FMA: Big Bang - Stormy May Day 2/2

[catystorm]

Al had been taking a nap on the couch in the living room. He would be no good to anyone running on empty, and as he had a ride coming he might as well make use of his time wisely. Insistent banging on the front door roused him from a groggy dream about purple flying hippos. Al scruffed a hand through his hair, yawned, and opened the door.

Winry Rockbell was already on one knee, fiddling with the doorknob. She looked up at Al in surprise, then down at her screwdriver. Al raised an eyebrow at her.

"Your lock is busted," Winry said helpfully.

"I know," Al said. "Ed fixed it."

Winry scoffed. "That's not fixed, that's holding together with a bit of glue and luck."

"Winry," Mei called from the older sedan now parked out front. "Stop fucking with the door, it's your turn to wake Kaoru up."

"Hell no," Winry hollered back. "Let her sleep in the damn back seat all day if she wants, I'm not going through that shit again!"

"Kaoru?" Al asked.

"Friend of Mei's," Winry explained. "She's in from Japan, a total badass with her katana. She's apparently tracking down this rogue hunter, it's a whole long story. You gonna invite us in, or what?"

"Did you suddenly turn into vampires or something?"

"Dude, it's daylight."

"Vampires can be OUT in daylight, Winry."

"Yeah, and they also DON'T need to be invited in," Winry shoved his shoulder and attempted to push him aside. "You gonna move, gigantor, or am I going to have to get violent?"

"Hey!" Mei was coming up the walk, her duffel bag slung over one shoulder. "Hands off the merchandise, Rockbell!"

Al rolled his eyes and moved out of the door frame. "Mei," he said. Mei stopped and gave him a grin, grabbing him by his shirt and tugging him down so she could kiss him.

"Been a long time, soldier-boy," Mei said, smacking his shoulder. "Should call me a little more often, don't you think?"

Al closed the door behind them, Winry already in the kitchen. "Tch, the fridge is full of beer," she said. "This is such a bachelor pad."

"I notice that did not stop you from liberating said beer," Al said. Winry shrugged as she popped the bottle cap off and hiked herself up on the counter.

"Well, what else would we expect from Mustang?" Winry shrugged.

Mei seated herself at the table, scattering the papers Al had been looking through one handed. "This is some heavy reading,' she said, scanning over a few of the book covers. "Alchemy and occult stuff. What's up?"

Al tapped the image of the ouroboros that he had copied from their father's journal. "This ouroboros," he said. "Has something to do with Mustang's disappearance. We've run across it a few times."

Mei held it up for Winry to see. Winry frowned at it, bottle pressed lightly to her lips. "I've seen that before."

Al looked over at Winry, and Mei nodded. "Right, I thought it looked familiar too."

"Where did you see it?" Al asked.

"There was a case we were doing, back in Michigan," Mei said. "Disappearing kids. Turned out it was a witch, but one of the kids we rescued had this mark on his foot."

"Yeah," Winry added. "And when we looked into it, there was one more kid than there were missing kids. We dunno what became of him."

Al rubbed the lower portion of his face and grunted. "So that makes two," he said. "They're clearly not human, but look it."

"What do you think they are?"

"There's no telling," Al said. "But I'm willing to bet that Ed walked himself right into a nest of them. What an idiot."

"Pff," Winry said. "So, what. We just track him down and rescue him and torch these things?"

"Sounds like a game plan to me," Mei said, smacking the table with her hand.

"I've run with less," Al said. "Let's do this."

*

Statements like that, of course, were not going to answer Ed's many questions, but the man who resembled his own father had waved a hand and instructed that there were to be no further questions. Ed took a step forward but the woman who freed him laid a hand heavy as steel on his shoulder. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said, and her smile was razor sharp.

Ed stared at her hand, then her face, considered throwing her over his shoulder, and it was as if her dark eyes could read his mind. "This way," she said. "If you cooperate we won't even have to tie you up again."

"Such hospitality," Ed bit off, but the woman's expression didn't twitch in the slightest. She turned and glanced over her shoulder, and after a moment Ed followed her.

She led him out the same way he'd entered, past Envy's openly mocking face. Ed's fingers were already curled into a fist, he was being goaded into it and he really didn't care.

"Envy," the woman said sharply. The other man wheeled back and looked the other way petulantly, crossing his arms over his chest.

All the better, because then he didn't see Ed's fist coming. Envy staggered as Ed's fist connected with his cheek. Ed held his fist in one hand, it had felt like punching a brick wall. "You son of a bitch," Ed said. "If you've hurt Mustang at all, I'll kill you myself." He glanced over at the woman in black, who was standing in the door and watching the display impassively. Ed cradled his hand a bit and followed her.

This time, as they passed through doors and long corridors, Ed took better care to count his steps and observe his surroundings. She took note of this too. "Stare away," she said with a chuckle. "There's no escape from here."

"Whatever you say, sister," Ed said. "I'll have you know I've escaped from some of the roughest places out there."

