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Ed was forced to kneel, his head held down in a bow, unable to escape the hand that held it down.
He had been caught by a group of domestic terrorists, the very same group he had been assigned to tail until the rest of Mustang’s team got to the town. If he remembered correctly, they were a few hours away now, on the train, but now Ed had to get out of there before they shot him.
“Who are you, brat? Why’ve you been following us?” One of the terrorists demanded, and the hand on his head grabbed his hair and pulled, forcing him to finally look up.
Ed growled in response. “Fuck you,” he spat.
The man in front of him, the who had spoken, smashed his fist into the side of Ed’s head, and the hand in his hair let go, his body falling to the side.
“Who the fuck are you?!” He demanded again, squatting down and grabbing Ed’s hair himself. “We don’t take kindly to spies, twerp.”
Ed grunted, putting an arm under him to pull himself up part-way, smiling wickedly. “Whoever said I was a spy, jackass?”
“I did, brat. I don’t know you. What do you know?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Ed laughed, before his expression transformed into a frown and he kicked out in front of him, catching the man in the shoulder and pushing him away, hard.
He was quick to twist his upper half to punch the other person who had been holding him down before, catching them easily on the jaw. Now that he wasn’t held by assholes, he was able to spring up, recalling the exit was off to the back and right from where he was.
“Stop the kid!” The interrogator shouted, unsteadily getting to his own feet, holding his shoulder. “Don’t let him escape, damnit!”
With his hands free once again, having had them held behind his back uncomfortably by the man that had been holding him down, Ed quickly clapped his hands together, going to transmute his automail into a sword, when someone tackled him, his hands flailing away and slapping the ground. Since there wasn’t as much steel in the flooring, the transmutation only grew small pinpricks across the floor. Not enough to even act like caltrops or spikes.
“He’s an alchemist!” Another voice shouted. “Keep his hands separated!”
“Ge’off!” Ed shouted.
“Wait,” the lead man’s voice cut through the scuffle, his eyes glaring down at Ed with recognition. Shit… “Kid in a red cloak, alchemist… Shit, this kid’s part of the military!”
“What?!” Several other voices in the room exclaimed, and Ed only continued to struggle against the person who had tackled him, just to feel multiple hands grab his arms and force them apart, pushing his face against the floor.
“This pipsqueak is the Fullmetal Alchemist?” Another voice questioned.
Normally, Ed would explode and try to kick the hell out of the person who spoke such lies about him being so short he couldn’t see mirrors in bathrooms, but the amount of people holding him down made it more than a little difficult to even get his feet under him.
“Shit, shit, shit, we have to go. If he’s been spying on us…” The leader said, pacing rapidly.
“What do we do with him then?” One of the men holding Ed down asked.
“Gotta make him give us time to scram from here. This town’s going to be swarming with military any minute now,” the leader said, and he stopped pacing, turning to look down at Ed.
“The fuck you looking at?” Ed grunted, feeling his heart beat faster than before. The look on the man wasn’t something he enjoyed seeing on his enemies.
The man turned his attention to the other terrorists not currently holding Ed down, and began barking out orders. “Get the gear and prepare for travel. We have to hurry,” he turned to one of the men keeping Ed from transmuting. “Grab the syringe. We’ll leave the antidote in another room. We’re not going to just kill the kid, the military will just pick up the pace to find us. Let’s get them distracted.”
“What?!” Ed shouted, struggling harder than before, but it was impossible to get his hands free.
In no time at all, the group was working on high-tailing it out of there, and a needle was pushed into his exposed fleshy arm. To keep him from transmuting, one of the terrorists found the connection port to Ed’s automail arm, and made quick work of yanking it off his body, throwing the arm across the room, before they tied him up in the furthest corner from the door.
Whatever they had pushed into his body slowly began to show symptoms, and his shouts after the terrorists waned as it was beginning to be difficult to do… anything. A slow, aching sort of pain radiating from the injection site started to spread, leaving his remaining arm numb. It was hard to see, and it took a couple moments to realize it was tears sliding down his face.
“Don’t worry, kid, it won’t kill you right away. Takes a couple hours to stop your heart, no matter the dosage,” the leader had said, before the room grew quiet, the pounding of feet retreating and fading into the distance.
It was an hour before the sounds of feet stirred Ed from his stupor. He had stopped trying to untie himself, the pain and numbness in his arm making him all but useless. He listed against the wall, breathing shallowly, since any deeper hurt too much.
He blinked, unseeing, as blurry figures stormed the room, as if they knew exactly where to look, and he heard intakes of breath.
A figure hurried over to him, the light blue around the head indicating either Havoc or Hawkeye, but the scent that wafted over confirmed Havoc.
“Chief, you okay?” He asked, and the ropes fell away. Ed only slipped forward, caught by the other instead of falling onto his face. “Woah, chief!”
“Ann… doe…” Ed couldn’t get the words out of his throat, hoping at least he was speaking loud enough to be heard.
“What was that?” Havoc asked, and Ed felt himself be moved, his head lolling back until it hit soft, clothed, body part. Probably an arm.
“Ann… idoe…” He tried enunciating, but his lips felt numb. He couldn’t tell how well his words were audible or not.
“Here!” Another voice, Fuery, spoke from afar, the word breathless like he had been running for an hour straight. “Found it in a cabinet!”
“Oh, kid’s gunna hate this,” Mustang’s voice, before steps came closer.
Ed wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. He blinked rapidly, wishing he could see more than blurry figures and blobs, even as Mustang came closer with a hand up.
“You’re going to hate this, but you need to drink it all, okay? It’s the only way the poison will be neutralized,” Mustang said, and Ed felt himself be passed from Havoc to him, his head too heavy to be held by his neck properly. “Jeez, Fullmetal, what happened to you?”
“Poi… on…” He slurred, words getting even harder to say.
“Okay, okay, no more speaking. Drink,” something cold was placed on Ed’s lower lip, and cool, unfamiliar liquid slowly pooled in his mouth.
It took some time to drink, but every sip and swallow brought back sensations from his body, strength returning to his limbs and his neck. By the time he had drank the whole antidote, his eyesight had cleared up, and he blinked to get everything back in focus.
The first thing he saw was the container that held the antidote, and his eyes nearly bugged out. It was a small, single serving bottle of
“MILK?!” He shrieked and spluttered, Mustang quickly pulled back the bottle before he either choked on the drink or spilled it all over the two of them.
“Finish it, Fullmetal,” Colonel Bastard ordered, batting Ed’s arms away when they tried to throw the bottle of horrid milk away from him.
“No! You can’t make me!”
“You drank most of it anyway! This is to get all of the poison out of your damned system! Drink! That’s an order!”
Like feeding a baby, the bottle was shoved into Ed’s mouth, and he was forced to swallow the last drops of the despicable drink, and he heard the collective exhale from the rest of the team.
Of all the things he had to drink to save himself from being poisoned, why did it have to be MILK?!