Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Ed...ward.”

Every rasping breath echoed off the walls, wheezing, panting, struggling to draw into battered lungs. He could taste sharp metal—broken fragments of steel slicing his tongue to ribbons, bitter and salty and lacerated with pain.

“Edward... my... friend.”

There was blood spattered on the wall, dripping to the floor, covering the fingers of his right hand in a mask of rich red. It almost formed the shape of a creature, nothing left but a bloody stain on grimy stone blocks.

“No, big brother....”

A cough spattered more blood onto the cold, unforgiving floor, dribbling through his lips in frothing bubbles. Trails inched down his chin to drip into the dark pool with a soft plink.

“Brother?”

Her voice had been pleading, too. Distorted and warped, unrecognisable. Unrecognisable to everyone but him, because he knew the twisted minds that created these monstrosities.

“Al...phonse.”

A trembling, red hand that didn’t rattle like it should have clenched into a fist against slick, cold stone, nails digging into skin. It hurt. Bright blood welled and slid in rivulets from the edges of its palm, dripping down like thickened water.

“Brother.” That slightly echoing voice cracked, too small, and too loud. “Please.”

The rasp of wheezing breaths barely changed, another sharp cough cracking the quiet in two. The sound died into a soft huff, puffing from stuttering lips, chuckling. And hitching, it caught deep in his chest, fluttering in a choking spasm that clenched his throat tight, almost strangling him as a shudder pulled every muscle taut, bitter salty trails pattering off his chin.

“I’m sorry... Al.”

The trembling dragged between his shoulderblades, stiffening every spinal disc and locking it in place. His hand twitched and opened without his permission, splaying against the ground, digging into the stones, scraping it with a grating rasp that set his teeth on edge as they clenched tight, too tight in his mouth, in his gums, spearing through his splitting skull.

“I couldn’t....” He choked on sharp, raw metal, gouges opening in the stone, creating channels for the shivering pool of red. Choked on gurgling, bloody foam, unable to breathe past the pain tearing shuddering muscles apart.

“I couldn’t do a damn thing.”

Chapter Text

“Humankind cannot gain anything, without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.

That is alchemy’s first law of Equivalent Exchange.”

___

Two weeks earlier

“More creepy experiments, huh?” Ed skimmed the page, flipping past paragraphs. Suspicions of illegal experimentation, top secret, yada yada. “They never quit, do they?”

Though with Tucker still around out there... he wasn’t surprised. He had three guesses on where the escaped chimeras had come from, and the other two didn’t count. If only he’d managed to bring him in when he had the chance. Now he was running around free out there, making more monsters nobody could fix.

I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.

His grip on the papers tightened, and he stuffed that thought back down, slapping the report back on Mustang’s desk and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “And you want me to look into it.”

“Hmph.” Mustang’s finger tapped at the paper, his face about as unreadable as ever. “It was specially requested that I give it to you, actually.”

“Huh.” He flashed him a sharp half-grin. “Well, who wouldn’t want the Fullmetal Alchemist on the job?”

“Yes, a runt like you can get in anywhere without notice. You’re the perfect choice for a job like this.”

SLAM!

“Who you calling a stubby runt, old man?!”

The colonel only smirked like a cat, not even looking at him. “All the same...” his smug smile disappeared, and he regarded Ed seriously, “don’t get too cocky. You know better than I do what happened last time.”

Last time. Yeah well, at least there shouldn’t be Homunculi involved this time. He’d had enough of them running around making trouble to last a lifetime.

Slipping his hands off the desk, a scowl still fixed on his face, he waved dismissively. “I survived. Tucker’s not getting away from me this time. I’ll make sure he ends up behind bars for good.”

“You do that. And don’t forget to call for backup. Al doesn’t count.”

He huffed, exiting the office. Yeah, backup. If he could trust them further than he could throw them, maybe he would.

Al met him at the steps, peering curiously up from the street. “What’d he say? Do they have any leads?”

“Nah, just another mess to clean up,” he said with a sigh, stretching his arms and folding them behind his head. “Looks like Tucker’s still around.”

“Oh.” Al clanked along beside him, blocking the sun out. “Maybe that’s for the best. You’re still hurt, after all.”

“I’m fine, Al. A couple of scrapes is nothing. What I’d really like to do is get down to Ishbal.” He scowled at the street in general. “I’m sure there’s something we can find on the Philosopher’s Stone. Scar wouldn’t say a thing, but there has to be something.”

But thanks to Colonel Must-wreck-everything hearing about Lab Five and hightailing it to Central just so he could lecture them, and the disappearance of more State Alchemists, they were stuck here for just a little longer.

It’d be good to take care of Tucker, anyway. Though why he was trying to bring his daughter back after what he’d done to her....

“It was more than just scrapes.”

...

Ed stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’m fine, Al.” When his little brother gave him a look, he threw him a smile. “What’re you so worried about? I’ve been through worse.”

They headed back to their dorm room, and that was that.

Unfortunately they also ran into Winry when they did. And Hughes. Mostly Hughes was the unfortunate bit.

Oh no. Stuck with his hand still around the doorknob, Al looming behind him, Ed tried to think of some way to escape. Maybe transmuting a hole through the floor. That would be the best option, when he couldn’t step back without ramming straight into his little brother who was already about to run into him since he’d stopped so abruptly—

“Ed, Al! I was hoping to run into you two!” The lieutenant-colonel was all smiles, holding a scrap of paper in his hand that sent pure dread through the souls of everyone who knew him. “I was just talking to Winry about my Elicia! She’s getting so much better at her drawing. She made another portrait of me just today, isn’t it adorable?”

Said piece of paper slapped into his face before he knew it, the proud father acting like he was the one who’d drawn it himself and it was some kind of masterpiece that belonged in a museum. If he could see past the pencil lines directly in front of his eyeballs, he might’ve even been able to recognise it as Hughes’s face. But at this distance, he couldn’t make out squat. “Yeah... adorable. Looks just like you.”

“I know! She’s going to grow up to be a famous artist, I just know it.” The man practically hugged the portrait to his chest, outright tearing up.

“That really is good for a three-year-old!” Al piped up.

“Three years and three-hundred-sixty-three days, actually! It’s her fourth birthday in just two days, I hope you two can make it~”

That was the single-most manipulative look Ed had ever seen on anyone’s face, even Al’s. This guy was scary good at pushing people into things. Why did he always get dragged into something around him? “Yeah, well, we’re kind of busy. We just got another assignment and—”

“Oh! Winry! I just remembered, I left my coat downstairs, and my pocket watch is still in it. Someone might steal it if I leave it lying around—could you go grab it for me? You’re really too kind.”

Winry startled as his attention swung back to her, practically leaping off the couch. “Uh, y-yes, of course, Mr. Hughes! I’ll go do that right away!”

Well at least she got to escape. She was gone practically instantaneously.

“Are we sure she’s not learning Alchemy?” He muttered to Al.

“So, an assignment.”

In the snap of a finger, Hughes sobered, dragging Ed’s attention back as the man continued, “It wouldn’t happen to be something to do with chimeras, would it?”

Ed faced him, frowning. “Yeah, it is. Why? Are you investigating the same thing?”

“You could say that.” From this angle, the light glinted off Hughes’s glasses, hiding his eyes like the hand rubbing across his lip hid his mouth. “You’ve heard about State Alchemists going missing again, haven’t you?”

A cold chill trickled down his spine. “Yeah, but those are murders, right?”

“We haven’t found any bodies, not like when Scar was hunting Alchemists. Or at least, not recognisable ones.”

That cold feeling just got worse. “The chimeras that were found... none of them talked, did they?”

The lieutenant-colonel had turned away, wandering to look out the window. “I don’t know, and I don’t like that I don’t. Their bodies were apparently unsalvageable, so we can’t even take a look at them.”

“So... you’re not saying they’re the Alchemists?” Al sounded as disturbed as he felt.

“Why’re you telling us this if there’s nothing to it? Aren’t you supposed to be investigating Lab Five? What’s the big deal giving us ghost stories?” What was he trying to do, scare them off the case? Murders and chimeras weren’t a picnic, but more people being transmuted into tormented creatures like Nina—

“I thought it might be good to know before you run off by yourselves again.” The man turned to them with a crooked smile. “If you do find anything connecting the two, well... at least you know what to look out for.”

Ed let out the heebie-jeebies skittering in his stomach with a sigh. “We’ll keep an eye out. I don’t know why Tucker would be playing around with turning Alchemists into chimeras, though. That monster’s only interested in his own ‘project’.”

“Well, you never know. Desperate people do things you wouldn’t think of.” Hughes pulled out a stack of paper, offering it to him. “By the way, it looks like you forgot your report. You’re lucky I’ve got a spare.”

...

Oh, right, he had left it on the Colonel’s desk, hadn’t he.

Snatching it out of his hand, he tried to pretend it had been with him the whole time. Mustang and his stupid midget comments. He wouldn’t have forgotten it if he wasn’t being constantly mocked!

“Oh, and I put a little picture of Elicia in there, too! To give you inspiration~”

He did a double take, belatedly catching the photo tucked in right there on the front of the lieutenant-colonel’s daughter grinning at the camera. “...Appreciate it.”

“And don’t forget to come by for her birthday party! I just know you’ll get her a great gift.” The man left the same way they’d found him, catching Winry on the way out just coming back with his coat and giving them all a cheery farewell.

Ed listened to his footsteps thump down the hallway, whistling an off-key tune, and flopped down onto the couch, flipping to the second page of the report. It looked the same as the one he’d just seen, but it felt thicker. Wonder if he added something extra to it.

“What was that all about?” Winry blew out a breath, sitting back on the edge of the bed Al never used.

“He’s just bugging us about Elicia’s birthday. You know him.” He took a peek at the back. Aha, files on the missing alchemists, including pictures. Not that those would do them a lot of good if Hughes’s suspicions turned out to be true. He doubted they’d even look human if Tucker had gotten his hairy hands on them, unless he made them like his own new freakish body.

Wasn’t it ironic, that the only chimera that monster had ever made who hadn’t gone mad, was himself. Where was the equivalent exchange in that? It was fitting that he looked the part of a monster, but he could still experiment just the same. It didn’t affect him.

“Hello? Edward Elric?” A hand waved in his face, and he jumped.

“Hey, cut that out!” He wrangled himself back under control, scowling at Winry. “Can’t you see I’m trying to read?”

She folded her arms, giving him a look. “You were staring at that page blankly for at least a minute.”

Dammit she’d noticed. “Yeah, well, I can take my time if I want to.”

“Hmph.” She turned to Al. “What are you two working on? It’s not something to do with the Philosopher’s Stone again, is it?”

“Hey, I told you, Winry, we’re not interested in that angle anymore,” he said before Al could sweat too much in the spotlight, propping his feet up on the coffee table and tossing the file next to them, folding his arms behind his head. “We’re taking it easy for a bit, and as soon as things are cleared up here, we’ll find another way. No more Homunculi, no more dangerous stuff.”

“I still can’t believe you’re really giving up.”

“Not giving up, just changing things up. There’s gotta be a better way, and we’ll find it.”

“That’s right,” Al put in. “We’re still looking, we’re just changing how we look. And I know we’ll find a better way.”

Attaboy, Al. He closed his eyes, smiling slightly. Al might not have been the biggest fan of lying, but this way was better for all of them. And the fewer people who knew, the safer they’d be.

“So you’re staying here for now? Where are you planning to go after this? Because if you’re really heading down to Dublith then you have to take me.”

Ed rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah, Rush Valley, automail paradise. Wouldn’t dream of leaving without you.”

She levelled a finger at him, glaring. “You’d better not, Edward Elric. Otherwise you can kiss goodbye to me ever working on your automail again, and at the rate you go through it, you’ll end up on crutches without me.”

Why was she doubting him?! Of course they’d take her along! Maybe he’d complain about all the money she’d spend, but there was no way he’d bring her wrath down on him. Waving his hands as if he could dispel any ideas she was getting that he’d even think that, he tried an appeasing grin. “I mean it, Winry! There’s no way we’d leave you behind!”

“Good.” Hands planted on her hips, she glared at him a moment longer, and then finally, finally sat back again and let him relax. Phew. Crisis averted. “So when are you going?”

He sighed, kicking back again and staring up at the fan on the ceiling. “As soon as Colonel Mustang lets us off his leash and we take care of some things here. It’s just our luck he came up before we could slip away. It’s like he’s got a sixth sense or something.”

“Well... actually, he came up because he heard you went missing.”

He sat up. “What?” So he hadn’t popped up just when they were making plans to head out to the Ishbal region and track down Scar?

“You didn’t know about that?”

“I was spending my time getting beaten up in Lab Five, and when I woke up I was in hospital.” He threw his hands up in a shrug. “As far as I knew, he came back after it was all over.”

“Huh,” she said quietly, and just when he was about to ask what that meant, because there was clearly something she wasn’t saying, she asked, “So what are you planning on doing now?”

“Hrm.” He nudged at the file on the table with his boot and looked up at Al. At least she wasn’t asking what they were investigating. They should probably get out quick before she did start taking questions, and take the report with them, because he wasn’t taking chances with her getting a peek this time. “Guess we should start looking around.”

A cold droplet plinked from somewhere above, hitting him straight in the head, and Ed flinched, glaring up at the ceiling. The water was supposed to be in the channel next to them, not trickling down and drenching him.

An echoing ping from behind him told him Al wasn’t getting away without getting drummed on like a tin can, either.

“Are you sure we’ll find anything down here?” Al didn’t sound like he had a lot of faith in this approach. Or him.

He played the light of his torch over the damp stone walls, the beam glinting off the quietly rushing water below. A root or two poked through here and there, squeezing between blocks, but the pipes weren’t rusty, and it wasn’t the drains dripping on their heads. “Come on, Al, if you wanted to make yourself a secret lab to do illegal experiments, wouldn’t you put it down here? Scar and his people hid out in the waterways just fine. I’d bet my arm there’s something here.”

“I don’t know. It looks pretty abandoned.”

“That’s the point.” They’d already passed where the old hidden camp had been, and there was nothing left but junk and scuff marks. Still, there were plenty of places right under Central no one would ever think to look that a creep could crawl into whenever he liked without anyone noticing.

Like this door just here, unmarked and padlocked.

He grinned sharply. Jackpot. And Al hadn’t had any faith in him. Clicking the torch to his belt, he clapped his hands and transmuted his own open door for the two of them, slipping into the dimly-lit corridor. “What’d I tell you? Come on, let’s check it out.”

“I really don’t know about this....”

“Ah come on, you big baby. Sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get out of here.” He turned the torch off, since there was enough light to see by, and led the way down a straight set of stairs, more pipes trailing along the walls beside them.

“I’m not a baby, I just think we should be careful,” Al protested, clanking quietly along behind him. He fell suspiciously silent for a bit. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what Winry said.”

“What, about breaking our knees if we leave her here?”

“No, about the Colonel coming to Central. Do you think he really did come up here just for us?”

He scrunched his face up. It wasn’t something he’d really bothered to think about after she mentioned it, and it wasn’t something he really liked the thought of, or could find any reason to sound vaguely hopeful about like Al did. “It was probably just to keep us under his boot.”