"That may be the case," she tossed him a look over her shoulder. "But that doesn't matter. You won't escape. The entire place is laid with Enochian sigils. Your pet angel has no chance of finding you here. Besides," she added thoughtfully. "Soon enough, you wouldn't even want to leave."

"Is that right?" Ed had been surreptitiously checking his pockets for anything he could use as a weapon, but most of his usual stores had been lifted. Box cutters, army knives and all, missing. Wonderful. "You don't know me very well."

"Or maybe YOU don't know you very well," she purred, stopping before a door. "This is it."

It looked like every other door they'd walked by. Ed looked past her into the room. The cell was as sparse as the rest of the facility, a single bed against the wall, a sink, a toilet- and a shelf full of books.

"Looks like a prison cell to me," Ed said derisively. "Is there a complaints department? Because the customer service around here sucks."

"Your other option is the cell with a pile of straw. Would you perhaps prefer to spend your time chained to the wall like an animal?"

"Complaints department," Ed reiterated. He reluctantly walked past her into the room, and she shut the door behind him, locking it securely.

"Good meat," she said with a vicious grin, through the barred window.

"So, you got a name to go with that body, or do I just gotta call you the 'broad in black'?"

She hesitated, staring at Ed intently through the bars. "Lust," she said, then closed the window over the bars.

Ed raised an eyebrow, his hands on his hips. "Lust and Envy? Someone around here thinks they're so fucking clever."

*

There was no clock and no window, no true way to measure the passage of time in the tiny cell. The first thing that Ed did was pace the room, then check the furniture and the walls. Nothing was truly useful - he could, of course, fashion a weapon out of the chair if he needed to but nothing to help him kill whatever the hell these things were.

"Dammit, Al," Ed said, staring into the mirror. "I could sure use your help right now."

He braced his hands on the sides of the sink. His face was a bit bruised and scuffed from all the abuse he'd taken so far, but no permanent damage had been done. Ed catalogued his injuries, all told this was pretty low on the scale of trauma he'd been through, so far. After rinsing his wounds as best he could, Ed used his tee shirt to dry his face and looked over at the shelf of books. What the hell was this all about?

The books were mostly on hermetic philosophy and alchemy. Ed even recognized a few volumes he remembered his dad keeping around, as well as at the Curtis's. He'd never much been into the art, Al went through a phase in early high school where he was absolutely inured by it but Ed had never seen much use for it. Hokey religions and good blasters and all that jazz.

The question of course remained, what the hell that man the other things called Father wanted with him. With /him/, and not Al. If this turned out to be another another one of Zachariah's colossal headfucks, he'd .... Well. Ed had no clue in hell WHAT he'd do, he simply didn't have the ability to kill an angel, no matter how much of a fuckwit that angel was. Maybe Cas still had that awesome angel-killing sword laying around somewhere...

Ed flopped back onto the bed and scratched his jaw. He really could use a shave, too, but of course there wasn't anything he could use to shave with in this tiny prison-cell. He pillowed his head on his arms and stared at the ceiling.

For all that had gone on he still didn't have any more answers than when he started, just more questions.
*
The sound of the door sliding open woke Ed right up. He had been sleeping on top of the covers, dozing lightly just like he'd been taught. It didn't stop him from reflexively groping for his knife that he usually kept under the pillow; it was of course safely in his duffel bag, in the trunk of his car, who knew how many miles away from here.

Disgruntled, and a little bit out of sorts, Ed glared at the intruder. It was Lust, standing in the open door. She had one hand on her hip and was watching him with unconcealed interest. Ed gave her a smirk and a raised eyebrow, and it looked for a brief moment like she considered it. "Father is waiting," she said instead.

Ed swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched as he rose. "Goody, Father is waiting." He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. "Does that thing have a proper name, or is 'sick fuck' just gonna be good enough?"

He anticipated the slap enough to duck back and avoid it. Lust's eyes widened as he grabbed her outstretched wrist and spun her back into the room. She let out an infuriated shriek as he slammed out the door, throwing it shut behind him and taking off down the hall.

The door to his cell bounced off of the opposite wall as several spikes shot through it. Ed glanced over his shoulder to see Lust appear in the doorway, a trickle of blood from her hairline staining the pasty white of her complexion. Ed didn't wait to see what other tricks she had up her sleeve, instead putting his head down and putting as much foot speed into it as he could.

There had to be something he could use to get word out to Al, some method of contacting the outside world. A telephone, a radio line, anything! But not here, apparently, just long hallways lined with doors. This entire hallway was just like the last one, full of cells and, as the commotion of Lust following Ed caught attention, gaunt faces began appearing in the barred windows themselves. Ed almost tripped over his own feet when he heard someone shout his name.

"Roy?!"

Ed glanced and saw, Roy's face peering out from behind bars in one door, a bandage wrapped around his head and down over one eye. Ed turned on his heel and that's when Lust caught him, spears impaling him in his right shoulder. Ed shouted in pain as that brought him down, and then with a casual flick of her wrist Lust threw Ed against the wall, near Roy's cell.

