ragdoll. Erika runs her fingers, , shaking like a leaf, through the black mop on his head. Hawkeye stands a little ways from the bustle of people, back somehow straighter than usual, holding a damp towel as if she actually meant to help. He wants to laugh and to murder. It can't have been Father's idea. Had it been, Wrath would have stopped them and called them crazy. No, this was definitely Pride and Pride alone.
"Excuse me," he grumbles and pushes through the crowd to kneel beside his wife. She sobs when she sees him. "Darling?"
"I don't understand what happened," she hiccups. "One minute he was fine, the next the Lieutenant was rushing in, calling for help and saying she'd found him unconscious in one of the galleries."
He glares daggers at the woman, who remains unperturbed. "I see. You have my gratitude, Lieutenant."
"My honor, sir," she croaks out in a hoarse voice.
So Pride has yet to grow accustomed to Hawkeye's vocal chords: he doesn't sound like her at all, but at least he keeps the formality. As much as he despises his son, he has to give credit where credit's due, Pride is an amazing actor. A little rusty in certain areas, but he'll work out all the kinks. He'd better, or he will have to put his mother through all this distress in vain.
Softly, he draws a small line across Erika's trembling lower lip and smiles. "I will go get a doctor myself. I'm sure it's nothing serious and tomorrow morning he'll be up and running again. Wait for me here."
She squeezes his hand twice. "May God hear you."
"Come on, Lieutenant, come along." He stands up. "I might require your assistance."
Pride makes Hawkeye's head bob up and down in a nod and follows him outside. Wrath refuses his chauffeur's offer to drive him and dismisses him. Once they've gotten far away from the house and there is no one to see them, he grabs her by the flaps of the uniform and hurls him into the nearest wall.
"What the hell were you thinking," he hisses, "discarding your old body like that? Do you have any idea—"
"Silence." The Lieutenant's voice is even weirder when Pride is not pretending to be her anymore. Dozens of eyes open, unflinching, in the shadow between her boots and the wall. "Who made you judge of my decisions?"
"You had a facade to maintain, just as I do. You can't blow it the minute it becomes inconvenient."
"If you are upset about mother, don't be," he grunts, fixing his collar and hair clip. "She'll be okay."
"Mourning a child that's not dead?! Do you think?!"
"Your fondness for the woman is concerning, Wrath."
"She is my wife."
"And my mother, and you don't see me fretting," he retorts, but his tone is bordering on remorseful.
"Father will not be happy."
"Father will understand."
"If he doesn't?"
"I'll switch right back," Pride shrugs. "It'll be like nothing happened and your wife will be happy."
Wrath ponders his next words carefully. Far be it from him to show vulnerability to his eldest brother, but with Erika, it's different. Pride can feign as much superiority and disdain for humans as he wanted, but he doesn't need any Ultimate Eyes to see through him. He cares, in his very own wicked, distorted way.
"You'll break her heart if her son never wakes up," he warns.
Pride stills for a moment. He blinks slowly, purple overtaking the Lieutenant's dark eyes for a second before returning to normal. "She won't have much time to mourn anyway. The Promised Day is coming. Now, didn't you say you had a doctor to find, sir ?"
There's derision in his tone, like the idea of working under him amuses him. Well, he chose that body, let him handle the consequences. Wrath takes off with Pride in tow to get a useless man to fail to wake up the small child that sleeps in his mother's arms.
It doesn't work, he realizes as the clock ticks its way to three in the morning and his eyes are still wide open. It's the first time since Ishval he has not known for sure that Riza is safe. How is he supposed to sleep in these conditions? He shifts in bed, attempting to make himself more comfortable in the hopes of tricking his brain into getting the sleep he needs. She probably fell asleep, she was probably working, she was probably out, there are so many reasons as to why she didn't pick up, why is he so concerned?
(He never got to see Hughes' body at the crime scene. By the time he got to Central, they'd already picked it up and sent it to forensics for the autopsy and then he didn't have the chance to take a look at it until the funeral.