“I don’t think he’s bad, brother....”

“Well, we thought the same thing about Tucker, didn’t we? And look what we’re doing now.” He picked a left that led further down, a distant drip-drip following them. Were they already in the lab, or was this just the front for it?

“Hey... do you think the Colonel was part of the team that found us?”

He glanced back at Al, frowned, and shrugged. “I don’t know. I passed out just like you did during all the chaos.”

Damn, he hoped Mustang hadn’t carried him out or something. He got enough of the man’s stupid runt comments without him lugging him around like a sack of potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes....

His nose wrinkled as a stink like rotting potatoes started to drift in on the edge of his senses. What the hell was that? Was there something decomposing down here? Visions of bodies and blood danced in his eyes. There was definitely something fishy down here, and it probably wasn’t going to be pleasant. This is worse than I thought. Maybe they’re just killing the Alchemists and dumping their bodies.

He clenched his jaw, covering his nose with his sleeve as they approached another door, rusted stains all around the edges. It smelled like death and the rear of a backed-up toilet all in one. Dammit, just what are they doing down here?

“Brother, what’s wrong? Can you smell something?”

“Yeah, I can smell something, alright,” he growled, breathing through his mouth instead as he used both hands to make another opening. “And I don’t think it’s gonna be roses.”

He stepped through onto a metal catwalk, inky darkness greeting him, along with the sound of burbling water, and... and....

He nearly gagged, shoving his face into his sleeve, eyes watering as he forced his breakfast and his stomach back where the foul stench of hell’s ass couldn’t touch them. It was thick enough he could almost taste it, and with that thought he had to swallow down another involuntary attempt at a heave before it could get out. Heurgh. What in the name of Alchemy would make that smell? It was like— like sulfur on steroids. Like everything rotting and foul in existence shoved into a blender and shot straight up his nose. It was even worse than the smell of blood and metal and sweat and burnt not-quite-flesh—

“Brother?! Brother, what’s wrong?!”

It was like... like.... Trying not to breathe, he fished at his belt for his torch and flicked it on at whatever lay over the rail on his right, beaming it straight down at the vaguely disgusting sound of splooshing water.

It was sewage.

For the fifth time in ten minutes, Ed dry-heaved over his knees, hunched miserably at the edge of clean, sweet, beautifully pure water. “You were... were right, Al. There’s nothing down here.”

“I think I need a bath.” Even Al sounded queasy, and he was a suit of armour who didn’t even possess a stomach or a sense of smell. “I think I need to clean my insides....”

“Can’t clean what you’ve seen out of your soul.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, flashbacks of unidentifiable sludge and— No, no way. No, putting a lid on that. He shuddered. Don’t puke. Don’t puke. “I’m getting Winry to replace my leg. And my arm.”

“You weren’t the one touching anything. I stepped on the catwalk! I’m never getting clean again! At least you can burn your shoes! And your clothes!”

He groaned. “I can’t believe it was the sewers.”

“They had to be down there somewhere.” Al sounded as miserable as he felt, the smell still clinging to him like it clung to everything and would probably never wash out. At least Al couldn’t smell. “I should have thought of that when we found that door.”

The door they’d reinforced into a wall in their mad dash to get out, when Al had barely saved him from diving straight into the channel of clean water before he could drown himself and save what little sanity he had left by sailing straight through the Gate. No one was getting back in there, and no smell was coming out. Ever again.

He fell back on the cold ground, breathing through his mouth, hoping he was imagining tasting it on his tongue. “I say we take a break, and a long shower.”

“Maybe we can look above ground, where the chimeras were found.”

With a groan, he admitted defeat. They hadn’t done that in the first place because of his bright idea, and look where that had gotten them. “Fine.”

And if it did somehow turn out to be down there, he was throwing Tucker into the river of crap.

Chapter Text

There was always a stink like wet fur and singed hair.

And blood.

Chips, pockmarks, and gouges in the concrete floor stretched to the horizon like miniature hills and valleys, stained with rusty red and darker greys instead of green and brown. He could feel it against his cheek, hard and unforgiving. Cold.

There was a soft, rustling rasp. The quiet pad of heavy paws travelled straight through the concrete, thudding like a heartbeat against his ear. Along with the soft hiss of a whispering snake.

“Edward....”

___

He was reminded why he hadn’t wanted to hit the scene of the crime as soon as they walked into the alleyway.

It wasn’t the same, but the blood spatters on the walls had still once belonged to creatures like her. And there was too much of it for just a couple of bullet wounds.

“How did they die?” Al squatted next to what could have been paint splashed on the wall, considering how much of it there was.

“The report didn’t say much about that. Just that they were shot.” The sound of traffic from the street outside always echoed funnily in these narrow passages. Ed folded his arms, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin as he looked around. “I might not be an investigator, but this is a little much for a shooting. It almost looks like....”

He tried to banish the thought of a stain spread across the back wall of an alley just like this, caused by the explosive deconstruction of two combined bodies.

“Like they were deconstructed,” Al said for him.

“Yeah.” He lifted his eyes from the cobblestones at his feet, stepping forward and touching at the edge of where the second spatter reached nearly a quarter of the way up the wall, almost taller than he was. It was exactly like that.

Except the only one who could’ve done this was long gone from here. So how had this happened? Had some other Alchemist taken the idea of a partial transmutation and used it for this?

The report didn’t give him the names of those who’d pursued the chimeras, but it had said they were police, not military, so they couldn’t be State Alchemists.

He blew out a breath, stepping back and staring hard at it, as if it would give him answers if he glared enough. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe... maybe it’s a chimera killer. Maybe someone’s trying to return them to their original forms.”

“That’s an idea, but...” He pulled the file out, waving it gently in his hand “...this report says the officers shot and killed them. So if they were here when it happened, then either it was one of them, or this is flat out lying.”

“Maybe we could ask the Colonel if we can talk to them,” Al suggested, rising and clanking over to look at his spatter.

There was a faint whiff of something, and Ed made a face. “Didn’t you take a shower?”

“Of course I did! I took a bath for two hours and Winry even scrubbed the inside of my feet!”

“Maybe I should transmute your metal to something else. You still stink.”

“Maybe you’re the one who stinks.” If Al could’ve sniffed, he might’ve turned up his nose. “Anyway, we should try seeing if we can find the officers who were involved. I’m sure they could tell us more.”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “But then I’ll have to see Colonel Smartass and admit we’re getting nowhere.”

“What about Mr. Hughes?”

“Yeah....” He could feel himself wilting already. “And listen to him talk about his family for five hours first....”

Maybe Mustang would be the better option. He mentally groaned. Well, as long as he could get in and out as fast as possible, he’d get fewer sarcastic comments.

“Back so soon?”

Sarcastic comment no. 1. He’d barely even stepped into the room.

And it was still strange to step into this room. Mustang’s desk wasn’t separated from the others in its own office like the one in East Headquarters had been, and it’d been three years since he’d set foot in it. Made him feel like he was twelve again, getting his State Alchemist pocket-watch unceremoniously tossed in his face.

“Yeah, your report’s missing some information.” If the Colonel wasn’t playing nice, then neither would he. “I’d like to talk to the officers who took down the chimeras.”

“I see.” Why was he using his poker-face now? A faint suspicion stirred in the back of his mind as Mustang idly turned over a sheet of paper on his desk, resting his chin on the back of one hand. “That might be hard to arrange. If you’d asked yesterday, I’m sure we could have set something up.”

Suspicion hardened into certainty, and Ed smacked his hands on the man’s desk. “They’re dead?”

“No, but they were transferred to a town down south just yesterday. Apparently both were suffering mental distress from the incident and requested a temporary referral to a quieter post. Convenient, isn’t it?”

A transferral? Slowly, he straightened again. He was right, it was convenient. A little too convenient.

“But I might be able to dig up a more detailed report in their own words on what happened.” The corner of the man’s mouth turned up. “All the essential information on it should be in the one you have, but I know how a small detail can change things. Give me a few hours, and I’ll drop by.”

That was suspiciously helpful. He hadn’t even made a short joke yet. Hm. “...Thanks. I guess I’ll go back and wait for it, then.”

Mustang waved a dismissive hand at him, already looking at something else on his desk, and Ed turned to leave. Well, at least it hadn’t been a total loss. There might even be something to this uncondensed report that would be useful—

“What’s that smell?”

The mutter from behind made him involuntarily twitch. It-it wasn’t possible he could still stink! He’d nearly scrubbed his skin off, washed his hair three times, run his clothes through the washer and transmuted them, and—

“Someone clog up the bathroom again? Havoc?”

“It’s not me, boss!”

Crap, time to get out quick. He hightailed it before they started asking him questions, disappearing in record time.

Guh, maybe he should burn his shoes.

“The report tells us they were first sighted here, on Forger’s Street.” Ed tapped at the page with his automail finger, glancing up at the street sign. Turning his attention to the street itself, just an ordinary road lined with houses and a bakery on the corner, he rubbed at his chin. “Not much to it. Only thing that’s significant is it’s halfway across the city.”

“Did the police really chase them that far?” Al turned in a circle, oblivious to a couple of kids in front of the bakery tugging at their mother’s skirt and pointing at him. Their mother didn’t look as excited to see him as the children did.

“It just says ‘sighted’.” He looked around again, himself, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary. “Could’ve been anybody phoning in about a strange creature, and then the police tracked them down after that.”

“Is there anywhere around here they could’ve come from?”

He unfolded the map a little further. “We’re not that far from the edge of the city. Looks like there are some warehouses listed on the map, probably for the freight station.”

“And you thought they’d be underground.” Al didn’t have to sound so smug about it.

“The freight’s next to the river!” He slapped the map down, glaring up at his little brother. “Who knows, maybe they swam down and washed up out here. Did you think about that?”

“Well, the simplest explanation is usually the best.”

“Yeah yeah.” He sighed, folding it up again and tucking it in his pocket. “We should ask around and see if anyone saw anything first. They might be able to tell us what direction they came from.”

And he had a good place to start. Marching up to the lady quietly wrangling her children back down the street away from the bakery, he put on his best grin and neatly stepped in front of her. “Hey there, ma’am, you live around here, right?”

She drew back, instantly guarded, tucking her children behind her and ignoring their whispers. “Yes, but why is a boy like you asking that?”

He pulled out his pocket-watch. “I’m a State Alchemist, here to investigate something strange that happened here recently. You didn’t see anything out of the ordinary a few days ago, did you?”

“You’re a State Alchemist?” One of the boys popped out around his mother, staring at the watch with wide eyes. “Is that your guard over there?”

“Yep!” He crouched down, sticking a thumb back at Al hovering a few metres away. “That’s my little brother—he likes to stay safe. You wouldn’t happen to have seen a weird animal running around, would ya?”

The other boy popped out, his eyes wider than his brother’s. “You mean the werewolf?”

The—? His mother tried to hush him, but it was too late. Ed tried to keep the grin on his face, a cold prickle running up his spine. “A werewolf?” He half-laughed. “When did you see that?”

“Sean, hush—”

“Henry said he saw it! Just a few days ago. He said he saw a hairy man skulking in the street, and then he turned into a wolf!” Well, the kid was sure excited about that. He couldn’t really say the same thing.

“I’m sorry.” The lady grabbed her kid’s arm, visibly nervous, and pushed past Edward before he could get a word in. “They have such active imaginations. We haven’t seen anything recently that you’d be interested in.”

Nothing interesting, huh. He pushed himself up again as they hurried on, her son protesting and complaining that he’d wanted to talk to the “man in the armour”. For a moment he watched them, turning away when the woman glanced back again. “Well, it sounds like somebody saw a chimera. Wonder who this Henry guy is.”

“...It wouldn’t really be a werewolf, would it?” Al shifted nervously, glancing over his shoulder as if the dead chimera would pop out of the ground behind him and use him for a chew toy.

“What, you think a bedtime story exists?” After Al’s little smug comment earlier, he felt just a little justified in smirking at him.

“No,” Al said defensively, “but I’ve never seen a chimera that changed forms.”

“Relax, Al.” He waved his hand, smiling at the notion of a chimera being mistaken for a fantasy. “He would’ve just mistaken the chimera for something else, that’s all.” Though.... He stopped abruptly. “But that might mean Hughes is right. If it looked like a man, it could’ve been a human-animal transmutation.”

“Then maybe... the chimeras killed themselves.”

He set his hands in his pockets, frowning at the ground. Tucker had still been able to make transmutation circles after he became whatever he was now, so if they hadn’t gone mad they might be able to do that. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it than that. “I suppose... but why would they do that to themselves? We’re missing something here, Al, and I’d like to talk to this Henry guy about what he saw. It might be able to give us a clue.”

And when in doubt, ask a shopkeeper. Or a bakery owner. He headed back towards the smell of fresh bread, Al trailing along behind. Now that was a smell he could spend all his time around. People should make perfume out of the scent of bread and baking instead of flowers or whatever.

“Why hello there, I haven’t seen your faces before. What brings you to my humble bakery?” A little old lady that reminded him of Granny Pinako, but less of a four-foot-tall midget, rose from behind the counter stacked with bread baskets and cookie jars. And were those honey buns in the back lined up in a bun box? There were apple pies and cakes, too, displayed in a glass-enclosed shelf to the side of the bench, with a separate section that must’ve been warmed holding quiches and—

“Um, we were just going to ask you some questions.” Al’s hand caught the back of his coat, yanking him back from pressing his face against the glass, and he yelped in protest.

“Hey!”

“Questions? Oh my, you’re with the military, aren’t you?” Glancing over, he saw her staring at his pocket and the glinting chain that’d been uncovered by his struggles. “Aren’t you much too young to be a State Alchemist?”

“I’m fifteen,” he said defensively, readjusting his jacket and flicking a glare at Al. It wasn’t like he’d been planning to consume the whole display. Just look. “And besides, we’re just here to—” how to say it without getting her to clam up? If he said he was after Henry, she’d probably think the guy was in trouble and cover for him— “ask if you’ve seen anything funny around the place.”

She was frowning at him, looking him up and down like she didn’t quite believe him. He could almost hear the ‘short for your age’ thoughts, and kept his smile on by sheer gritted force of will as she adjusted her glasses. “Well, there’s been talk of a strange creature lurking around, but I can’t say I’ve seen anything myself.”

“Huh, well we heard Henry had seen something,” he said casually, hoping that’d imply he knew him somehow.

“Oh, you know Henry? That poor boy, his mother’s so sick right now, and I swear he doesn’t get a wink of sleep.” She shook her head, picking up a couple of loaves and grabbing a paper bag. “Sometimes he takes midnight strolls to stay awake. I wouldn’t put it past him to have thought he saw something and spread stories.”

...Oh. He felt Al go still beside him, his own hand drifting towards his right half-consciously. Mom’s pale face hovered in front of his eyes, and he blinked it away, forcing on a small smile. “Yeah, I ran into him the other day and fixed something for him. Sorry to hear his mom’s not doing too well.”

“She’s a strong woman. The last the doctor said, she has a good chance at recovery.” The old lady smiled at him, placing the bag in his startled hands. “Here, you can take one of these loaves to him and the other for yourself. Growing boys like you need good food, and you’re skinny as a rake, young man!”