"Stupid, foolish meat," Lust hissed at him. She had her hand out and Ed could see those spears were her nails. He rolled back in pain, left hand gripping his right shoulder as she tore her fingernails out of his flesh.

"Ed!" Roy yelled, he couldn't see what happened after Ed had gone down.

"I'm all right," Ed said, his teeth gritted as he scooted up onto his ass, back pressed against the wall as that woman-creature came toward him. "What the fuck ARE you?"

Lust brought her fingers to her face and licked the two that had penetrated Ed's shoulder seductively. "Father is waiting," she said instead.

*

Ed was breathing hard as the grotesquely bloated creature dropped him into a chair in front of a lavishly laid out dinner. Lust had to have the creature carry Ed because every time she looked a different direction Ed tried to escape. "Tsk, tsk," the man the creatures called Father said, delicately wiping his mouth as the creature lumbered off. "It's not nice to run off without saying good-bye."

Father placed his napkin on the table and steepled his hands. Ed sat back in the chair, his left hand still pressed over his shoulder, fingers twisted in pain. "Why do you have all those people locked away?"

"All in good time, my boy." He surveyed Ed. "Did Lust hurt you badly?"

"I've had worse," Ed ground out. "What the fuck are you, you're not human, and you're not angels and you're certainly not fucking demons, so what ARE you?"

"Ah, we are a dying race, my children and I," Father sat back sadly, picking up a glass of wine from the table. He waved his hand at the repast. "I am sure you are quite famished after your little adventures."

Ed stared at Father. "Like hell I'm eating your food, who the hell knows what's in it."

"Perhaps you recall a small dive in Nevada, then? The food played to a baser taste, but it was quite popular among the locals."

"Devil's Nest. So you were there." Ed shook his head. "I knew that was no demon we killed."

Father's eyes had began to almost glow around the edges. "No, it was no demon. It was a homunculus. He was my son."

"Well, if you told your kids that hunting and killing people for sport is wrong, then maybe my brother and I wouldn't have to clean up your lapse of parenting skills."

The man across the table struck it, glass still in hand. The goblet shattered, showering glass and wine across the table. Ed didn't flinch, and Father looked at his hand, blood dribbling down and intermingled with the red wine. He held his hand, palm out, to show Ed. The cuts caused by glass were slowly healing, knitting the broken flesh together.

"That's special."

Father drew in a breath. "This will all go away if you tell me where Van Hohenheim has holed himself up," he said. "I'm rather surprised he hasn't gotten wind that I have one of his precious sons in my hands just yet."

Ed laughed derisively. "Yeah, that's not gonna work," he snorted. "Your network's a wee bit out of date, my father died two years ago."

"I see." Father sat back in his chair, folding his hands over his face thoughtfully, eyes shadowed behind his brow. "That does explain a lot."

"What the fuck do you want with Hohenheim anyway?"

"Your father was my twin brother," the man said. "We were born, several thousand years ago in the great civilization of Atlantis."

"Bullshit."

"The particulars are not important," Father said. "But in the same cataclysmic event that took Atlantis to the bottom on the sea, your father and I came out alive. We had been transformed, we were immortal."

"Uh-huh," Ed said. "And what did the men in the white coats have to say about your little story?"

Father continued on, undeterred by Ed's derision. "The object that gave us our immortality and fueled our power was ... neutralized ... by your father years before your birth. I did not believe he could do it, or that he would. Enough of that object's power had permuted the world that it took me almost a full decade to realize that my power was waning."

"And what the fuck all does that have to do with me?"

"You are Van Hohenheim's son. You share his blood and his power; you can open the Gates once more and recharge the battery of this world!"

"Okay, I said it before but I think it bears repeating, you are fucking nuts," Ed said. "This is coming from a guy who's seen the dirtiest and craziest corners of hell with his own two eyes. Buddy, you are fucking nuts."

"Have you ever met anyone from your father's side of the family?"

Ed hesitated a moment, that was true. He'd never seen or heard from anyone on that side of his family ... but that still wasn't the point! "You're a sick, deranged fuck and I don't want anything to do with this."

Father leaned forward and fixed Ed with his darkest look. Ed had seen a lot of scary shit in his life and this didn't even rate on the scale, but something about the meaning behind it made his insides want to curl up and die. "If you do not assist me, and my children," Father said very clearly. "I will force you to watch while Envy removes your friend's vital organs one by one and feeds them back to him."

Ed was breathing very hard by this point, blood was making his shirt stick to him and he was starting to get woozy. "I shall have Lust bring him right out," Father raised his hand. "It's been a long time since I've had dinner and a show."

"All right," Ed snarled. "All right, I'll do what you want, just leave Roy and my friends out of this."

Father's smile was absolutely chilling. "Fantastic."