But he's pictured it. He's imagined Hughes laying in a pool of his own blood, reclined against the wall more times than he can count, more times than he should have. Some days he thinks he died with remorse in his face; others, with a fierce expression of defiance against his killer.
He doesn't want to guess his last words, but he tries, sometimes. He's almost completely certain they were for Gracia and Elicia, although he selfishly wishes they had been for him. What did he say? Maybe he wasted them on something stupid like "what are you going to do? Kill me?" before he got shot and couldn't talk anymore. But no, there's no way Maes Hughes would have let his final words be full of hatred.
They must have been sweet, sad, tragic. Did he thank for the life he'd lived? Did he cry because it was being robbed from him? There's only so much guessing Roy can do before he drives himself insane.
Placing Riza into Hughes' position comes too easily to him. He doesn't want another empty call. Not again. Not her, too.)
Finally giving up, he gets up and puts on street clothes. He needs to know she's okay. Were they still in East City, he wouldn't have given any thought, but in their actual circumstances, it's just unwise to assume she must be fine. He can't risk calling from his house, because that one line is most definitely being surveilled closely, so he makes a beeline for his neighbor next door's.
A middle aged woman who worked the night shift at a nearby pharmacy, Mrs. Anneliese never minds opening even at the strangest hours. She greets him with a smile and agrees to let him use her phone for a moment. He prays Riza will pick up. It would be embarrassing to hang up and dial again several times in a row as the lady placidly watches him.
The phone rings slowly; it's an old model. He grips the handset in desperation. Pick up, pick up, pick up.
"Who's this?"
Roy almost gets choked up when her voice comes through. She's there. A little ruder than usual (she likes to make a point out of always being polite), but he won't hold it against her, much less when he's the one calling at are-you-serious o' clock.
"Lieutenant?" He can't just ask if she's alright. No way they'd track Mrs. Anneliese's phone, but no point in being careless. "So sorry to bother you at this hour. I couldn't reach you earlier."
There's a brief silence. "Who is this?"
Roy blinks. "Uh, Colonel Mustang?"
She hesitates again. Maybe she was sleeping and he woke her up, so her brain isn't at one hundred percent yet.
(He's purposefully playing the role of the fool at this point. Since when is Riza not as sharp as a knife during every waking moment?)
"Oh, Colonel." For some reason, it chills him to the bone to realize her voice isn't groggy or tired or any other quality it would be if she had been sleeping. Instead, it's cold and alert. "What is it?"
"I made the mistake of buying a whole car of flowers last evening," he says, not quite sure he wants to anymore. "I was drunk. I called earlier to see if you could take some off my hands, but you didn't pick up."
"Oh. I was busy."
"I see." Roy licks his lips. It's Riza, the very person he was so worried about just ten minutes ago. Why isn't talking to her calming him down and putting him on edge instead? "About the flowers..."
"I can't help you," she replies curtly, then seems to rethink her tone. "Good night, Colonel."
And she hangs up. Just like that. Roy puts the handset back in its place, but it feels like he's moving through jelly. Mrs. Anneliese smiles amicably.
"A lover's quarrel?"
Right, she's there. "Not quite," he fakes a smile of his own. "Apparently my dear subordinate does not like me calling her in the middle of the night."
"No sensible woman does," she agrees. "Unless you're me, of course. I'd resent you more for calling during the day!"
Roy laughs politely and thanks her again before returning to his own apartment. The whole ordeal took only a few minutes, but it's been ages since he left his bed. He lays down again, not bothering to change. Every muscle on his back is tight, contractured. It should have given him peace, but now the conversation with Riza clatters painfully in his mind. Something is wrong, it doesn't take a genius to see. Just what had Bradley done? He would kill the man if he ever got his hands on him. He's killed a homunculi before. One more would make no difference.