“I— uh, thanks.” Was that a jab at his height? He really couldn’t tell. Did calling him skinny count? He wasn’t that thin. Was he? Shifting the bag to one arm, he scratched at the back of his neck. “Er, can’t say I really know the way to his house, though.”

“Oh, it’s just around the corner. The old crooked house with the flowers wilting in the windowboxes.” She sighed. “He tries, but that boy has the brownest thumb I’ve ever seen.”

“Okay, thanks.” He started out of the shop, giving her a smile and a wave. “We’ll tell him you sent this bread.”

“Oh don’t worry. He’ll know. You boys take care now.”

They brushed past an old man on the way out, hitting the street again, and boy, was his mouth watering by the time he set foot on the sidewalk. “Ahh, there’s nothing like the smell of fresh bread.”

“And pie, and roast dinner, and eggs and bacon.” Al ticked off the list.

He made a face around the fluffy loaf already half-stuffed in his mouth. “C’mon Al, ‘ou’re makim’ me ‘ungrier.”

“You’re never not hungry.”

“Not true. Youswell was one of the best meals I ever had.” He tore off another bite. “I w’s stuffe’ fr hours.”

Yeah, that’d been a feast, alright. It felt like weeks since he’d eaten that well, and not just whatever the mess had on offer plus what they’d bought. Or hospital food. Not that the food was bad, but did they have to keep giving him milk? Blech. They would’ve been better off sticking it in a stew or something and giving him that. Who liked milk anyway?

They turned the corner, and he glanced up at the houses on this row, wondering which one fit the bill of ‘crooked with windowboxes’. “Hey, do you think there’s a way to make clothes smell like fresh bread using Alchemy?”

“Wait, can you still smell the sewers?” Al looked down at himself as if he could see the smell. “I even changed my apron....”

“No,” he not-quite lied. Most of the time he couldn’t, it just struck randomly and without warning, like phantom limb pains. Or someone nearby would abruptly screw up their face like a wet dog had just passed by. “It just might help if we run into something like that again.”

Crooked house... wilted flowers in the windowboxes.... He looked up as they passed by and slowed to a stop, still chewing. She hadn’t been kidding. This old place looked like a madman had built it and propped it up against the other houses pressing it in on the narrow space just to keep it upright. “Looks li’ the pla’e. What a shack.”

“They probably don’t have enough money to afford anywhere nicer....”

He sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I can’t believe this place is still standing though.”

Walking up the short steps to the door and devouring the last chunk of his loaf, he knocked on the door. “Hello? Anybody home?”

“Huh?” A voice came from above him, and he glanced up to see a teenager peering down at him from a window on the second wonky floor, a cup in his hand. “Just a second!”

The walls must’ve been thin, because he heard a bunch of thumping and banging and muffled words the whole way down until the door flung open in his face, and wide hazel eyes under wild dirty blond hair met him. Dammit, he was a head taller, too. “Can I help you?”

Those were some impressive dark circles under his eyes. Ed hefted the bag tucked in the crook of his automail arm. “You’re Henry, right? Here, the old lady in the bakery gave us some bread to give to you.”

“Oh, Mrs. Steward?” The kid blinked, taking it after a moment and glancing down at the loaf. “Well, thanks, but who’re you?”

Ed shrugged. “We’re just passing by. Heard you saw a werewolf a couple days ago around here. We were wondering if you could tell us about it.”

“The wolfman?” Henry darted a look around the street and then pulled away from the door, urgently gesturing him inside. “Not out here. You look weird enough you’ll make people start asking questions.”

Ed frowned, glancing out at the street for himself as he stepped inside. There were only some kids playing across the road in a tiny front yard and a small group of workmen smoking around a lamp post. “Sure, but what’s with the furtive act?”

“He could still be out there, and I don’t know who it is,” the boy hissed, checking one last time out the door, as if that wasn’t more suspicious than a giant suit of armour walking in, and clicking it closed. “If he knows I’m talking to military about it, I could get my throat bitten out!”

So he really didn’t have a clue. Ed huffed, leaning against a little table with a smirk and throwing a quick look around the room. The world’s tiniest and most chaotic kitchen/dining room greeted him, jars crowded on benches and shelves filled with a crazy mix of all kinds of plates and bowls and cups all stacked together. There were still some peelings half in the sink and a bunch of dirty crockery, too. It kind of clashed with the warm painted look and the dusty little cat figurines lined on the windowsill. “You can relax, he’s already been found and taken care of.”

“Wait, really?” Henry whirled around from putting the paper bag on the counter. The circles under his eyes almost made him look like a wild mask-faced cat. “You got him?”

“Yeah, we did, but we’d like to know what you saw that night. Just to line some things up.”

“Uh, well, okay.” He frowned, rubbing at the side of his neck. “Well, I was up taking care of Mom, and she was sleeping for a bit, so I went out for some air. I thought I saw somebody hanging around down the street, and you know, sometimes there are shady people around here, so I ducked into a garden.

“Felt kind of stupid, but... he looked kind of... sick? He was stumbling around like he was drunk, but he looked....” The teenager frowned, rubbing at his chin, and then tried to demonstrate by twisting his arms and crooking his fingers into claws “—wrong. I didn’t really get a good look at him until he went under one of the street lamps, and then I noticed he had fur everywhere and these weird kind of green glowing eyes. He didn’t have any clothes, either. He sort of stumbled, and then he... well....”

Henry made a grimace, acting as if to double over. “He twisted up and changed. One moment he was a sort-of man, and then he arched over and went on all fours. Grew a muzzle and these crazy teeth and everything, but he still had hair, almost covering his eyes, and a tail like a wolf. I couldn’t forget it if I tried.”

...

At some point Ed’s face had managed to make it into a blank mask despite the prickle raising the hairs on the back of his neck. What, was this kid a storyteller? His mind had to have been playing tricks on him—he looked like he hadn’t slept in days, after all. “Soooo, he transformed into a wolf-like thing? Are you sure he wasn’t already like that?”

“No,” Henry insisted, and did his whole demonstration over again, twisting his face into a snarl and crooking his fingers up menacingly, “he had a face and he looked mostly human except for the fur all down his arms and on his shoulders and legs, and then he kind of— he didn’t collapse or double-up, but he kind of twisted like his bones were changing shape and his hands turned into paws with these wicked claws. And then he was on all fours and ran off down the street like someone zapped him.”

For a moment Ed just blinked at the slightly-breathless, wild-eyed kid.

“I don’t know, brother. It kind of sounds like a werewolf,” Al stage-whispered at him, his voice a little shaky.

“I already told you, it’s got to be a chimera,” he gritted out the side of his mouth. “Werewolves don’t exist.”

“But chimeras don’t do that.”

“The report said one of them looked like a canine mix. That’s all it was,” he hissed at him. “He just thinks he saw it transform. It was dark, and look at him, he hasn’t slept in a week. He was just imagining things.”

Alphonse looked at Henry as he glanced between the two of them, and sighed. “Well, even if he did, it still must’ve been a human-animal transmutation. Mr. Hughes was right, something weird’s going on here.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this,” he muttered back.

“You have him in custody, right? Didn’t you see him?” Henry looked confused. “You know he’s a werewolf, don’t you?”

Ed opened his mouth. And closed it again. He had said that, hadn’t he? “Yeah, well, he’s kinda... dead,” he said lamely. “And he was never a werewolf, just an Alchemic experiment that combined a human and an animal. He couldn’t have changed like that.”

“You can do that with Alchemy?” Henry whispered, his eyes wide.

Ed shrugged one shoulder. “It’s illegal.”

Not that that had stopped Tucker. Or was stopping him now.

“Anyway.” He pushed himself away from the table, hands in his pockets. “Thanks for the story. We should get going.”

“Wait, hey....” He turned around to see Henry fidgeting, a determined look he knew well settling in the teenager’s eyes. “You’re Alchemists, aren’t you? State Alchemists?”

He thought for a moment about denying it, since that question usually meant trouble. “Yeah, I am.”

“Could you... could you do something for Mom? To heal her?” The kid glanced over his shoulder as a cough drifted faintly down the stairs, his hands twitching. “I mean, if you can make people into animals, can’t you do something for her?”

Ed turned away. “Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.”

“But—”

He closed his eyes, blocking out the memory of a pale hand weakly holding Al’s, his cupped underneath, the heat evaporating from it like steam off water. Leaving it cold and limp. “There are some things Alchemy can’t do, not without a cost. Go take care of her, Henry, and forget about it. That’s not a price she’d want you to pay.”

Opening the door, he let himself out, Al trailing silently behind.

The mid-afternoon sky outside was blue, dappled with clouds. Just like it had been the day they buried her. With a sigh, he turned his eyes back to the street, idly flexing the fingers of his right hand in his pocket as he turned away from the crooked house with the wilted flowers, wandering down the sidewalk.

They walked like that in silence for a long time, until Al finally spoke up, his voice quiet. “Are we heading to the docks?”

He watched a car drive past. “Yeah, we’ve still got some time to check it out. Might as well see if we can find anything else before we check in.”

They lapsed back into silence again, passing over a crossing. The houses around here remained crowded together, pressing up into the industrial zone around the freight station and docks, more workmen meandering down the street or taking a smoke break on a corner, probably coming from the factories. It was quiet, and it wasn't. It was just life, moving around them.

“You know, Al.” His brother turned questioningly to him as he spoke up, and he looked up at him with a smile. “We should go back there sometime. Those quiches looked good.”

“...You really do just think about food, brother.”

Chapter Text

“Al?”

Pale fingertips stretched weakly across the dark, blurred concrete, shaking like dry branches rattling in the wind. Their undersides were dark, as dark as the wet stone. He couldn’t breathe.

“Al... stay... stay with me. Don’t go.”

The hard floor squeezed his ribs with every useless inhale. So cold. He shivered every time it met his skin, his jaw clattering against the ground, teeth rattling in his head. But something burned inside him, crawling towards his spine—a fire he tried to escape by pressing his cheek into the concrete. Shaking fingertips dug in, nails clutching at bloodied ground as if that could stop him being swept away.

“Brother.” The echoing, tinny voice of his brother broke like shattered glass, the jagged edges choking his own throat. “I’m here.”

“Stay with... with me, Al.” His breath caught on a sharp pain spearing through his lungs, and the cough that broke from him sounded like the crack of a tree splitting in a storm. “I can’t... I can—hghk—c-can’t lose you... a-again.”

The fingers of a shaking hand twitched, the tendons standing out as it clawed against bloody smears, and he thought— he thought he saw shadows moving, almost in focus. Just for a moment. Shadowy hands, reaching for him.

“Please don’t— no.” His voice cracked, the numb agony of his left leg—gone, eaten away—nothing compared to what burned inside him, searing like molten metal up through his shoulders and digging its teeth into his right arm. “Don’t take him. Don’t take him. He’s... my little brother. You can’t— you can’t have him.”

“I’m here brother.” Alphonse was crying. He couldn’t see him, but he knew his little brother. Why did he sound so far away? Why did he sound like his voice was echoing from the end of a metal pipe? At the bottom... at the bottom of a well, on the other side of a gate, too far away in the dark to see.

“I’ll bring you back, Alphonse. I’ve got you.” A shaking finger touched the dark red of the concrete, spreading as far as the eye could see, his teeth grinding and breaking, cracking at the roots. Metal armour. He needed— “I’ll— I— I promise I’ll—”

The breath tore out of him in a dry wheeze, his lungs wrung out, too tight to scream, fingers curling taut into rictus claws, useless. Darkness caught the edges of his vision and set it alight, like a smoking reed writhing on the ground, curling up and crumbling into ash. He could only scrabble at the stone.

“Don’t go. Don’t go.

                                                      “Al....

                                                            h-hff hff

                                                                                            “A-Alphonse—”

____

“Duck down!”

“But I am ducked down!”

“Your ribbon’s sticking over the wall, Al! Go—” Ed pulled his brother down further, wincing as Al yelped when his helm spike clanged against said wall— “lower!”

“You don’t need to be so rough about it!”

“Shhhhhhh!” He hissed at him, putting his eye to a hole where a brick had fallen out at some point and peering through. What were those guys doing hanging around this old abandoned place? The only things around here were stringy weeds pushing up through the packed dirt and the sound of the river past the high fence to their right. It looked like it’d been a storage warehouse once, but now it was just a pile of crumbling mortar and busted windows, only fit for rats and owls.

The two they’d been trailing after they spotted them heading out to the middle of nowhere slipped in through a door that looked like it’d fall off its hinges if you sneezed at them, and he could see the chain dangling off one handle. So it’d been locked up, once upon a time.

“Interesting....”

Al crowded up next to him, trying to look through, too. “They went inside?”

“I can’t see anything with your big head in the way, Al,” he grumbled, pushing him back and watching to see if anything else happened. But it’d gone quiet as the grave. “Hmm... funny place to take a smoke break. I think we might’ve found it.”

“Why would Tucker need more people, though?”

“Well, it can’t be easy to wrangle all those chimeras. He might be able to control a bunch of dumb beasts, but I don’t think Alchemists would take to being his puppets that easily.” He pushed himself up, ready to leap over the wall.

Only for Al to grab him. “Wait! We’re going in?”

He frowned at him. “Well yeah, it’s part of the investigation.”

“But they could have guards, and it’s still light. We might get spotted.”

He did have a point. Ed frowned, fingering his chin. They could come back later, but it was a long way to go, and in just a couple hours the sun would be down, anyway.

“And wouldn’t it be a good idea to let the Colonel know where we think it is? In case something goes wrong?”

He made a face. “You didn’t suggest that when we were going after Lab Five.”

“That was because they wouldn’t let us go and we had to sneak out.”

He could almost hear Mustang’s voice in the back of his head, scowling at him about backup. And there was no telling what Tucker had in there, or how many people. He could have more murderers stuck in suits of armour for all they knew.

Sighing, he turned his hands up in a shrug. “Alright, we’ll find a payphone, call in, hang around for a bit until it gets dark, and then case the place. How’s that sound?”

Al gave him a thumbs-up, and he knew he’d be smiling if he could. Maybe Lab Five had worried him more than he thought....

Leading the way back, sneaking under the cover of the low wall that his head would appear above if he didn’t stoop—see, he was tall enough for that—they made it back to the street without anyone clocking them over the head, and began the hunt for a payphone. They found one tucked into the side of a factory, a sad little cluster of bushes making some kind of attempt at a garden planted in the tiny section of dirt next to it.

Ed flicked a couple coins in, and dialled up Central headquarters, going through the usual rigmarole with the receptionist to get connected to the right office and waiting while she called Mustang to confirm that he had the time of day for them. By the time she finally handed him over, he was tapping at the receiver, half-expecting the sun to go down before Colonel Snark finally graced his ears with his usual sarcasm.

“Fullmetal? Is something wrong?” Well, that was a little more tense than he’d been expecting.

“Nah.” He leaned lazily against the side of the booth, pinning the receiver in the crook of his shoulder and putting his hands in his pockets. “Just calling to let you know we’ve got some leads. Might even have you-know-who in custody tonight for ya.”

“That was quick.” Now he sounded suspicious.