*

Ed was well into a haze of pain by the time one of Father's "children" - homunculus, the term was floating around Ed's head, now - patched up his shoulder. He didn't know who did it or when he was returned to his small cell, but he awoke several hours later violently sick. Ed rolled out of bed and vomited into the sink, running water to disperse the bile that had built up in his gut. His shoulder was stiff and sore, but he could rotate it. The injury could have been much worse, but she didn't tear any muscle or break any bones.

He was still bent over his sink when the door behind him opened. Once again, it was Lust. She stayed in the doorway and didn't move while Ed awkwardly splashed water on his face again. "Your presence is requested," she said, her voice smooth as silk. "Are you going to cooperate, or are we going to do this the hard way?"

Ed straightened and turned, water dripping from his bangs. He gave her a dark look.

This time, Ed cooperated. He didn't have much of a choice, waiting out in the hall was that monster who had hauled him around like he was a pillow. "What the fuck is that," Ed hiked his left thumb at the thing trailing them.

"Gluttony," Lust responded without turning to look at him.

"Ah-ha," Ed said. "Shoulda known."

This time they went in a different direction. Past the cells again, but further - and this time all the windows were closed so Ed wasn't certain which one was Roy's. The longer they walked the more Ed realized the extent of the building, and how huge it really was. Lust had been right, originally, there was no way Ed would be able to escape this place easily or without assistance. Especially since the only staff appeared to be Father's "children."

After a few sets of double-doors, the room widened into a large auditorium. It was as bare and empty as the rest of the complex that Ed had seen, except on the floor. There was a huge circular array painted on the ground. Lust stopped at the edge of the painted lines. "What is all this?" Ed said, eyes tracing the lines. It wasn't any sort of seal from The Key of Solomon, at least none that he recognized out of hand.

There was writing along the inside of the circle. Ed stepped over the line, careful not to touch them as he read the words. They tugged familiar at his brain, he had read them sometime before. The lines, too - while there was a lot of them it all broke down into basic, key symbols that he recognized. "This is a transmutation circle, isn't it?"

Lust had her arms crossed, she had not moved from where she stopped, but she was watching him intently. "Why are you showing me this?"

"This is what you are going to use to restore life to Father," Lust said finally. "Do you even know how?"

"I know enough," Ed lied. "Why are you showing me now?"

"Because you're going to change it."

Ed looked down at the lines, then back up at Lust. "It's painted onto the floor, lady." He paced one of the straight lines to the edge of an inner circle, spotting more words there. "Besides, why would you want me to change it? That would change the end result."

"Father doesn't have enough power left to sustain a transmutation of the magnitude to restore the balance," Lust said. "You've never performed a transmutation in your life, the circle would suck you dry." She glanced along the lines of the floor. "There's a holding cell under this room. All those prisoners you saw, including your friend, will be herded down there before the transmutation."

This got Ed's attention. His eyes snapped to Lust's face, but she still wasn't looking at him. "Their life-force will aide the power of the circle and help Father achieve his goals."

"Why the hell are you telling me this?"

"Because among those prisoners is a man that I love." Lust looked at Ed finally. "Father has taken him from me, he promised that we would be together once this ordeal is finished, but I know now that he does not mean it to be so. He would destroy his own children just to extend his own life a few more decades. I would rather trade my immortality to spend just a few more days with him."

"So it's true, then," Ed said. "The Atlantis thing."

"Yes." Lust crossed her arms. "Father created us throughout the years to be his eyes and ears when he could not venture out."

"So why don't you just change the transmutation circle yourself?"

Wordlessly, Lust extended one foot and touched the painted line, or rather, tried to. A spark of blue energy escaped and dissipated into the air. "Father created us so we could not interfere in his magic. Once the symbols are active we can assist him, but never can we touch it before."

"...that's weird. But, I don't think I want to help you. I can't trust a word out of your mouth and, oh, besides you tried to KILL me."

"What can I do to gain your trust?"

"I want to talk to Roy. Right now."

Lust glanced at Ed, and then back at Gluttony. "All right," she said. "I imagine you'd need the help in painting the lines, your shoulder has not had time to heal. Gluttony will ensure you do not leave this room."

"You trust him in this little teenage rebellion of yours?" Ed asked.

"He has the mind of a child and the loyalty of a dog," Lust said. "He is the only one who I trust." She slipped out the door, and Gluttony watched her go, a dull grin on his face. He turned his attention back to Ed and cocked his head inquisitively.

Ed smiled uneasily, and Gluttony licked his chops.

*

Lust returned not long after she left, with a bucket of paint and leading Roy. Roy had his hands tied in front of him, and still with the bandage wrapped around his head. Aside from that he didn't look hurt. Roy was glancing around in confusion, and when he saw Ed his entire body went rigid. "Ed!"

"It's okay, I think." Ed came to the edge of the transmutation circle and took the paint from lust. "If you come onto the lines they can't touch us."

"I've seen her use those fingernails of hers," Roy said. Even as he said that, Lust used those razor-sharp nails to slit his bindings. Roy eyed her carefully and, without putting his back to her or Gluttony, stepped over onto the circle.