He manages to sleep a few hours, but he doesn't rest. When he wakes up, he's still tired and tense and dreading work. But he might catch a glimpse of her face in the hallways. That thought alone is enough to propel him out of bed and into his uniform.
Pride finds out as soon as he steps into the Presidential office that all that blabber he fed his mother about wanting to help his beloved father at his job was only half true. Yes, he wants Wrath to work harder, faster and better; no, he does not want to pour another goddamn cup of tea for the bastard—
Maintaining appearances is important, Wrath reminds him. His recently promoted assistant can't become a whole other person overnight and Mustang can't suspect anything had happened to his precious woman, at least not yet. If the first Homunculus, Pride the Arrogant, carrying out the measly tasks the Lieutenant had previously been in charge of is what it takes to fake normalcy, then he would have to suck it up and do it.
"No way this is more humiliating than writing reports about me at school," Wrath sneers, and at that moment he is very lucky to be the most powerful man in the country.
Hawkeye sits in silence now. The initial struggle had worn her out to the point her essence was barely a distant thought, but last night, as soon as she heard the Colonel's voice through the phone, she began wrestling for control again. She had been desperate, so much so her body reacted to her soul instead of his; the heartbeat sped up, the blood ran hotter, the breathing became shallow. It took a particularly gruesome depiction of the man covered in his own guts to get her to settle down again.
After Mustang's call, Pride tried to reach into her consciousness to see if he could draw out plans, tactics, secrets, anything. The result was the exact same as that time he fed a rottweiler a too-small piece of meat: jaws clamped over his hand and forced him to retreat. The woman was a wall. After his first attempt, she proudly declared that, even if her body was no longer hers, her mind will never be.
Out of respect for her boldness, Pride left her alone, relegating her to the farthest corner possible. And now that's where she existed, trapped but resigned. Or maybe planning a counterattack. He can never be sure with her.
Wrath hands him a pile of files to sort through, and he stares at them a little helplessly. It's not that he's not smart enough, it's just that the hardest thing he's ever read was primary school level. Mr. Führer was always prudent to spare the rest of his siblings the boring specifics running a country entailed, so none of them ever bothered. To be fair, he never planned to occupy this body in particular either.
Hawkeye chuckles. "Are forms too complicated for you, oh great Homunculus, superior being?"
"Shut it," he hisses.
"Is the woman giving you trouble?" Wrath asks from his desk, an amused expression in his face.
"Back to work."
"Good, you're starting to sound like her."
Pride seethes, but returns to the papers in hand. "Help out, human," he grumbles.
"If I'm going to be possessed, the demon should at least work for me too, shouldn't he?" She suggests. "Figure it out yourself. Or give me back my body and I'll do it."
"Incorrect answer."
Hawkeye's shrill of pain at the sudden pressure he applies on the edges of her soul gives him a slight headache. He supposes hers is still the spirit linked to the body, so whatever happens to her bounces on her physically as well. Never having shared, it sure is weird, but he presses further anyway.
"Cooperate, human. What's your signature?"
She whimpers but refuses to answer. He rests the tip of the pen on the paper and closes his eyes, hoping muscle memory will do the trick. It doesn't, so he tries to draw something from her again. Even in suffering, she gives him very little, only enough to know she signs with two loops and one line across. It's nowhere near a satisfactory result, but Wrath clears his throat to hurry him up, so he makes do with just her signature.
By the time lunch break arrives and his boss (Pride wants to gag) dismisses him for forty-five minutes, Hawkeye's proven bothersome at least eight different times. He is about to send her to hell and back on their way to the dining hall when his eyes land on Mustang sitting at an empty table filling out paperwork next to his stew.
She doesn't go off the rails upon seeing him this time, but uneasiness runs through her soul again. Her anxiety is delicious, how can he not indulge?
"Would you look at that? It's the Colonel," he comments, picking up a tray with food. "Why don't we go say hello?"
"No!" She yells. "Stay away from him."
"You really are fond of him, aren't you?" He chuckles. "And you haven't seen him in a while. All the more reason to have a little chat."