“Yeah, well, got to finish things up for Elicia’s birthday tomorrow, you know? Hughes has been nagging me about it for days.”

The man’s groan was sweet, sweet music to his ears. “Not you too.”

“Heh, guess who’s got the better birthday present.” He smirked.

“Weren’t you calling me to talk about some leads?”

“Yeah yeah.” He didn’t bother keeping the snicker out of his voice, adjusting his position slightly to keep his automail arm from digging into his shoulder too much. “Okay, first off, tell Hughes he might be right. We’ve tracked a sighting of a chimera—the kid who spotted it thought it was a werewolf. Funny right? Anyway, we traced it back to the docks, and we think we might’ve found something at one of the old warehouses. Saw some shady types go in.”

“Done. What warehouse is this? Does it have any identification?”

He thought back just to check the information in his head. “Number fourteen in the old row on the north side, right next to the river.”

“Alright.” He thought he heard the sound of scribbling. Having to keep notes around already, huh? “I can send a team as soon as you need it.”

He pursed his lips. “Sure. We’ll let you know.” By that time, they’d probably have Tucker trussed up like a chicken, so there wouldn’t be any point, but the Colonel could stay on his toes if he wanted to.

The brief silence was code for Mustang narrowing his eyes. “You’re not planning on doing anything rash, are you?”

“Me?” He grinned. “The only rash I’m getting is from talking to you. ‘Kay bye.”

He hung up to the tune of Colonel Worrywart’s growl, a sharp sense of satisfaction sitting warmly on the cockles of his heart. The man hadn’t even gotten out a short joke, or a retort, or even a mild insult. Come to think of it, he’d been all business, really....

The smile on his face faded, and he frowned at the phone. Huh, maybe he’s coming down with something.

Oh well, he’d be fine. Slipping back out of the booth, he wandered over to where Al was sitting on a bench crammed into the small space, twiddling his thumbs. His brother glanced over at him, and Ed could imagine him blinking back from whatever thoughts he’d been lost in. “You’re done already?”

“Don’t worry, I told him everything.” He stretched his arms out, rolling his shoulders. “He said he’d tell Hughes, and I told him where the warehouse is.”

“Are they sending backup?”

He turned around back to the street with a yawn, his hands resting behind his head. “Ehhhh, we don’t need it.”

There was a very heavy, kinda suspicious silence.

“Did you tell him we’re looking around tonight?”

He thought he could smell something savoury drifting on the wind. Maybe there was a food cart around here, making money off the workers heading home. “Hey Al, we should grab something to eat. That bread really gave me an appetite! And since we’ve got plenty of time and all—”

“Brother! You’re supposed to tell him if we’re doing something like that!”

Crud. He sighed, and turned a reassuring grin on his little brother. “Hey, don’t sound so uptight about it. He knows me. I practically implied it. Besides, the phones could be tapped, or whoever’s inside the military covering for all those illegal experiments could be listening in. I didn’t want to give it away like that.”

Al went quiet, clanking along beside him as they wandered down the road. The sun sparkled off the bend of the river ahead of them, the rest of the street empty and quiet now that the workers had gone back for their final shift. It wasn’t quite dipping into evening, but the day was definitely starting to turn.

“I just don’t want us to get in trouble like that again.”

He blinked up at Al as his little brother quietly spoke up. “You mean like back at Lab Five?”

“Yeah.” Al turned to look back down at him. “We almost didn’t make it that time.”

He opened his mouth, but a phantom memory of searing pain and blinding light—there and gone like mist in the sun—made him close it again. How much had Al been awake for? “That place really spooked you, huh?”

“It was Barry who made me think I might’ve....” Al trailed off, watching the river as they came alongside it. “And then there were those scientists, and you nearly had to transmute them because of me, and....”

“Hey, Al, I told you, it wasn’t your fault. I.... It was my choice.” His eyes traced the cracks between the pavement blocks for a moment. “Besides, we came out of it on top, and we nearly got our hands on a Philosopher’s Stone. We’re getting closer.”

“We won’t do it at the cost of other people’s lives.” Al abruptly stopped, catching him mid-step, and he snapped his gaze up to meet his little brother’s looming, always expressionless stare. “Scar was the only reason we got away before they could force you to do it. I don’t want to be in that position again. I don’t want you to have to choose between me and other people. Promise me you won’t. If we get another chance, promise me you won’t sacrifice anyone else. Or yourself.”

...

His mouth opened. His mouth closed. How could he promise that when he’d give his last arm and leg if it would bring Al’s body back? “I... Al, I’ll do everything I can, you know that.”

“That’s not a promise.”

It was times like this that his brother’s missing face coiled a wire around his heart and pulled tight enough to cut. Because all he could see, and all anyone would ever see, was a metal giant about to crush something under his boot. And that wasn’t Al. He knew that wasn’t how his kind little brother meant any of this. It wasn’t a threat.

Well okay, it kind of was.

He took a deep breath, holding his hands up placatingly. “I... I promise I won’t sacrifice anyone. But we will do this. And that’s a promise I’ll keep, no matter what. Okay, Al?”

His brother stared at him for a little longer, and gave a firm nod. “Okay.”

Phew, crisis averted. He let out a breath, moving forward again. “Come on, let’s go track down that food cart. I’m starving.”

Al shook his head. “You eat enough for both of us.”

It turned out they were lucky enough to be the first customers of the evening. A couple of buttered, baked potatoes and pork sausages in buns later, they went back to their spot behind the wall to wait for sundown, and by the time Al thought it was dark enough, he’d left him to it and taken the opportunity for a nap.

The touch of a leather glove on his shoulder brought him to, blinking blearily at the scruffy weeds sprouting around his boots in the dark and with a crick in his neck. He stifled a groan, irritably working it out as he squinted up at the sky, barely a streak of sunset left and the pinpricks of stars starting to fill it. “We’re good to go?”

“Yeah.” Glowing red eyes looked at him and then turned back to peering over the wall. “I haven’t seen any lights come on, and it’s quiet. Maybe they left.”

“I’d be surprised if they bothered to announce it like that. This place is supposed to be abandoned. If it didn’t look it, we’d have heard about this before it became a problem.” He yawned wide, throwing his arms out in a stretch.

Rolling up onto his feet, he rubbed at his protesting tailbone and took a good look at the place. Now it was just a dark, square shadow with faint glints of light shining off the glass shards of its broken windows, and black as ink inside. When they’d come back earlier, the chain was still dangling off the door in the same position as before— not that he could make it out now in the shadows around the entrance—so unless they’d come out somewhere else, they had to still be in there.

“Alright. Let’s go check it out.” With a hup, he vaulted over the wall, landing with a faint crunch on the other side.

Al followed him more quietly than anyone would think a walking pile of armour could, like he always did, and Ed slipped into the darkness around the door. Edging it open just enough for his seven-foot tall and three-foot wide little brother to sidle through, he stepped into the blackness.

At least there probably weren’t any guards around, with it this dark. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be sure there wasn’t someone around who’d notice a torch flicking around the place, so he had to live with feeling half-blind until his eyes adjusted, the faint scuff of his boots against the ground crunching and grating faintly on whatever debris had built up in here.

Most of the room was empty, dingy and dark, but the windows let in enough light for him to make out old boxes and odd shapes that might be tools standing in the corners, a wide entrance leading further inside.

And here, there seemed to be an awful lot of equipment.... As his eyes adjusted, the strangely-shaped shadows resolved into slightly less strangely-shaped shadows and more like machinery.

He’d thought this was a warehouse. Had it been a factory? That there, that was a conveyor belt, and an overseer’s platform at the back, from what he could make out. Silhouettes of pipes and paraphernalia lay still and silent. There was only the sound of the wind whistling faintly through a crack in old, more intact glass—only the musty, dusty smell of somewhere that hadn’t been touched in years and metal starting to rust.

Damn, it really did look abandoned. He glanced around, spotting a roll-up door open enough to let someone duck through. So they had just passed in and out. What a red herring this was turning out to be.

“Looks like a dead end.” He sighed, turning around again and throwing a pointless glance over the ceiling. “They must’ve gone through and headed out somewhere else—”

A pair of lights glinted in the darkness. No, not lights, eyes. The air sucked itself out of his lungs, his whole body freezing as he locked gazes with a shadowy form perched at the back, coiled under the ceiling above the overseer’s platform, that hadn’t been there before.

“Brother?”

The quiet clank of Al’s armour and his voice shattered the spell holding them in place. In an instant, it leapt, and Ed threw himself backwards, rolling out of the way as it thudded onto the floor.

“I take that back! Maybe we’re on the right track after all!” He huffed for breath, clapping his hands together and drawing a blade out of his automail.

“Where did it come from?!”

A shadowy tail lashed, the beast coiling around to bare its teeth at him. It wasn’t easy to see much, but it looked a little like a snake with thick lion legs and a head straight out of something from a mythical beasts book. A Xingese dragon?

Ed scoffed, ready to move the moment it went to strike. “Looks like he’s gone from trying to make people, to sewing up fantasies!”

A sound like grinding rocks rumbled through the room, and almost before he could blink a pair of fangs sliced for his face. Spitting out a curse, he ducked back and twisted away, slicing at the side of its neck on the way past. Damn it was fast!

Al yelled, and the chimera jerked to a halt, snapping around like a rubber band, the ugly crunch of teeth meeting metal ringing in his ears. Dammit!

That’s okay. Leaping forward, Ed flipped up onto its back, stabbing down at its spine and missing as it bucked, nearly throwing him off. He can handle it. He just might get a couple dents, that’s all. It couldn’t get at his seal. It wouldn’t get at his seal.

Visions of that lady with the talon fingers scratching at what was left of his little brother, teasing him, danced behind his eyes, and he gritted his teeth, fighting to claw himself a handhold. Stupid— eel of a—

“Argh!” He rammed his blade down. Didn’t matter if he didn’t hit something critical, just if he could stop it from trying to chew through Al, who had one arm in its mouth and the other clamped doggedly on its tail. “You’re not making me repair him a third damn time in a week!”

It roared, letting go and snapping its body like a wet towel, thrashing. He didn’t have a hope of staying on, but he did have the capacity to carve a nasty gash on his way out, throwing his legs out and twisting to try and land on his feet.

If he hadn’t slammed into one of the factory machines first, he might’ve managed it.

“Ughf!” The breath exploded from his lungs, something popping. Thudding onto the floor, he wheezed, something almost like pain flaring in his side somewhere as he tried to push himself up, his flesh arm trembling and threatening to collapse. Dislocated or broken? Crapppp.

Someone called something over the ringing in his ears. Al. Just... minute. He hacked in air, stumbling up onto his feet—

And ducked an instant later when a dark blur nearly took his head clean off.

He yelped, the clanging crash of it colliding with metal instead just about deafening him again. Why the hell couldn’t this thing just stop thrashing around for a second?! It was like trying to fight a fish! That religious nutcase in Lior’s chimera had been better behaved!

“You wanna play this game?!” He clapped his hands together, the pure tone of his connection with the all and its connection with him, the one, ringing through his head. Slamming his hand into the machine at his back, he called on familiar molecular structures, the flash of light glinting off dark serpentine eyes and inky/coppery scales. “Well sorry, you’re about to play mine!”

Metal twisted and launched out faster than the snake could move, wrapping it in coils made of pipes and rusty cables, the sparking blue light under his hand flaring as he gritted his teeth and followed the beast with his mind, ruthlessly trapping it until only a roaring, squirming bundle lay on the floor, the tip of its tail lashing around. That should hold it. At least for a while. He could already hear the sound of stressed metal creaking with all those wiry muscles fighting tooth and nail to break out.

Huffing for breath and wincing as the step he took twinged at his side, he looked around, blinking away purple blotches. “Al?”

“I’m okay.” There was a clatter, and he thought he saw Al pick up his own head and settle it back on his shoulders. “It just dented me, that’s all.”

He puffed out a sigh. So much for not having to fix him up. Dents weren’t too bad, though. He could easily reshape the metal. “Well, we caught it. Think we can get it to show us where it came from?”

“Brother, you’re limping....”

“Eh, it just got a good hit on me. I think it’s just dislocated.” He waved a hand, holding his side as he strode towards the struggling chimera and planted his feet at its muzzled head, a hint of moonlight beaming through the window shining on its scales and glinting off its dark glaring eyes.

“Now....” He crouched down, returning its stare. “Are you one that can talk? Or are you just a mindless animal?”

It didn’t look anything resembling human, and it didn’t sound like it, either. His first impression had been an ordinary mix of animals sewn together into one tormented body commanded by the Alchemist who’d made it, and he didn’t see anything now to argue with that, just raging eyes that wanted to tear his throat out.

He exhaled, and winced again as his ribs twinged. “You’ve really pissed me off, you know that?” Gingerly gathering his feet under him, he planted his hands on his hips, eyeing the bonds it had already started to strain and distend. “I don’t think there’s much we can do with it, Al.”

“But if it does have a human in there....”

“Yeah.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I guess we can call the Colonel and tell him to pick it up, but I don’t want to have to stay here and keep tightening those bonds until then.”

“Hmm.” Al rubbed at his metal chin. “We could cement it in the floor! It couldn’t get away then.”

“Cement it in the...?” He squinted from the struggling creature to the ground they were standing on. It was concrete, made up of cement and sand. The chimera would have a hard time getting out of that, no matter how strong it was. In theory, anyway. It would at least make it a hell of a lot harder for it to break free. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea.”

Smirking, he clapped his hands together—

“Wait, let me do it.” Al waved him away, taking out his chalk with a little almost-flourish. “You already bound it up.”

“What, you keeping score or something?” Ed watched him quickly sketch out a circle with a half-smile on his face, ignoring the rumble the chimera let out.

“You might strain something if you do all the transmuting.” Al flexed his leather fingers and brandished them above the circle. “Besides, I hardly ever get to do this.”

“Ha hah haha ha!”

They both froze as the rumbling growl turned into a gravelly, inhuman laugh. Tensing, Ed instinctively brought his hands up and shifted his weight, almost expecting the sharp toothy smile spreading on the chimera’s scaly face to come with some kind of attack.

“It’s— it’s laughing.”

He threw a quick glance around, just in case, but nothing else seemed to be lurking in the shadows. Narrowing his eyes at it, he forced himself to relax, dropping his hands. “So you are a human chimera.”

It... purred? It was hard to tell if that was a laugh or something along the lines of a self-satisfied growl, a too-wide and too animal grin still peeling its lips back from its teeth. “You think you can contain me?”

His lip twisted. “Are you a State Alchemist or some kind of criminal?”

It grinned wider. “What if I said both?”

“Great.” Whoever this chimera had been, it was either cracked now or had been cracked before. Either way, the Colonel could deal with it once they’d called him over. “I guess that means you don’t plan on helping us.”

“Help you?” That glitter in its eyes was definitely insane. “Help you find the basement? It’s just over there. All the pain and torment you could ever want, yours for the taking.”

A flash of blue light cut off its ugly cackle/laugh, the floor rising up and dragging it down until only its head stuck out. Al stood, looming over it like he loomed over just about everything. “We’re sorry you had to experience what you did. It must have been horrific.”