"Yeah, I know." Ed flexed his right arm and winced. Roy stared at Ed a long moment, and Ed smiled. "I'm okay, Mustang, sheesh. Get that look off your face, you look like someone killed your dog." He held out the paintbrush. "My arm's kinda a wreck, though, so unless you're debilitatingly hurt, I need you to paint."

Roy took the offered paintbrush and dropped his voice low. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," Ed responded. "But this is our best bet for making it out of here, I think." They paced the inner circle and kept moving as far away as they could from the homunculi while not appearing suspicious. "How did they even get you, Mustang? Me an' Al were just starting to poke our noses into the ouroboros thing."

Roy crouched, looking down at his paintbrush. "I'd been hunting the one called Envy for about six months. I think that, if he didn't do it, he knows who killed my friend, the reporter."

Ed nodded. "You've talked about that."

"These things, they're all named after vices. Envy, Lust, Gluttony."

"The one Al and I killed, he was known locally as Greed, we thought it was just a nickname."

"Yeah, I remember. That leaves three."

"Haven't seen anyone else," Ed said. "Wait, that old guy who was with Father at the dinner table."

"Father?"

"Creepy blond guy, looks like Van Hohenheim."

"I knew that couldn't be him, but I was beginning to doubt it myself."

"Yeah, there's a long story there." Ed glanced over at Roy and said, softly. "I'm glad you're not dead."

Roy gave Ed a small grin. "I'm glad I'm not dead too, it's kinda messy."

"You have no idea," Ed crouched down and sighted a line. "Speaking of things getting messy..."

Roy looked in the direction that Ed was and saw both Lust and Gluttony turning. Father and the homunculus known as Envy were pushing through the door, followed by another man, older looking. "There's the shit, and that's the fan."

"Stay on the transmutation circle," Ed said. "Lust couldn't step on it."

"Yeah, but we're trapped."

Ed stood up, as Father turned to face them. "I know."

*

The explosion rattled the entire room, enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Everyone ducked as if the roof was about to come down upon them, staring in surprise. The man who so eerily resembled Ed's father had turned and shouted instructions in a language that Ed didn't recognize. Gluttony and Lust turned and left alone.

"What the hell was that?" Roy said in surprise, still glancing warily around.

"You want my guess," Ed said. "I bet that's the calvary." He was willing to bet, by the way that both Lust and Gluttony were banished from the room, that someone had just been set up. The only problem was he couldn't tell if it was them, or him.

"I see that Lust was advising you to tweak this glorious work of art," Father said from the outer edge of the binding circle. "I hope the changes were not too ... extensive."

"Couldn't tell ya," Ed retorted. "But I know jack shit about this stuff. I figured she was working under your express instructions."

"Oh, she was." Father's grin was sharkish. "Did she also tell you that I only need you alive to trigger the transmutation, but not to control it?"

"Guess it slipped her mind."

"Mm, clearly." Father had paced halfway around the circle. "Good. The alterations have not destroyed the intention of the circle."

"See, I don't get how you're gonna control this thing if you can't even step on it," Ed said. He was edging more toward the center, Roy with him, since both Envy and the other homunculus who Ed didn't know were coming around opposite sides of the circle at them.

Very slowly, very deliberately, Father lifted his foot and placed it on the painted line.

"Oh," Ed said. "That'll do it, then."

"Kill the dark-haired meat," Father said. "I want Elric alive to see what we're going to do to him."

"Great," Ed muttered, back to back with Roy. "Envy, or-?"

"You take the old man," Roy said, a sharp glint in his eye. "Envy's mine."

"Right," Ed squared his stance as both the homunculi stepped into the ring.

*

"Damn," Al said, as he looked at the hole in the front of the building that Winry's custom-mixed explosives had left behind. "Winry, will you marry me?"

Mei reached over and smacked Al upside the head.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Winry said, dusting her hands off on her jeans. "That was louder than I'd anticipated, they're probably going to know we're coming."

"There was a shockwave, Winry, of course they know we're coming."

"Can't be perfect," Winry shrugged.

Kaoru took point, stepping through the wreckage of the door with Winry right behind her. Al, being the tallest of the group, took the rear-guard. Right inside the door was a wide staircase, leading down. With no hesitation, Kaoru led them down the stairs. Almost immediately they were set upon by two guards coming up the stairs, a woman and a beast.

The woman threw her hand out and suddenly her fingers seemed to turn into claws. Al slid, ducking, but Kaoru charged forwards. "I've got this," she shouted, unsheathing her katana expertly and using it to deflect a second attack. "Keep going!"

Mei bounded on past, kunai flashing and embedding in the flesh of the monster in front of them. Al leveled his shotgun and drew back on the trigger, his shot catching the creature in its shoulder.