He freezes on the spot. For the first time, she overpowers him. She can't take the steering wheel from him, but she puts both hands on it and swerves to the side, landing them in a ditch by the road. Her hands twitch and the tray falls. The porringer breaks and stew splatters everywhere. Some other humans jump away from the damage, but he can't. Her body doesn't move and broth, meat and vegetables cover her boots.
"Damn you!" Pride roars inside his mind and suppresses her soul until it's buried alongside the people of Xerxes. She fights back, so he can't quite make her disappear yet, but he will. Oh, he will.
He manages to compose himself and bend down to pick up the shattered pieces on top of the tray. A scarred hand hands him a huge chunk.
"Are you alright, Lieutenant?"
This, Riza thinks. This is what death is.
Dying is watching Roy help Pride gather the broken ceramic and ask polite questions such as "were you hurt?" and "it's been a while, how have you been?" to mask all the "please, be safe" and the "I missed you" he can't say. She would have known how to answer to reassure him, and she would have also passed him her most recent intel. He needs to know about the newest (oldest?) Homunculus of the lineup, it just isn't information he can go on without.
But she's tied, motionless and powerless, stuck in one place, watching. Ishval comes to mind. She did a lot of that in the desert; peering over the barrel, waiting for another shot. Except this time, it's Roy's head through the scope (again) and her finger is halfway done pushing the trigger against her will.
A janitor comes by and Pride hands him the remains of the porringer. Roy looks at them (it's them now, isn't it? Two of them, even if others see only one. It disgusts her to no end, but is she really in any condition to complain?) with a slightly concerned expression. She wants to wipe it off his face. It's bad enough he knows she loves him —there's no way he doesn't—, she can't afford having him find out he does, too.
"I should clean up," she hears herself say.
"Do you need help?" Roy offers a little too eagerly.
No, stay away, don't come close, please.
"That would be lovely, thank you."
So he is doing it on purpose. He knows Roy will follow them like a lost puppy, because he made him worry last night. He knows once they're in the restroom and the Colonel tries to be a little more gentle now that they're far away from prying eyes.
"About last night," he says, cleaning the front of her uniform with paper towels while touching her as little as possible, "I just wanted to say—"
"I understand." It's frightening how Pride plays the part of Riza Hawkeye. Did he take anything from her she didn't realize? Are two souls sharing a single body meant to rub off on each other? She remembers his malevolent smile and prays against it. "It's been hard lately. With the team disbanded and everything."
Curse him for knowing so much. Roy nods and throws the dirty towels in the trash bin. "Yeah. I needed to hear your voice, to make sure you were okay. You made me worried sick when you didn't pick up."
Pride feigns appropriate coyness and changes the topic. "Did you figure out what to do with the flowers, Colonel?"
"Mailed them to Havoc, all tied together with a ribbon and a get well soon card."
"Fun."
Roy's chin dips down again, but he's lost in thought. It must be fate's cruelest joke to have her away from her own body when he absentmindedly reaches to caress her face with the tip of his fingers. Pride sizzles in confusion, but she can't bring herself to pay attention to him.
Following some unwritten, nonsensical script, her head leans into his touch. God knows what the damn monster is thinking, but she sobs to herself. What is he doing, why isn't he stopping? His eyes scan her rigorously in a way they never did before. Pride will report to the Führer, the Colonel will lose his rank, it will be over if he keeps inching closer.
Pride lets him. His endgame is a mystery, but she knows this will be the last she ever sees of Roy, and she just can't reach out, can't warn him, can't tell him to run, can't even protect him like she was supposed to, like she swore to.
Roy rests his forehead against hers and hisses, "What the hell did you do to my Lieutenant?"
The first tendril shoots directly from the shadows between Riza's feet and aims at his stomach. Roy leaps back, one glove already half on, and the attack misses him by a hair.
"I knew it," he spits. "You're not Hawkeye. Who are you?"