That was Al, pitying even monsters.... No, whoever this guy had been, even he hadn’t deserved a fate like this. There was still enough humanity in him to hold a conversation and reason with them. And he was still alive. There was still something left to try helping, criminal or not.

Ed straightened and stepped up next to his brother, setting his shoulders. “There isn’t much we can do to help you, but I promise we’ll try.”

It stilled, the snarl that had grown on its face with the transmutation dying away to a blank stare. A stare that flickered and flared, its scaled lips curling until they showed mottled gums under the metal ropes binding its jaws, and a choking, wheezing sound rattled out of it.

A frown settled on Ed’s face as the wheeze turned into a laugh more grating and unhinged than it had been before. “What? You gonna tell us that’s impossible?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing. I’m just... surprised.” It kept that unsettling grin on its face, its eyes almost wild with a definitely unhinged glitter. “You’re so naive for little State Alchemists.”

...

“You call me a tiny little pipsqueak again, and I’ll seal your mouth with concrete!” He seethed, half-considering it, his fingers twitching. All it would take was a simple transmutation. He could bury that ugly head under and leave it with just its nostrils poking out. It’d be alive, but it would wish it wasn’t.

“I don’t think he meant it that way, brother,” Al pleaded, practically radiating longsuffering. “He even included me.”

His gaze snapped suspiciously over. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well I’m... this metal body’s even bigger than Armstrong....”

“Are you saying I’m puny compared to him?” He narrowed his eyes.

If suits of armour could sweat, Al would be a bucket. His little brother tapped his index fingers together nervously. “Well....”

The chimera purred, distracting them both. “What a comedy act.”

“Shut up, you,” Ed snapped. “Who asked your opinion, anyway?”

He stomped off, clomping deliberately over the smoothed concrete the chimera was buried under. A basement, huh? It had gestured in the general direction of the other side of the factory floor, so there should be some kind of entrance somewhere.

They’d search out this place until they found Tucker, and then they’d truss him up, gag his snake-whispering face, and drag him back to Central Headquarters where the Colonel could toss him in a prison cell or a lab to rot. Then they could finally get on with their lives and continue hunting those leads on the Philosopher’s Stone. Until the next State Alchemist hunter came along and the military begged him yet again to clean up their messes, anyway.

He looked around, peering through the dimness as his and Al’s footsteps echoed off the ceiling. The last thing he’d do was ask the psychopathic dragon for directions, but just where the hell was this basement? Passing around the machinery line, his eyes landed on the corner to the right of the entrance, and a door set into a protruding part of the wall.

Well, it was worth a look. He strode over, pulled it open, and lo and behold—stairs. Cracking a grim smile, he started down into the inky blackness. “Alright, let’s see what they’ve got down in this basement.”

Unfortunately they’d be worse off if they couldn’t see at all, since any chimeras hanging around wouldn’t have that problem, so he pulled out his torch, playing the beam over old, stained walls starting to get a little mildewy. No wonder, this close to the river. Whose bright idea had it been to put in a basement this close to a water source?

“It’s spooky down here.” Al’s quiet voice echoed faintly, even more than usual, and probably louder than he’d thought it would be.

They both winced, pausing a second to listen, but all Ed caught was a muffled drip from whatever room the beam was shining faintly into at the bottom. Continuing down, he kept his own voice as quiet as possible. “We might want to keep it quiet for now. But yeah, it kind of reminds me of Lab Five, actually....”

That was the last place he’d seen Tucker. The man either hung out in all the creepiest places he could find, or dragged the feeling around with him wherever he went.

Coming out into the basement itself didn’t do much to help that feeling. He moved out of the way of the entrance to let Al in behind him, flicking the light over gleaming pipes in the wall, a shelf glinting with vials and paraphernalia and old dusty books, and.... It paused on a glass tank in the middle of the room as he stopped short. A water tank?

Wandering over, he flicked a quick beam around the rest of the room, an even larger tank reflecting the light from the back, faint ripples dancing off the ceiling, and more wooden shelves of books. And a dark entrance to another passage yawning open at the furthest corner. He nearly stumbled over a paint can in his path as the wandering beam caught on a piece of paper taped to the wall further on, just above a box and a bunch of junk, a familiar symbol yanking his eye.

Symbols.... There were symbols everywhere. Sketchings of transmutation circles on the walls, on the floor. Were these... were these for chimeras? He recognised some of them, drawing closer to the diagram and skirting the mess of canisters and boxes littering the place. They were the kind he’d seen in Tucker’s study, in that room where he’d.... Where they’d found him with Nina. Transmutation circles meant to affect biological chemistry.

But the one on the paper....

He swept his gaze across it, his hand clenching into a fist at his side. “It’s almost exactly like the one I....” Glancing over the notes and points made next to it, he clenched his jaw. “That bastard, he’s trying to recreate the same array!”

“What do you mean?”

“The array I made back at the lab to combine the elements of the Philosopher’s Stone.” He turned, playing the light over the floor, but there was no sign of anything larger than the standard circles inscribed in the ground. “Just what does he think he’s trying to do? There’s no red water here, no elixir. Is he trying to use it to create chimeras, combining people and animals, instead...?”

But using it for that would destroy their bodies, condensing them down into an Alchemy-enhancing material, not create a chimera. The force of it was too much to do anything less, and it wasn’t designed to leave anything behind but red goo.

He turned back to it again, reading the notes more carefully. A powerful human transmutation array, but with a few careful, subtle changes of intent, designed to combine and condense the echo of souls within a body. To... to create a soul, a human.

To create a soul...? Is this how he plans to bring Nina back?

A low chuckle echoed through the room, and he jumped, whirling around, Al’s gasp ringing out beside him. Another chimera? It didn’t sound like Tucker. The light flicked all over the room, searching the shadows, but nothing met his eye.

The chuckle swelled into a laugh, bouncing off the walls, and he couldn’t tell which direction it came from, which passage they were about to get ambushed from. That laugh, though.... Why does it sound familiar?

“I told you...” A shadow shifted back at the basement stairs, the impression of grinning teeth and glittering eyes turning into a man with long, loose hair and pale skin stepping into the light “...you’re so naive.”

He was also butt-naked.

First the sewers, now this. What kind of bad luck charm had he picked up? “And who the hell are you? Tucker’s goons can’t even afford clothes?”

Even as he spoke, something clicked in his head. The way he spoke, the grin, even the eyes, though they were a different colour—he reminded him of.... But no, he couldn’t be. They’d sealed the dragon chimera and he’d bound him with metal ropes. And besides, chimeras couldn’t change from something so animal to human. It wasn’t possible. Once fused, they remained that way.

“Oh, I thought you guessed.” The crazy naked guy prowled towards them, idly running a finger along the side of his neck and flicking away a glinting droplet. Blood, from a wound on his neck. Like the one Ed had given the dragon with his automail. “I also told you that you couldn’t contain me. It looks like you weren’t listening to a word I said.”

“So he’s... he’s a....” Al somehow managed to make a gulping noise. “He’s a were-dragon?”

Ed threw him a flat look. “For the last time, Al, human shapeshifters don’t exist.”

“Then what’s he?”

The maybe-dragon took the opportunity to leap for them.

“Trying to get us to put down our guard!” Ed snapped, throwing himself to the side and avoiding a swipe at his shoulder. Did— had the man grown claws?

Crap, this wasn’t supposed to be possible! Not with Alchemy, anyway. He paced his steps backwards, staying out of range and ducking under quick, precise swipes and jabs.

Homunculi weren’t supposed to be possible, either, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his head. It wasn’t like he could deny what he was seeing, anyway. Couldn’t deny it then, couldn’t deny it now.

“Do you know who I am, little Alchemist?” Those teeth didn’t look human, either. Didn’t fit right.

He ducked backwards, neatly slipping around the corner of the tank in the middle of the room, just in time for Al to charge in and throw a punch at their naked dragon, distracting him.

“All I know is I’m gonna have to wash my eyes out.” He clamped the torch in his teeth, whipping out his automail blade, and lunged into the fray. “An’ fh ‘ou call me lil’ again, ‘ll kill ‘ou!”

The man answered him with another psychopathic grin, swaying easily out of the way. “An automail arm. That’s made of steel, isn’t it?”

Before Ed could pull back, hands clamped around the blade of his arm, and in the wild light of the torch, he could have sworn he saw fire in the stranger’s eyes. “Wha—”

Fshhss!

The vague suspicion bouncing around in the back of his head that this was actually that Homunculus from Lab Five—Envy or something, he’d been a little occupied—died an abrupt and panicked death when his blade burst into flames. Alchemy. Homunculi couldn’t do Alchemy. That was Alchemy.

His arm was on fire.

With a yell, spitting out a string of curses, he fell back, slamming his blade into the floor in a futile attempt to put it out, Al calling out in panic somewhere beyond the light of the torch bouncing across the ground. Crap crap crap— what the hell had he done?!

Water. He needed water. Lurching up onto his feet, he slammed his arm through the wall of the tank at the back, the glass crashing under his burning blade and his fist and a wave of cold spray dousing him. Plus an explosion of spitting, white-hot steam that instantly billowed out in a cloud of fog.

It also didn’t put out the fire.

He screamed incoherently, waving it frantically, the shrieking part of his brain yelling at him to yank the arm out and hurl it across the room to get the damn thing away from him. Why the hell wouldn’t it—?!

Metal. Impossibly hot, burning metal scorching his face and threatening to singe his eyebrows even with just the blade on fire; couldn’t be put out with water. Aluminium. Iron.

Thermite?

Aluminium and iron oxide. Please let it be aluminium and iron oxide. He slammed his hands together, hissing at the scorching heat, and called on the metal of his arm, shifting it back to steel and reforming it as a forearm plate covering the damage in a flash of blue and orange sparks that left him blinded.

For a second he just leaned against the cracked tank, water swirling around his feet, his heart still thundering in his ears, and panted for breath. Dammit, who was this nutcase? Transmuting his blade into an explosive compound and setting it on fire— was he insane?

The sounds of fighting and mad cackling that probably proved him right forced his attention back to the fight. And his brain back from mindless panic to focused panic.

Oh hell. Al. Al’s armour was already made of iron. Tearing off his left hand’s scorched glove, ridiculously grateful it didn’t have any polymers in it, he dashed across the room to where his little brother fended off the whatever-he-was, those shadowy hands reaching out to clap around Al’s arm. And he was too slow— too slow—

“Al!” Gritting his teeth, he booted one of the stray paint cans throwing long shadows across the room, and the man stumbled just enough for Al to whip out of the way as it glanced off his hip. His brother pressed the advantage, slamming a fist across his jaw, and the Alchemist reeled back in time to meet Ed’s foot.

The nutcase stumbled back, ducking away from Al and backing off, his shoulders shaking in the wonky light and dark shadows making his grin somehow even crazier. “Ahaha! Hahahahaha!”

Throwing his head back and laughing like he belonged in an asylum, the man licked at a trickle of blood oozing down from his nose like a psychotic snake. “You’d make a perfect fireworks display, but unfortunately I’m not allowed to use you. It’s a real shame.”

Ed clenched his jaw, settling back into a ready stance, his eyes flashing. Yeah, this guy was crazy alright. “And why are you attacking us in the first place? Who the hell are you?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.” Wild hair half-hiding his insane grin, the man slowly drew a finger that shouldn’t be that sharp down his wrist, a dark line forming. What the hell? Casually, he collected it in his hand like he was taking water from a tap, and the fizz of Alchemy sputtered in his palm. In one quick movement, he flicked his own blood at the side of the smaller water tank.

“I’m the Crimson Alchemist.”

And a titanic boom split the air.

Chapter Text

Ed coughed out what felt like a lungful of dust, a trickle of warm wet itching down his forehead. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up on an arm that threatened to let him back down again, fuzzily trying to figure out a bunch of sliding, melting-together shadows all lit at a strange angle. Had he passed out? Didn’t think so, just stunned for a second.

Where... where’s my other arm? He tried to pinpoint the pressure wedged against his right shoulder, some sort of sound pinging faintly at him. Wait, why was it so quiet? All he could remember was that massive bang, and his ears felt like someone had plugged them with wool, ringing and echoing and practically deaf. Deafened. Dammit.

One of the shadows shifted, and his vision managed to pull into focus on a pair of glinting animal eyes, like a cat’s, looking down at him from a bipedal silhouette as it strode through the clearing smog. The Crimson Alchemist. Wasn’t he supposed to be an expert in creating Alchemical explosions? He couldn’t claim to know much about him, but he hadn’t lived under a rock. The man’s crimes in the Ishbal war had landed him in prison. He’d been executed.

“Looks like... another one they missed. Guess you were in Lab Five too.” He coughed, finally managing to figure out that his right arm had wound up underneath him, propping him up. Had any of what he’d said even been intelligible? It sounded like mush to him.

Fumbling his uncoordinated way to his knees, he nearly fell flat on his face again, choking on the abrupt pain spiking in his ribs. Gh, getting flung back by that explosion had set him right below square one. Holding his side, he stumbled up onto his feet, not daring to take his eyes off the mass murderer.

Where’s Al? That explosion shouldn’t have taken him out. He stomped down on a spike of panic that whispered his little brother’s seal might have been damaged. Al had taken hits worse than that and managed just fine. A little blast wasn’t going to be what killed him. Not like this.

The Crimson Alchemist’s mouth moved, and Ed couldn’t make out anything but a burble. Not that he was going to bother trying to figure it out, anyway. Just meant fewer psychotic ravings to deal with if he couldn’t hear them.

He took his hand away from his side and clapped both together, grinding his teeth. Now that his ribs had decided to speak up, he could feel a sting on his forehead and a bunch of tender spots—old injuries and new bruises—bleeding through all the adrenaline. But compared to everything else he’d ever been through, it may as well have been just a couple scratches.

The chimera/Alchemist smirked at him, standing there like he held all the cards. Well, he didn’t hold this one.

Slamming his hand back against the wall, teeth gritted, Ed threw a stone fist straight at the man’s face in a flash of blue sparks that left him briefly blind as well as deaf.

Which in hindsight was a terrible idea. But in his defence, he might’ve still been fuzzy.

He jerked back when something flashed through the purple blotches straight at him, sharp edges passing inches from his nose. Dammit! Purely by instinct, he ducked and skipped to the side, staying out of the way of that hazy, probably laughing shadow trying its best to eviscerate him. The war must’ve screwed up the psychopath’s head, and being transmuted into a chimera could only have made it worse.

We’ve gotta get out of here. Where the hell was Al?! Backpedaling out of range, he threw a glance around what he could see with the torch he’d dropped throwing crazy shapes everywhere. Giant suit of armour, nowhere to be seen. A seven-foot-tall behemoth shouldn’t be—

He tripped over something, and the hiss of sharp edges cut through his bangs a hair from his head. Too close.

Hitting the ground drove the breath out of him, fire flaring up through his ribs, and he tried to throw his battered body into rolling to the side. Only for a foot to casually pin his right arm down at the metal bicep. “Ughk!”

“—t so— st— tt— Alch— mist.”