There was an explosion of concrete behind them and Kaoru rolled by, bleeding from her hairline. She grinned sharply, katana still tight in her hand. Al glanced back at her only to get caught in the side by a sharp blow from the humanoid creature. It was enough to slam him back into the wall and knock the wind out of him. Winry ran around its other side, chambering a round in her shotgun and shooting for its head.

One of Mei's kunai found its eye and the creature shrieked in pain. Mei slid in the rubble that littered the ground at the bottom of the stairs, checking on Al. "I can handle this," Mei said. "You find Ed."

Al was about to protest but realized Mei still had kunai between her fingers and would not hesitate to use them on him to prove her point. "All right," Al said. "Watch yourself."

"You too," Mei, said, spinning on her foot and sprinting toward the thing, flinging one handful of kunai at it while shouting to draw its attention toward her. "Hey, ugly! Over here!"

Al ducked past the fight and headed down the hallway, Winry following. It didn't take them long to find prisoners and they had to stop and release them. Al and Winry went down the hallway, using the butts of their shotguns to break locks off doors and kick down others. The prisoners didn't even stop to thank them, they just took off down the hallway in the way that Al and Winry had come. Al at first tried to warn them that there was a fight going on that way, but no one seemed interested in listening or, really, giving Al a second look. He growled in frustration, but kept at it.

It would be too easy for Ed to be one of the prisoners. Al came to the end of his side of the hall, and helped Winry free the last few prisoners. They looked at each other, but a huge ruckus down the hall distracted them both. "Sounds like that's where the real party is."

"Then let's crash it," Winry said, her grin huge and unsettling.

*

Ed flung the bucket of paint at the advancing homunculus, but the older man batted it out of the air as if it were nothing. The angle was perfect, but the paint hit the ground just outside the outer binding circle. Ed kept his stance loose and open. "So you gotta name?"

The homunculus stopped to consider Ed. "Wrath."

"Huh," Ed said. "The jokes make themselves at this point." He prepared to duck as the monster threw the first punch.

This one was not interested in fooling around in the slightest. Instead of a punch, he feinted and grabbed at Ed. Ed twisted but not enough, and one strong hand closing tight around Ed's neck. Ed threw a punch that would have broken a normal man's nose, but instead it felt like he shattered his knuckles. Ed howled in pain as the homunculus threw him down, one hand still around his neck. All the wind was knocked from his lungs with the toss.

Roy wasn't faring much better. Envy grew in size with every predatory step he took toward Mustang, morphing from a human shape into something else entirely. Roy was beginning to realize exactly how exposed and vulnerable he was, with no weapons and no backup-

Just as Mustang thought that, the retort of gunshots filled the room and someone plugged the Envy-beast between the eyes twice. This didn't kill him - Roy knew even if these things were killable it would take a whole lot more than that to kill them - but it did divert both Envy's attention, as well as the one who had Ed pinned to the ground by his throat.

Al stood in the doorway, gun slightly lowered. "Damn," he said. "It really is gonna take more than that, huh?"

"Al!" Ed gurgled happily, and the homunculus pressed on his throat harder.

Winry followed behind Al, and a split-second later, both Mei and Kaoru came tearing into the room. Kaoru and Mei exchanged a glance, and didn't even slide to a stop. With similar battle-cries they flung themselves at the great dragon-beast Envy had become. Winry, on the other hand, chambered another round into her shotgun and with pinpoint precision took half the head of the Ed's opponent off in one round. "Show-off," Al muttered as he reloaded his own weapon.

Wrath staggered before catching himself, bone and muscle and skin knitting new and fresh, regenerating at an astonishing speed. It was enough distraction, though, for Ed to roll out from under the homunculus and scramble to his feet. "I need a weapon!" Ed called hoarsely.

Al came running, unslinging the secondary shotgun that had on his back to throw to his older brother. Envy roared in astonished pain as Kaoru ran up his back and used her katana to keep purchase. Roy scrambled out of the way as Envy threw himself down and rolled. "Kaoru!" Mei shouted, flinging more kunai toward Envy's face.

Envy lumbered to his feet, tail sweeping both Roy and Winry off-balance and throwing them off the transmutation circle. Envy roared in pain, Kaoru was still hanging on, katana driven deep between Envy's shoulder blades. He threw himself at a far wall, taking them all off the painted lines at the same time.

"Ed!" Al shouted in alarm, winging the shotgun. Ed grabbed it out of the air but was caught as he half-turned by Wraths' heavy strike to the side of his face. The punch threw Ed down, blood splattering as he hit concrete. "ED!"

He pushed himself to his hands and knees as Al fired at the homunculus again, blood running down from his hairline and into his eyes, dripping off onto the floor. As he shook his head the splatters hit the painted lines on the floor and suddenly, everything went straight to hell.

The painted lines lit up like Times Square. Ed staggered to his feet, shotgun in one hand as he looked around wildly. Father started laughing, moving to stand in the concentric center of the huge circle. The brilliant white light was crawling higher, consuming everything. Wrath just vanished into it completely, and Ed aimed his shotgun at Father and squeezed off a shot.