"They were right about you, you know?" Her voice turns metallic when she (she?) stops pretending. As she stands straighter, the shadows behind her back enlarge and it gives him all the icks. "You really are a smart man. I guess it should be expected from Lust's killer."
"You're a Homunculus."
"And you're too nosy for your own good," Definitely-Not-Riza replies without missing a beat. "Such a shame. You were going to make a good—"
"Sacrifice, yes, I know, so I've been told." Roy pulls the glove all the way in and pinches his heart finger and thumb together, ready to open fire. "Now let's talk about you, why don't we? What sin-themed freak show are you? Sloth? Greed?"
"Your guesses are insulting." Its eyes shimmer in purple. "My name is Pride. I was the first Homunculus."
"Not the first to die, but I suppose second place isn't that bad."
"Seriously?" Pride chuckles. "You're going to burn your beloved Lieutenant to the ground? Looking to add more ashes to your cinerary?"
"Let me ask her," he suggests. "Lieutenant, are you there? What should I do?"
Pride's expression contorts into one of pure anguish and struggle. Roy can't allow himself to look at it too much. If he does, he'll notice that, underneath the glower and the markings that climb its face, it shares Riza's nose and their eyes are slightly downturned in the exact same way. There was a day where he made an oath to himself to never let her get anywhere near his fire again. Can he even break it?
"Shoot to kill." It's her distinctive severity cutting through, but it's a small relief against the fatidic words. "Or I'll kill—" her voice morphs again into Pride's, "—you. Back down, human."
"You heard the lady." He snaps his fingers, guiding the string of fire to wrap around his enemy —that's all it was, an enemy, wearing a loved skin. He closes his eyes before the impact, but he still smells the scorched skin. "I have my orders."
And he snaps again. Lust had howled in pain, but Pride burns in silence. It's mercy, he supposes. If he were to hear Riza scream again, he would be the one to die.
After seven shots with no misses, he dares to look again. A charred corpse, somehow still breathing heavily, leans against the wall. The sparks of a transmutation flash red, the body slowly recomposes itself. He raises his hand again, an expert in making her suffer, but before he can manage another hit, the shadows grow and drown the entire restroom in darkness.
He stumbles back, looking for the sink to hold onto, but there's nothing behind him anymore, or in front, or below. A hundred lidless eyes flicker open at the same time, all of them transfixed on him.
"You proved a challenge, Mustang." He spins around, but Pride is nowhere to be seen. "Really, I'm impressed. But you're not good enough."
Roy snaps frantically and ring of fire after ring of fire is lost to the black mass like they were mere lights. The eyes follow him as he begins to look for the door. They stare at him in sadistic amusement, his struggle entertaining them.
"You weren't good enough to save that other friend of yours, the Brigadier General."
He sets an entire eye on fire. When that doesn't work, he punches what once was a wall, hoping to bump into something real and non-evil, preferably. Abandoning Riza here kills him, but there's no saving her if he dies too. The darkness sticks to him like goo and begins to pull him in.
"You were not good enough to save your precious woman."
Appendages of all sorts and lengths clutch his uniform and pins him to something. He tries to snap his fingers again, but he finds his glove shredded in two and out of sight, probably forever.
"And now, you won't even be good enough to save yourself."
Pride steps out of the shadows and his shackles strengthen to the point of pain. He struggles in vain. The Homunculus bears Riza's smile in the most devilish way possible and approaches him until there's nothing but a breath between them.
"Poor Flame Colonel," it sighs. "A wasted opportunity."
"Let her go!" Roy barks. "Take anyone else, take me if needed, but let her go home!"
"No, I don't think I will." Pride grins. "Die knowing she killed you."
Roy doesn't feel it at first. He has to look down and see it to notice that one of the shadows drove straight into his ribcage all the way to the top of his left pectoral. Blood seeps through the blue fabric, slowly. He exhales. The blade retreats, dragging something it shouldn't with it.
He has about six seconds to realize the wet thud on the floor is his literal heart.