He clenched his teeth. Definitely having nightmares about naked, half-scaled psychopaths with glinting cat’s eyes hunting him down after this. But he wouldn’t go down that easy. He wouldn’t lose it like he had when he was twelve and terrified; he wasn’t that inexperienced kid anymore.

Twisting, he slapped his left hand against his right and planted it on the floor, shooting a simple pillar up and forcing the man to step away. This time he definitely heard the laugh, bouncing oddly in his ears as he rolled and scrambled back, stumbling up onto his feet and inadvertently smacking his shoulderblades back against the wall as his legs threatened to buckle.

Wheezing for air was like breathing fire, his vision blurring and darkening at the edges for a second with the ringing pressure abruptly squeezing his skull. Dammit, if he’d gotten a concussion—

He ground his teeth together, forcing himself to shove off the wall and duck under the madman’s swing, dashing straight past him. “Al! Al, where are you?!”

Snatching up the fallen torch, he flashed it around the room, the beam flicking like a lightning flash over water and glittering shards of glass, debris everywhere. And a mound of metal on the other side of the room past the remains of the tank. A still, unmoving mound of metal.

His heart dropped into his boots and his lungs tangled at the back of his throat for the split second before the suit of armour pushed awkwardly up on an arm and red soulfire eyes met his. “Br— ther! —tch— t!”

A shadow caught the corner of his eye and he ducked instinctively, glinting teeth and claws flashing in a twisted snapshot above him. Sh—

He dodged just a moment too slow to avoid one or the other grazing his cheekbone.

“Ack!” His ribs screaming in protest, he slammed away another hit with his right arm, clenched the torch in his teeth, and flipped back, kicking his foot up to ward the chimera away. Leaping backwards up onto the remains of the tank, he felt glass crunch under his boots.

Things were getting too close. If Al hadn’t already gotten up, he must’ve been damaged. He had to find a way to get this creep off his tail long enough to assess it, fix him, and get the hell out of there.

Hell, he’d almost welcome backup at this point! Winding up in over his head and losing these battles was starting to get old.

“Grhhg!” He clapped his hands together and transmuted the loose glass in the room just as the chimera leapt after him, pulling it into a thick wall in front of him the man bounced right off. Hope he got a broken nose. Bastard.

Huffing for breath, he hopped down and skidded to Al’s side, snatching out the torch and illuminating the worryingly muddled shadow of his brother. No wonder he couldn’t move properly, his side looked like someone had taken a giant mallet and caved the metal in, his right leg was disjointed and buckled, and his arm was hanging at the elbow like it had been partially disconnected. It also had a shard of metal jutting out of the forearm that might have made his stomach twist even if his little brother wasn’t capable of feeling it and a suit of armour couldn’t bleed.

“Al!” His brother said something that rang in his ears as Ed dropped to his knees and set the torch on the ground to clap his hands together. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix you up.”

He’d just moved to reach out and place his hands on the armour when his brother’s arm swung out and knocked him to the side.

“Ghf!” He nearly cried out as his side flared with pain, thudding into the wet ground. What the—?! His eyes flew wide as something more scaled than human crouching over Al launched straight at him, a mouthful of sharp teeth snapping right at his head. Why couldn’t the bastard just quit?!

Desperately, he kicked his feet up, catching it on the jaw and redirecting those teeth over his head to crash into the twisted remains of the small tank. Only for one of its hind legs to stamp straight down on him.

He twisted aside at the last second, the clawed foot off-centre anyway and only scraping off his automail arm. At least the stubby tail wasn’t long enough to whip properly at him yet, even if it damn well tried. The rest of this insanity was enough.

Throwing himself out of swiping and snapping range, he dove back for Al, already clapping his hands together. Not enough time to make things perfect, but if he could just get him on his feet again—

With a smack, stars exploded through his vision.

He barely felt the impact as he collided with something, an ugly crack resonating straight through him that the pain didn’t match up with. Oh goddammit he’d broken something. What— what’d hit him?

He tried to figure out where his limbs were, a hand he couldn’t feel slipping out from under him, and flinched as something heavy thudded off his shoulder. A hiss of pain escaped between his teeth, and his eyes matched up with skewed pages and a hard cover. A book? The wooden bookcase. He must’ve crashed into it. Hopefully the crack had just been wood breaking, and not his bones.

“Ed! Br— r!”

The flicking tip of a long shadow backlit by a half-buried light caught his eye as he gritted his teeth and tried again to push himself off the ground. So much for the tail not being long enough. Must’ve caught him. Crap.

I have to get to him. Have to get out of here. He could taste blood, his mouth throbbing along with his head and the rest of him, his arm shaking and failing miserably to prop him up. It gave out before his automail did, metal fingers pushing uselessly at slick concrete. No. No.

He choked on a frustrated growl, slamming his back up against the bookcase by sheer grit alone as jaws full of teeth glinted open ahead of him, fuzzing in and out. Was it a grin or a snarl? He thought he could hear a purr or a growl bouncing from one end of his ringing skull to the other, maybe a laugh, the chimera’s dark scaly body coiling up to pounce on him like a cat on a stunned mouse. Dammit, his body wouldn’t move.

No, this isn’t how it ends. His legs slipped on slick ground, his shaking flesh hand gripping around a rough wooden shelf with white knuckles, his pulse pounding in his throat, in his ears. I can’t leave Al like this. Not to do it alone. I promised.

So many broken and unfulfilled promises. Dammit. His shaking right leg couldn’t hold his weight and his left lost its grip when it caved, the impact jarring every injury in his body. His throat felt as dry as that damn desert out East. Dammit!

Just as the dragon’s tension snapped like a rubber band, he gave up and slammed his hands together, desperately reaching for the concrete ground.

He wasn’t fast enough.

Scaly paws crushed him back, wood definitely splintering under him, the breath in his lungs pushed out by a force like a truck. Black squeezed the corners of his vision, narrowing it down to dark, fiery eyes and fangs longer than his fingers.

Twisting, he tried to kick up at its underbelly, an impact ringing up to his stump, but it didn’t flinch. No more explosions, no more ravings, just an animalistic desire to bite the life out of him. I’m going to die.

Its head snapped down, and he instinctively gritted his teeth, slamming his eyes shut. I’m sorry Al—

Why... the hell... did his head hurt so much?

Hazy memories of some sickness that had knocked him flat for a couple days swam around in the screaming soup of his brain, sliding from one end to the other like water swilling across the deck of a ship in a storm. Somehow that thought made his stomach pitch just as much as if he really was on said ship. Was... was he? Can’t... remember. It felt like the ground underneath him was rocking. Back and forth, up and down.

He groaned, feeling his distant body curl up as if he was controlling it with puppet strings. Hurt too much to try and get up and make it to a bathroom. Just had to ride it out.

Ride it out.... All the black waves crowding up in his skull and pulling him down....

Couldn’t remember... but he thought—

Shouldn’t I be dead?

This wasn’t the gateway. Wasn’t the other side of it. Wouldn’t he know? He’d been there before, and come back....

It wasn’t dark like this. His body hadn’t felt as real as this. But no, he hadn’t been there, on the other side, had he? He hadn’t lost his body, only Al had. He wasn’t dead, he hadn’t died, how could he know what lay beyond it for those who had? Only madness and too much knowledge for one tiny mortal mind to comprehend, dark hands clinging to him and trying to break him down into pieces, only to be spat out again like a lemon in the mouth of a toddler....

Fever dreams and pain in his arm and leg. Pains that were there and weren’t there, crackling like fire through his nerves as they put the ports in and he shook with a fever for days, his head pounding and his mouth dry as that damned sandy desert.... Why did the desert matter? It didn’t. He didn’t think it did. Unless it was just a dream while he lay there suffering through the pain.

But he wasn’t there now. Everything couldn’t have been a dream. A desert and a shattered red stone and a girl with tears in her eyes, her face like Winry’s. No, not like Winry’s. Darker, with pink streaks in her hair. And two strong legs. Get up and walk.

Damn, his head hurt too much to think. He felt too nauseous to try and think. Hadn’t there been a ship? No, no that wasn’t right.

He gritted his teeth and instantly regretted it, a hiss escaping him as he cradled his aching skull, one hand cool and the other like an icepack. Where was this? What had happened? Something like a muddled dream clanged insistently at the back of his mind, about dragons and chimeras and—

Tucker. We were looking for Tucker. Bastard’s been going around making human chimeras. A dragon that talked, that wasn’t a dragon but was a dragon, and an Alchemist, spitting fire and explosions. No, it didn’t breathe fire. Did it? There had been an explosion; he must’ve blacked out.

He mentally swore. Al! What had happened to him? He’d been damaged by the blast— but wait, he couldn’t have been if that was afterwards. Ngh, his head throbbed.

Trying to push himself up, he forced his eyes open, dim shadows meeting him and swaying like he was underwater. Ugh, that didn’t help the nausea swirling in the pit of his stomach. He barely managed to prop himself up on an elbow, anyway, the shaking fingers of his left hand digging into his forehead as it hung miserably off his shoulders, his skin clammy and cold. “Al?”

Sounded more like a wordless croak, even to him. And muffled. Screwing his eyes shut, he hissed in a long, slow, deep breath, pushing back on the lump that threatened to turn into dinner spilled over a hard, cold floor. He worked some moisture back into his aching mouth, the taste of blood and the sting of having bitten something he couldn’t quite place making him wince. “Al?”

A ringing tone echoed through his ears, shifting pitches, tinny and thin as he squeezed his eyelids tighter and locked every muscle. Had... had that been Al? He pressed the side of his fist against his clenched lips, fumbling up the need to ask with the need to shove his stomach back where it belonged and winding up with a stifled hrk.

“—ther?” The mismatched tones pieced together into sounds and slid out again like melting snow. “Ed? T- k...o me!”

A trickle of blood or sweat tickled down the side of his face, and the dark behind his eyelids whirled like pitch stirred with a spoon. Cr... crap.

Instead of answering his little brother, he lurched up onto his knees, a ringing clang spearing his head in two as he slammed into something in his attempt to get— somewhere—and simultaneously lost the battle with his stomach like he’d lost the battle with the dragon. His ribs screamed as he heaved, his skull did its best to split, and the ringing in his ears spiked until he thought for an instant he might just pass out in a puddle of his own vomit.

He gasped for breath, a miserable whimper of a groan rasping out of his burning throat in the half second before his stomach flipped its lid to toss out the rest of what was in it, stinging tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

For a decent minute he just did his best to catch his breath.

“...Ed?”

Shaking like a dozen leaves in a gale, he managed to fall back against whatever he’d bumped into—bars?—and planted his face in his knees, holding his cracked skull together with both hands. “A-Al?”

“It’s me, brother. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I think... I have a concussion,” he groaned. “What about you? Where are you? Where are we?”

“I don’t know. They covered me up and took my arms off.”

They did what? He seethed through the nausea and pain swirling around in his head. “Those bas-bastards are going to pay for that.”

“It’s alright. I....” He sounded just a little embarrassed. “I lost my chalk, anyway. The explosion ripped my apron’s pocket open.”

“Breechcloth,” he mumbled woozily. Wasn’t like it was for baking cookies.

“Apron sounds better. Anyway, we can get out of here as soon as you’re okay to move. They didn’t take your arm.”

He bared his teeth in a muddled smirk aimed at his knees. “Biggest mistake they’ve made yet.”

Al hummed an affirmation, the slightly warped sound of metal scraping hard floor echoing around in a way he couldn’t pinpoint. “So when do you think you’ll be up to it?”

Hissing between his teeth steel himself, Ed straightened and placed his hands together. “Right now.”

“You really don’t need a minute—?”

“Nope, no time for that.” Doing his best to ignore the swirling in his head, he reached behind him and planted his hands on the bars, ready for the spitting hiss of Alchemy.

It fizzled and sputtered, alright, fluttering around like a drunken uncertain butterfly and sizzling straight out with a sharp snap back up his arms like the sting of a bee.

He cursed, snatching his hands away. What the hell? These bars should be made of some standard metal, but they felt... damn weird.

Massaging his throbbing head and wishing he could feel just a little less miserable—he’d give his entire research fund for some painkillers right now—he tried to muddle through it. Some kind of alloy? They should be iron, but he wasn’t getting that impression. Not steel, not copper or bronze or anything. It had to be some strange alloy, or... or....

He narrowed his eyes, putting his hands together and making an effort to focus on the sliding, swirling impression of circles and elements dancing behind his vision, scrunching his brows against the pain spiking in his head as he muddled his way through attempting to categorise them. The bars, though, nearly made the misfiring neurons in his head pull the power plug. There was metal, but... buried? A coating.

Ah. Yeah, that’d be how they did it. He grunted darkly to himself. “A polymer, huh?”

Maybe they weren’t as dumb as he’d hoped. Polymers were complex, not his area of speciality, and with his head where it was right now he’d have a hell of a time juggling the molecular structure of a phenol/formaldehyde resin to peel it away from the metal beneath without crossing an equivalent exchange line and winding up with plastic shards stabbing his face. Especially without knowing exactly which type it was. If his head wasn’t killing him....

Well, there was always digging a tunnel through the floor.... The simple solution. Concrete, stone, dirt, those were easy, natural elements that always stuck in their lanes. So he set his hands on the ground and pulled himself a shallow scoop under the bars. Maybe they weren’t as dumb as he’d hoped, but they were still plenty stupid.

He smiled through the pain and the ragged sound of his own breathing, scooting over and crawling down into the pit—

His hand clacked against something before his head could collide with it, and he found himself squinting at dirty white bars in front of his nose, blocking his progress.

...

He growled, cursing himself, Tucker, whoever was with him, whatever gods had it out for him, and the damn frickin’ bars mocking him. Of course he hadn’t gone deep enough. Of damn course.

Gritting his teeth through the ache throbbing through his skull, he smacked his hands together and dug down, watching the bars extend as far as the hole he created in the flickering blue light, the white-blue burst trying to dig its claws in through his eyes and making dark spots flicker in the corner of his vision.

How far did these stupid bars go?

He didn’t find the end before he had to stop, on the edge of passing out. Who’d built this? Who would make a prison with bars six feet through the floor? Panting and blinking back black spots and dark waves, he levered himself back against the edge of the dip, trying not to move his head and clenching his hands around it in a mimic of the vice caving his skull in.

Wasn’t... really that hard with Alchemy in the equation, he had to admit. If you knew what you were doing, you could make polymers as easily as any other substance from available materials, breaking them down into base components and taking a slightly more complex route to bring them together the way you wanted. These damn bars could extend for a mile.

He groaned, digging heel of his hand against his forehead and squeezing his eyes shut. And now, to cap it all off, he was starting to feel nauseous again.... Hate migraines.

“Ed?”

He waved his other hand vaguely. “Just having some trouble.”

Maybe the walls would yield more results. There would be some way out of here, and he’d find it.

“Don’t push yourself too hard, brother....”

The first thing he discovered when he dragged himself out of his shallow grave was that he really should’ve looked around more before starting this venture. Because when he focused woozily on the wall he discovered his prison was more of a cage keeping out secondary stone walls. Even above him if he managed to get his vision to stop swaying like a drunken soldier, he could see more bars meeting up with the ones in front and back.