"Al!" Ed yelled hoarsely, as everything started to fade out. "AL!"

*

The world was white, without definition. It stretched into infinity on either side of Ed. His feet were flat on the ground but he cast no shadow. There was no horizon, it was complete nothingness. He wasn't dead, Ed knew death far more intimately than he wanted to admit. He swiped blood out of his eyes with the back of his sleeve, looking about again for something, anything, before turning around.

Directly behind him was a door.

It was a horrible door, huge and towering. It seemed to consume all the space and all of Ed's attention. A symbol Ed recognized but couldn't identify was carved onto the two massive slabs that had no hinges and no handles. Along the frame were the figures of men, twisted in agony or ecstasy, their expressions seemingly changing from one moment to the next.

Ed swallowed hard and turned to face the door fully. There was something completely terrifying about it, and Ed had seriously seen some scary shit in his life. But he would not fall to his fear and he faced it.

Father stood before the immense doors, and it gave Ed an idea of the scale of the thing. The man pounded on the giant stone doors fruitlessly. He was shouting aloud, in the language he had used before. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Ed, his eyes lit up in desperation. "Sacrifice!" He started yelling in English. "I brought your sacrifice, let me in!"

Almost on cue, the doors started to move, opening with a heavy slowness. They made no noise despite their size, and opened into a black depth that Ed had only seen in his worst nightmares. Both hands on his shotgun, Ed chambered his remaining round. Al hadn't given him more ammo, so he had to make this shot count .... Even if he had to use it on himself.

Ed really hoped it wouldn't come to that.

He stared into the inky blackness, and Father opened his arms wide in anticipation. To Ed's increasing horror, this preceeded the eyes. They were every size, and they were all looking different directions. They looked around and then down at Father, taking in the man with his arms outstretched. Ed took a step back, and they all looked at him.

The arms started shooting out of the open doors then. They wrapped around Father, who didn't struggle, and that was the last thing Ed saw because he turned and ran. Where to, he didn't know, but he ran with everything he had. The arms caught him anyway, wrapping around his arms and legs and neck and no matter how he struggled, he was yanked effortlessly back. Father was already gone, drawn into the dark depths beyond the doors but Ed grabbed for anything he could to gain purchase but it was no use, the darkness had him-

*

The light started to fade almost as quickly as it had flared up. Al was completely dazzled. The lines were no longer lit with the strange energy that had crackled around him, and Al held his 9mm out, blinking away stars. The monster that had Ed was gone, no trace of him remained. The man who Al had only gotten a brief glimpse of, he had looked like their father - was gone. An empty suit lay in the center of the transmutation circle, still smoking. That just left - "Ed!"

Ed groaned from where he lay on his back. Blood was still dripping from his head wound, and he had his left hand pressed to his head woozily. "Al?"

Al dropped to his knees beside Ed. "Ed, are you all right? You hit the ground hard-"

He blinked and focused on Al. "I'm alive."

"Yeah," Al said, as the floor shook a bit under them. "For the moment."

"No, you don't understand," Ed said, sitting up quickly and wincing. "There was this giant fucking door, Al, and these eyes-" He pressed his palm to his forehead and winced. "God, it feels like an elephant is trying to get out of my skull the hard way, what the hell-" The floor trembled again and a crack appeared beside Ed, through the painted lines of the circle. "Envy isn't causing that, is he?"

Al looked up, and saw Roy and Winry supporting Mei and Kaoru. "Where's the dragon?"

"I don't know, there was that giant fucking flash of light and he was gone," Mei snapped irritatedly. "What the hell did you do, Elric?"

"I don't even fucking know, can you not yell?" Ed yelled back. "My head feels like it's about to crack open!"

"It's not going to just feel like it in a second," Mei snarled.

"I think we might want to get out of here," Roy said, keeping his grip on Mei tight so she couldn't make good on her threat. The ground cracked again. "It doesn't seem very safe."

"I'm willing to bet the amount of energy this thing let off was probably enough to destabilize this entire building," Al said. "We're underground, this is probably getting ready to collapse in on itself." He helped pull Ed to his feet, and Ed staggered a moment.

"Great," Ed said. "Peachy. I hope you idiots know the way out of this place."

"Oh that's it," Mei said. "Al, I'm going to make you an only child."

"No you're not," Al said firmly, throwing Ed's arm over his shoulder.

Kaoru groaned. "Can you all stop flirting with each other long enough to make sure we don't die in here?"

"Snark later," Winry said. "Run for life now."

*

Ed wasn't quite sure how they got out of there, or how everything played out. He was woozy and discombobulated from the fight and the head trauma. He knew he passed out at some point, because he woke up in the back of Winry's tiny little car, squeezed between Roy and Al. Ed drifted in and out for a while after that, dreaming of odd things he didn't quite understand. Ancient civilizations and strange symbols and hell, hooks and eyes, hundreds of thousands of eyes...