“...You wanna bet they meet up below, too?” He muttered to nobody in particular, sliding gingerly down to the floor again. It was a madman’s cage made for a novice Alchemist. Or a compromised one.

“What?”

“Talking to myself,” he sighed. Time to try his hand at breaking down some plastic. Hm. Break it down....

Still a risk of plastic shards. Maybe rather than just blowing it apart, he could atomise it, break it down into a gas. A poisonous gas, but he could cover his face. Easier than doing chemistry equations in his head right now.

He crawled over and settled woozily on his knees, nearly pitching to the side for a second as he lifted his hands and pulled his shirt up over his nose. Taking a deep breath, he clapped his hands together and held it, touching a bar with an automail finger. Immediately, the inside of his scrunched eyelids lit up, the sparks hissing and... tingling?

That was his only warning before a crack split the air and seared his vision white.

He swam back into his own body feeling like he’d just been scorched by the fires of hell a second later, his chest fluttering unevenly like the heartbeat throbbing arrythmically against his ribcage. The— the h-hell— His chest... felt like it was about to cave in. Won-wonderful, at least— at least his head wasn’t the worst pain in his entire body anymore.

He rolled onto his side, strangling for breath and digging his fingers into his chest as if plucking out his heart would help. His right shoulder was absolutely screaming at him. Wasn’t the only one screaming at him, but he couldn’t reassure Al with anything but his ragged breathing. Except that he couldn’t breathe.

He curled around himself, dragging his hand weakly across the floor to try and stop the fluttering spikes of every palpitation. Was— was this what a heart attack felt like? There’d been that sizzle and then a bang and being flung back.

...Had he been electrocuted?

He hiccuped a laugh of a groan. Who was the idiot, again? The bars... they weren’t just covered in plastic to make it harder to transmute, but to keep the current running through the metal inside from hurting him unless he did something stupid, like busting the outer shell.

He rolled his face into the floor and gasped raggedly, almost wishing the white spots dancing in the corners of his vision would take him away already. But if his heart had stopped, there was no telling if it would give up again once he lost consciousness. It probably had already and was fighting to get back into rhythm.

Dammit... he’d been... so stupid.

Grinding his teeth together, his eyes shut tight, he didn’t notice anything past his own pain until some vague sixth sense warned him, or maybe it was the vibrations under his cheekbone and the ridge of his forehead that made him stiffen. He cracked open an eye, wheezing through his teeth, his vision swimming so much he saw barely more than a dark block of a leg and a massive shadow looming over him.

Al was still calling out. He couldn’t focus on what he was saying. He glared up, his eyelids fighting to slide closed from the strain and fluttering maddeningly. “How much... damn voltage... do... do you have running... through those d-damn... b-bars?”

Whatever they said, he didn’t hear it through the black tide roaring in his ears and squeezing his fluttering heartbeat down into a rock in his chest. He couldn’t feel his fingertips. Couldn’t tell if he’d actually managed to even finish the damn sentence.

Well... he hadn’t really... really lasted that long in the land of the living this time, huh. Second time unlucky.

His own damn fault, really.

To his mild surprise, he wasn’t dead this time, either.

He also woke up on what was either a mattress or a hallucination caused by hovering somewhere between awake and not. Funny how they hadn’t bothered the first time.

Not that he could really remember much of the first time. Just that he’d been awake at some point, it’d been dark and cold, Al was there—took his arms away?—and he’d felt terrible. Who was he kidding, he still felt terrible. Except for the pain. Couldn’t feel anything except a fuzz so thick it’d stuck in the back of his throat and was turning his stomach over in whirling loops.

He scrunched the distant numb feeling of his face and turned it over on his cheek. Definitely something soft under it—it rustled loud enough to echo in his ears, twitching at an almost-ache that automatically made him hold his breath.

“Edward.”

A bolt of pure adrenaline shot through him. That whisper. He knew that hissing snake-whisper. His eyes snapped open, flicking up to burn into the blurry glints of shining glasses. “Tucker.”

Maybe things hadn’t turned out so badly. It looked like they’d found him after all, dropped right into their laps. Or dropped right into his.

The man smiled upside down at him, and it almost looked like a grimace from this angle to his woozy brain as he glared with every spark of heat he could summon. “Indeed. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under better circumstances, but I’m afraid I’ll have to take you under my care. Please do try not to hurt yourself again. I already don’t have enough time for you to heal as much as I would like.”

“...What—” The glare wiped itself from his face with a blink, and he abruptly discovered that his arms were bound the minute he tried to move them and came up short “—what are you talking about?”

The chimera wasn’t smiling anymore. If he could see his eyes past the glasses, Ed had the sick feeling they’d be that intense blank stare he’d sometimes caught him giving Nina and Alexander. The one he’d mistaken for shuttered worry about their future.

“I mean to say, Edward, that you are now one of my subjects.”

Chapter Text

“Ahhh, it’s good to have you back in Central, Roy.” A grinning Maes Hughes planted himself on the corner of Roy’s desk, making himself comfortable, as usual.

“I wouldn’t have a clue why,” he murmured absently, skimming over another report. “It only makes it easier for you to bother me during working hours.”

“It makes it easier for you to enjoy my wonderful company! And come by to visit Gracia and Elicia, of course~”

He didn’t have to look up to imagine the dopey smile on Maes’ face. “Mm.”

“I hope you haven’t forgotten it’s her birthday today, Roy. Since you’re in town, you can drop by the party tonight for once!”

“Right.” He idly waved the sheet in his hand. “It’s Fullmetal’s birthday today as well, isn’t it?”

“Yep! He and Elicia share the same birthday. He even helped deliver her!” The man sighed with an excessive amount of paternal nostalgia. “Gracia’s baking a cake just for him. We’re keeping it a surprise, so don’t tell him when you see him.”

He smirked slightly. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The feeling of Maes scrutinising gaze landed on him. “Hm, have you heard from the boys yet?”

“No.” The sound of his finger tapping on the desk’s surface didn’t quite match up with the tick of the clock. “I sent Falman and Breda to the location they indicated, but knowing them they simply neglected to tell me that they didn’t find anything. I’d bet they’re sleeping in their dorm room right now with the phone unplugged.”

They wouldn’t, of course. He didn’t mean a word that came out of his own mouth, and he knew Maes didn’t believe it either. Something had gone wrong and those two were in trouble again.

His bare forefingers rubbed idly against his thumb. He hoped for their sakes that they hadn’t called for backup because they couldn’t, rather than simple bullheaded stubbornness.

“Well, Winry’s gone over to visit them, so I’m sure they’ll be awake enough for you to burn their ears through the line soon,” Maes said cheerfully. “They might even have a tale or two to tell about more wolfmen.”

“So long as I’m not the only one dragged to your daughter’s party.”

“Oh you won’t be! We have quite a few guests, and if those two aren’t there I’ll go drag them out myself. They deserve a bit of fun after everything.”

“So they do.” His gaze wandered to the telephone. He had a feeling it would go off soon, and the news wouldn’t be what he was wanting to hear.

“You don’t need to worry about those boys so much, Roy.” Maes’ tone had dropped a notch, losing its cheeriness in favour of sincerity. “They’ve practically made a career of scraping out of trouble. Even at Lab Five all we really had to do was clean up the mess.”

He met his hazel eyes, hearing the subtext layered beneath perfectly well. It wasn’t don’t worry about them, they’ll be fine, it was don’t let it get to your head, I don’t like it any more than you do, but we won’t find answers running around like headless chickens.

“I think you misunderstand me, Maes.” Leaning his cheek on his hand with a faint smirk, eyes closed, he mused that sitting at his desk with half his mind on mindless paperwork and keeping an ear out for the phone was hardly running around like a headless chicken. “I’m more worried what the collateral will be this time.”

Maes laughed. “Well, better you than me, is all I can—”

And there went the phone.

He picked it up in an instant, cutting off the second ring. “Colonel Mustang.”

“There’s a call for you from a telephone booth on the east side of Central, sir.”

“Very good. Patch it through.” He stared blandly past Maes’ side-eye, and the man took it as permission to listen in. The click of the line connecting came through. “I trust you have some news for me?”

“I’m afraid it’s not what you’ll want to hear, sir,” Falman’s apologetic voice said. “There’s no sign of them, but we did find evidence of a struggle that you might want to take a look at.”

Not what he wanted to hear indeed. “That’s fine. I’ll be there soon— keep looking.”

Ending the call, he raised his eyebrows at Maes’ frown. “I don’t suppose you’d have some time to look at the scene of a potential crime.”

His friend considered the ceiling, rubbing thoughtfully at his thin beard. “Well, Sheska’s still at it and shouldn’t be done with the records I’ve been waiting for until around noon—her words not mine—so I might have some spare change to spend. I do have an interest in this investigation, after all.”

“Perfect.” He stood, casually slipping a pair of gloves on and giving a meaningful look to the occupants of the other desks, who were doing a bad job of pretending that they hadn’t been listening in. “Then let’s go have a look.”

There were indeed signs of a struggle, if a large hole inexplicably filled with metal cabling and twisted pipes that looked to have been transmuted straight off the assembly line were any indication.

“It looks like it extends quite a way down there,” Havoc said with his head poked through the entrance, his voice slightly distorted. “You think this is the chief’s work?”

“It has his handiwork written all over it.” Roy bent down to touch at the fading remnants of a transmutation circle inscribed in chalk on the concrete floor. “And his brother’s too.”

The other man straightened, scratching at the back of his head. “It looks like they were doing renovations to me.”

“Not quite.” He glanced over the rest of the manufacturing floor, taking note of scuffs in the concrete, areas where dust had been disturbed and long scratches marred the surface. It was easy to see where Fullmetal had pulled the cables and piping from, one of the lines very obviously missing components. “They were trying to contain something, and I doubt it was human.”

“So you think they found Tucker.”

“Mm.” He rose, carefully taking note of each dent on the machinery, and the marks on the ground. Claws set widely apart, indicating a large paw, far wider than his hand when he used it for comparison. A dent that caved piping along the side of one of the machines on the assembly line with a tapering curve to it that might indicate a tail. If it did, it would be a large, thick one. It would have to be muscular, like that of a lizard, but far too big for any ordinary reptile.

Was it possible to take a smaller creature but use the mass of a human body to increase its scale? Even if that were the case, such a small creature combined even with a giant of a man wouldn’t match up with the scale indicated by the hole and the imprints it had left on its environment. It would be twice the size of Armstrong at least.

“It doesn’t look very good, does it,” Hawkeye spoke up from her position just behind his shoulder. “Whatever that creature was, it escaped somehow.”

“Yes.” He rubbed his forefinger across his upper lip. That was the important thing, here. “Combined with the fact that Fullmetal and his brother have vanished—”

“Sir! You might want to take a look at this. We’ve found a basement level.”

He turned as Falman’s voice rang across the room. It seemed they’d found an unassuming door hidden in the corner. Trust Maes to discover something like that and turn it into the find of the century.

“Well then, let’s go see what they’ve found.” He started across the floor with Hawkeye and Havoc in tow—

Only for something to snake around his ankle and trip him into the ground.

“Oh, better be careful of the cables, sir. Those can be a tripping hazard,” Havoc’s helpful warning drove through the shocked daze he found himself in, abruptly sprawled on the floor with an intimate view of the scrapes in the concrete.

“A note for next time, Havoc—warn me before I break my nose that the wires have a life of their own.” He gritted his teeth, pushing himself up and narrowing his eyes at the metal wire curled around his ankle. It had not been there before. He would swear to it under oath that the blasted thing had deliberately shot out and caught him, but that was highly unlikely, not to mention physically impossible.

Havoc shrugged, looking down at him in bemusement that didn’t hold a candle to Hawkeye’s slightly raised eyebrow, an expression clearly asking him how he managed these things. “Maybe it still has a little of the chief in it.”

“That’s Alchemically impossible, and even you should know that,” he grumbled, picking himself up and dusting off his uniform. Unless... But no, that wasn’t even a possibility. Throwing the now-inert wire a suspicious glance, he hoped that Fullmetal hadn’t done such a stupid thing as attempt to bind his soul to a mass of cables, pipes, and wiring.

“Perhaps you should steer clear of this site in the future, sir,” Hawkeye suggested.

He huffed, leading the way towards the doorway Falman had disappeared into without further incident. “I was watching where I was going. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course, sir.”

Neither of them believed him. He scowled. It wasn’t as if he could refute it with any kind of logic, either, since there was none.

He settled for forgetting about it as they descended the steps and found themselves in Maes’ basement.

It was worse than he’d been expecting.

The entire room looked as though a bomb had gone off, or a storm had torn through, the floor washed in a slick sheen of water that slapped wetly under his boots and glinted beneath the light of the high-powered lamp the lieutenant-colonel had dug out of nowhere. There were also sharp shards of glass scattered from what appeared to be broken tanks that had likely held the spilled water, once.

As he cast an appraising glance around, he noted the otherwise bare appearance of it, only a few paint cans and broken wooden boxes tossed in a corner. “A hurricane seems to have passed through here.”

“And covered its tracks on the way out,” Maes said from where he was poking at a corner, the light of the lamp he’d set on the remains of the tank in the middle of the room casting his shadow across the wall. “Someone’s come by and done a rushed cleaning job recently.”

“Well, they could have at least swept the floor.” He took note of Breda, Feury, and Falman picking over the rest of it as he made his way over to Maes.

Because he was taking note of the glass to avoid the worst shards, he noticed that some pieces appeared thicker than others. Perhaps the tanks had used different kinds....

“Hm.”

Something that wasn’t glass caught his eye, down near the wall. Wood? Halting, he crouched down, hearing Hawkeye come to a stop behind him as he picked up a long splinter and examined it. It was a sandy sort of wood that retained its colour in spite of the damp, probably old. He glanced up, raking his eye across the ground and the other splinters littering it, all arranged roughly in a way that pointed towards the wall as the epicentre, indicating that at some point there had been something there. More boxes, or something else?

“It looks like something was set against it at some point. The wall’s faintly discoloured,” Hawkeye observed, following his train of thought.

He hummed in agreement, tracing the square outline. “I’d say a set of wooden shelves. Someone must have broken it in the fighting.”

“Something was taped there on that wall once, too,” Maes joined in, crunching more quietly towards them than anyone with his stature treading on glass had a right to. “And it looks like someone’s scrubbed the walls and floor. Are you thinking what I am?”

“Did you find any markings?”

“Well, they were pretty thorough.”

Roy followed him over, throwing a careful look across the floor, the whitewashed wall, and up to the ceiling. “Aha.” Taking out a pocket torch, he flashed it up, more scrubbed patches meeting the light. “I’d say your hunch is right, lieutenant-colonel. They weren’t so thorough with the ceiling.”

“Can’t say I blame them. The last time I had to scrub the ceiling I needed a half-hour massage from Gracia, not that I was complaining. Actually, that made it all worth it—”

Tuning out Maes’ ramblings, he traced the markings, just able to make out the faint lines of transmutation circles. So, it looked like the boys had found their target after all.

“—a wife makes everything more rewarding! You know, Roy, you should really—”

“Lieutenant-colonel Hughes,” he gritted out very deliberately, putting emphasis on every syllable and levelling a glare that he could usually only give to a telephone on the hopeless family man. “It looks like I don’t have to find a way to send fire through a receiver this time. Oh, and look at that.” He lifted his left hand, rubbing his fingers lightly together and setting off a tiny spark. “A convenient pair of gloves. I don’t suppose you’d like an eyebrow shave? I heard they’re all the rage in Central.”

Maes took half a step back, hands raised even while practically pouting. “Your problem is that you just don’t bother to listen to good advice! Bouncing from girl to girl is only going to wear you down. You need commitment—!”

“Sirs,” Hawkeye cut through the maddening argument developing like only she could. “I hate to interrupt, but we still have an investigation to conduct. We may have found evidence of Alchemy, but that doesn’t answer the real question here.”

Roy turned away from Maes, following Hawkeye’s deliberate glance around the room, and the lack of anyone but their team occupying it. “...If they managed to find Shou Tucker’s hideout, then where are they?” He mused, finishing her train of thought.

A good question.

Why? The thought beat at the back of his skull like a bird fluttering at a window.

He’d been here for hours, now. Had fallen asleep, woken up, and drifted off again, measuring time by when the ache in his head spiked and disappeared under a fog of painkillers again. If he could’ve, he would’ve snatched the IV stabbed in his arm out, but at some point his right arm had disappeared. If it’d even been there in the first place.

He hated drugs. And he hated needles.

More than that, he hated being cooped up in here. “Here” was a claustrophobic dingy white room with nothing in it but a bed, medical equipment, and an old lightbulb flickering in the dirty ceiling tiles. It felt like a prison cell and a hospital room in one, and he was a fan of neither.

He also wasn’t a fan of having limbs stolen that would hurt like hell when he had to have it put back in, but that hadn’t stopped them. Nothing had stopped them, or would stop them if he couldn’t figure out a way to get out of here.

And why... why take him now? Why suddenly take in interest in him like this? Why do any of this? How did it help that bastard bring Nina back? Creating human chimeras, planning to... use him for something. It didn’t make sense.

He stewed over it, scowling at the ceiling, flexing his fingers and feeling around the straps tying his one arm down, occasionally mixing it up by flexing his legs—for some reason they hadn’t removed his left, but straining even with that one did nothing—wondering when Tucker would come back for him. Did he plan to start Ed’s “test subject” career immediately?

The man’s words still left a slick like motor oil sitting in the pit of his stomach. He’d known he was cold, he’d known he was borderline insane, but this. One of his “subjects”, heh. As if the Alchemist was a king ruling over his little twisted peasants. Yeah, well, screw that.

He needed to get out of here, then find Al, then get the hell away from this place. How long did he have? That question circled around in his head between the fog and the faint dizziness whenever he turned his head to glare at the blank window on one wall. None of this felt like a spur-of-the-moment “why not try?” situation he just happened to have gotten caught in. He hadn’t seen anyone but Tucker so far, but he doubted the Alchemist dealt with all the medical things or sat behind that window watching him. He doubted he could have just found any of this, or had it set up. He had to have help. Some sort of underground, illegal facility like Lab Five? Another Lab Five?

He had nothing else to obsess over but endless questions with no answers and only spiralling speculation that led him into a deep black hole his foggy thoughts could barely muddle through. All he could do was wait.

If only he could find a way to scratch a transmutation circle so he could free himself, but he didn’t have a screw or a loose piece of metal. Not even any way to prick his finger and attempt to use his own blood if he had to.

He ground his teeth and yanked sharply at the straps. Which didn’t get him anything except a faint creak and a brief flaring tingle in his wrist. “Hey! Tucker! How long am I supposed to stay here? Just when are you planning to take me out, anyway?! Let me see Al and I just might cooperate!”

Either Tucker could tell he was lying, or he wasn’t there, because no one came. He didn’t know how long he waited, trying again a couple more times before he gave up. They were just ignoring him.

If only he hadn’t gotten himself in a stupid situation like this in the first place. His attempts to get out while half-braindead had just gotten him in a worse spot than before. If only he’d waited until he had a clearer head, then at least he wouldn’t be strapped to a table with no way of getting out, able to be drugged into unconsciousness any time, with a probably locked door that lead to who knew where.

Should’ve listened to Al. He’d probably be out of his mind worrying about what was going on, maybe wondering if they’d already started tests on him....

Tucker wouldn’t answer any of his questions anyway. He hadn’t when he was in the room, and he wouldn’t be coming back to give him a waiver to sign.

What a way to spend his birthday.... He’d actually rather have to sit there listening to Hughes gush about his daughter than lie here with a concussion waiting for whatever was supposed to happen to him now.

He closed his eyes, feeling drowsiness starting to tug at the whirlpool of his thoughts. At least Winry could still go. She’d be able to take the big teddybear he and Al had transmuted.

At least someone would still have a good birthday....

Chapter Text

When he woke up again, he had a crick in his neck from lying awkwardly on his side on something about as soft as a wood bench.

...It was a wooden bench.

Groaning, he squinted his eyes open, the bleary dinginess taking a while to blink away. Where the hell was this? What had happened? Three walls with off-white bars set into them and an open barred front... the cell he’d been in before?

When was I moved?

He hauled himself upright to sit on the edge of the bench, his hand seeking out the empty port on his right shoulder under a rough sleeve. At least he didn’t have a headache. Yet. He could feel the threat of one hanging around like a storm cloud behind his eyes that’d probably break if he pushed it too hard.

Well at least he was back. That should mean....

Wait. If he was back, had they done anything to him while he was out?

He threw a quick look over himself, practically patting himself down. Couldn’t feel anything off, couldn’t see anything strange, just that they’d changed his clothes out for loose pants and a shirt that looked like they came straight from a prison ward. If he had to replace his pants and jacket again he’d be even more pissed off than he already was, but at least he hadn’t been turned into a dog in his sleep.

Letting out a long breath, he turned his attention back to the open front. There was a cell just across the corridor from him, but it was empty. Al hadn’t been there before, had he? Everything from the last day or so was a muddled, fuzzy mess. “Al? You there?”

He thought he heard something—an echoey whisper. And then a shout that would’ve woken up all of Central. “Brother! Are you okay? I heard them take you back but they wouldn’t answer my questions and you were unconscious—”

“Hey, relax, Al. I’m okay.” He grinned, scrubbing his fingers through his bangs. Yeah, he’d been worrying his metal head off this entire time.... “They had me in some medical room for a while, but all they did was take off my arm.”

Al was quiet for a moment. “I guess we’re both stuck, then.”

“Yeah. At least until I find something to draw a circle with.”

“But last time you tried, you got injured and they took you away. What happened? Was it a rebound?”

“No.” He glared at the bars, massaging at the flesh around his port. Now that he thought about it, he could feel it still aching in a way that was different to normal nerve pain or somebody yanking his automail out without a care in the world. “They’ve got— it’s some sadist’s setup with electricity running through the bars. I deconstructed the plastic, and then I must’ve tried to transmute the metal, except when I touched it I got zapped. And they have enough voltage running through it to kill a cow.”

“It’s lucky it didn’t kill you,” Al joked weakly.

“Tell me about it.” He had vague memories of feeling like he was having a heart attack and it hadn’t been pleasant. “Did you see what happened? I passed out when Tucker came in.”

“That was Tucker? I saw some nurses and a big man in a trench coat, but they went down the other end of the hallway and I didn’t get a good look when they took you away. They wouldn’t tell me anything, either....”

No wonder Al had been worried. They couldn’t have even told him Ed was alive? When they got out of here, asses were getting kicked—maybe even the whole place blown up since he was beginning to feel like a little destruction would be good for the decor. “Yeah, that was Tucker, alright. We managed to walk straight into his hands.”

“And we can’t get out.... Do you think he just plans on keeping us down here until someone finds us?”

He closed his eyes. Should he tell him? Tucker hadn’t said anything about experimenting on Al, and it wasn’t like they could gain anything from him since he was just a soul attached to armour. Maybe they’d try to transmute his soul to something else, but if they tried that it would more than likely just kill him. Tucker had to know that.

No... what was it he’d said exactly? “You are now my subject”. Not subjects. So was it just him they planned on playing around with?

Breathing out, he pushed off the bench a little gingerly, stumbling for just a second at the whirl in his head. He moved over to lean on the bars, glancing up and down the corridor, but there wasn’t much to see, and no other prisoners in view, if there were any at all besides them.

Or that was what he thought, anyway. Right up until something snaked through the bars on the left, in the corner of his eye.

“Oooh~ the new ones are feisty! Planning on escaping and taking revenge already—I would cheer from the sidelines but I can’t!”

The more he stared, the more he hoped that wasn’t actually a scorpion tail, and he was still high on painkillers and hallucinating.

“Are you... are you an Alchemist?” Al asked what he really didn’t want to.

In the shadows cast by the dim bulbs on the outside corridor’s ceiling, he couldn’t really see much when whoever it was turned and grinned through the bars, but he could see enough to make out sharp teeth and hints of insect-like things that really shouldn’t belong on a human’s face. Or maybe that was a moustache. A moustache made of feelers?

Damn, this concussion was making him nauseous. Usually only the thought of Mustang’s smug prancing around could do that, but a moustache made of antennae and the thought of being transmuted with an insect looked like a close second.

“Why yes, I am the famous and well-known Booty Alchemist! I don’t much resemble myself anymore, thus I can see why you wouldn’t recognise me, but even in this cursed form I—”

“What?” Ed squinted.

“The Booty Alchemist?” Al asked, bewildered.

“My reputation precedes me! I would sign an autograph, but these hands aren’t much use for it.” He clicked... pincers at the bars.

“No I mean, why are you called... that?”

The alchemist gripped the bars with two sets of pincers, glinting eyes peering out through the shadows. Were those multiples, or was that the dizziness swimming behind his own eyes? “My speciality is creating transmutation circles utilising my posterior. Surely you’d know that, being an admirer? Of course, I can’t really do so using my actual posterior anymore, but this tail is quite handy—!”

“Al, tell me I’m hallucinating.” Ed leaned his forehead against the plastic-coated bars. This was the kind of stuff you’d find in a psych ward.

“I was kind of hoping you’d tell me I’m hallucinating.”

“You’re not the one on pain meds and a concussion. You don’t have an excuse.”

“I could’ve gotten dust on my bloodseal....”

“Surely you do know of me!” The transmuted madman cried, his tail flicking through the bars like it was trying to grab for them. “I am an expert State Alchemist! I would have broken myself out of here when I could, but I’m afraid I don’t specialise in materials. I can’t have been forgotten already! My wind Alchemy is unmatched!”

...

There was a distant plink from somewhere as they both stared at him.

It was Al’s tinny little snigger that broke him. An unholy snort that left his sinuses in pain like his ribs sent him sliding down the bars to collapse on the floor as he burst out laughing.

“The... the Booty Alchemist uses wind,” Al wheezed.

Agh, ow, his ribs, his sides, his head. He dragged in a ragged breath, wiping away a tear as he grinned hard enough to crack his face. “You could say he’s... he’s got a way with gas.”

Al’s laughter echoed off the walls. “He makes his opponents cower with the power of his mighty wind, bwoosh—”

Ed flopped over and gasped like a dying fish, cackling hard enough to dislocate his ribs all over again. “H-he can b-bowl them over with just a sniff of a breeze, kahaha—!”

“Are you making fun of me?!” The scorpion-man almost sounded like he was about to cry, but it wasn’t their fault he was a walking joke. “I’m a respected State Alchemist! I’m—!”

“They aren’t wrong, Stefan. You are a bit of a joke.”

His mirth died away when a new voice joined in, Al’s giggles trailing off a couple seconds after his as he frowned, pushing himself up on his left elbow, and wincing at the twinge in his side. It sounded like a woman’s voice, but it had come across from his cell, in the one he’d thought was empty. Unless the acoustics were playing tricks on him.

Something moved under his stare, a shadow at the back in the corner that he hadn’t noticed before partially changing colour and turning a head he couldn’t really make out to look at him. Something about it didn’t seem right. “I’m glad you can laugh about something.”

He sat up. “Who are you?”

“I’m the Disappearing Alchemist. Someone thought it was ironic.” Something long and thin flicked on the floor beside her.

Actually, trying to see what she looked like didn’t sound like the best idea. He swallowed. She was one of the ones who’d been in the file Hughes had given him, but he doubted she looked like the picture in it. “You specialised in disguises and hidden weapons, right?”

“I did. I was brought in here a few weeks ago.” The tip of the tail slipped out of sight again. “And you? You must be recent.”

He frowned. “You weren’t here when we were brought in?”

She went silent for a while, and he glanced at the other cell, but the Booty Alchemist must’ve slunk back to a corner to brood. “Maybe. I can’t... I don’t remember things. Some things.”

He glanced at the wall separating him from Al. “You mean like... amnesia?”

She might’ve shaken her head. “Voices. Feelings. All in my head. I remember things... and they do, too. Sometimes I’m not... me.”

A chill tapped cold fingers up his spine. Half of these people didn’t seem exactly sane. Then again, even Tucker himself didn’t seem that sane, but he hadn’t been to start with, anyway, so that was nothing new.

...They really had to get out of this freak show. Whatever was going on here wouldn’t end well for anybody.

He swallowed, glancing as far down the hallway as he could, but he couldn’t see much. “How many of you are there?”

“Just us. Three. And you.”

He sat up straighter. “Three?”

“There’s another.... Someone. Can’t remember. They said he was a success—I remember that. He was what they wanted, and we’re prototypes. Not so lucky.” The shadow shifted as if leaning back against the wall. “There were more.... They escaped when he did something. There was an explosion. They’d been here longer, and they were even less right in the head. Sewing-life couldn’t hold them, and he had to go after them.”

It was kind of hard to tell who “he” was. Tucker or this third guy? As if Tucker would go after a pair of failed chimera. “Was this other guy a... dragon?”

She seemed to straighten. “Yes, some sort of lizard.”

“Where is he now?” Al asked. “Do you know where he went?”

“No. He isn’t kept here anymore. I think they made a deal with him. It’s not like they could really contain him, anyway.”

Yeah, that tracked. Hm. He frowned off at the flickering lightbulb out in the corridor. “Do you know where we are?”

“Some... underground lab. Not really.”

She went quiet, and he couldn’t think of anymore questions to ask after that. His head was starting to throb again, anyway, and there was a weird dizzyiness shifting around behind his eyes.

He closed them, turning to sit with his back against the bars, his thoughts drifting despite all his efforts on trying to form a plan to escape. Partial transmutations, probably....

“Brother?” Al asked quietly.

“Mm?”

“We’re down here, too.”

“...Yeah.”

“Do you think they’re planning to... try experimenting on us, too?”

He rolled his hand into a loose fist, fidgeting with his fingers. It might’ve been stated as a question, but he knew his little brother, and he could hear the question underneath asking Ed to tell him that Tucker was only keeping them as prisoners. “We’ll get out soon. Trust me, Al, we’ll crack this place wide open and have everybody arrested in a day or two.”

He wished he could’ve sounded a little more confident.

Forcing a smile, he tapped his fist against the bars when Al stayed quiet. “And if we can’t, we can get old Booty to blow out the bars!”

At least that got a small laugh out of him.