He groaned, long and low as Ed fought his way back to consciousness. He was tucked in securely, and as his eyes focused on the ceiling he recognized the layout as that of a cheap motel chain. He hated chains with a passion, so Al couldn't have checked them in here. Ed wiggled his arm out from under the comforter to press to his forehead.

His head hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before. Every time he closed his eyes he saw those strange, unnatural violet eyes staring back at him. There were whispers there, in his head, in languages he didn't understand. Things he couldn't pin down and really, he wasn't sure if he wanted to. What had happened to him?

"Awake, finally?" Roy said, from somewhere off to his left.

"Where's my car?" Ed asked, throat dry.

"Nice to see you too," Roy said, amused. Ed pulled himself carefully into a sitting position, and realized his right arm was in a cast. "What the fuck?" Ed raised his casted arm and looked at Roy. Roy looked much better off than Ed, he was seated at the desk by the window. "How did you guys get me in and out of a hospital without me being conscious of it?"

"That's a home-brewed cast," Roy said. "Mei is trying some kind of medicinal thing on you. Al okayed it."

"So she goes from wanting to kill me to fixing me up," Ed said. "I am not being Al's girlfriend's guinea pig, this is so not kosher. Where the hell is Al, I'm going to kick his ass-" Ed was halfway out of bed and winced, then settled back down. "I'll kick his ass later." Ed glared at Roy when Roy laughed. "Where's my car?"

"I can't believe the first thing you asked was where your car was," Roy said.

"You didn't answer."

"Al's got it, your car is fine. Jesus, Ed-"

"Good." Ed rubbed the side of his head with his free hand. "What the hell happened back there?"

"Couldn't tell you," Roy responded. "You're the guy who spoke with Mr. Important back there, I assumed you have all the answers."

"Yeah, I have no idea what the fuck's happened," Ed said. "Christ, Mustang, you had to go and get yourself kidnapped by a bunch of fucking quasi-immortal whateverthefuck homunculi."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Roy said. "Has anyone ever told you your rescue plan isn't supposed to include getting captured yourself?"

"Fuck off," Ed grumbled. "At least I wasn't the damsel in distress here; that was totally you."

"Well, thanks," Roy said quietly. "I do mean it."

"You think Envy's still out there?"

"I don't know," Roy said. "Probably. I doubt that's the last I've seen of him, at any rate. And he's mortal, now. Or as mortal as those things can get." He looked down at his hands. "I can still avenge him."

"Hey, you know," Ed coughed. "If you need any help with that, I'm only a phone call away. Don't go after that thing by yourself."

Roy shot Ed a grateful look, but before he could respond, the door hand jiggled and Al opened the door, girls behind him. "Look who it is," Ed said cheerfully. "Charlie and his angels!"

"The only thing that's saving you from me kicking your ass is that you're already on it," Mei said. Winry had no such compunction and punched Ed in his good shoulder, hard.

"Ow!" Ed said. "Injured!"

"Asshole, party of one," Winry said, flopping on the other bed as Al dropped his armful of sacks from the local fast-food joint on the table.

"So how'd it look?" Roy asked Al as Ed stuck his good hand out for a burger.

"The place was crawling with cops," Al said, tossing his brother a cheeseburger. "No sign of any of the homunculi, or the creepy wannabe Hohenheim."

"Not wannabe," Ed said into his burger.

Al paused, and glanced at Ed. "What?"

"Not wannabe," Ed repeated. "He was Hohenheim's twin."

"Dad never said anything about a brother."

"Dad never said anything about a lot of things," Ed pointed out. "Remember 'there's no such thing as vampires'?"

"Well, with a crazy guy like that one, can you really blame him for not saying anything?" Winry had her head pillowed on her arms, heeling off her shoes. Mei dropped down onto the bed beside Winry's feet.

"Yeah," Al said softly.

"Whatever he was to us, he's gone now," Ed said. "I'm not entirely sure how, but he's gone."

"How can you be sure?"

"Trust me," Ed said grimly. "You don't want to know." He crumpled the wrapper from his burger in one hand. "Anyway, I say we skip town, put some road down behind us. I'm ready for a break, we've been running since that serial killer ghost in Missouri." Ed glanced over at Roy, raised an eyebrow. "Maybe deal with some personal issues."

Kaoru snorted into her hand, and Winry rolled her eyes. "Jeez, if you two want to shag just go get a different room, no one's stopping you."

Ed glanced sharply at Winry, and Roy coughed into his hand.

"Unfortunately, there is no time for such frivolity," Castiel said from the corner.

Everyone in the room jumped. Even Ed and Al were startled, and they were used to Castiel's really random appearances. "Jeez," Ed said. "It's crowded enough in here, don't you ever knock?" The Ed held up his finger. "Wait, how the hell did you even FIND us?"

"What's going on, Cas?" Al asked.

"I found you," Castiel glanced from Roy to the girls, "because of the company you keep. Since I found you, I know for a fact others have as well. There is a gang of rowdy demons holed up in this town ready to claim the bounty on Ed's head."

"Wonderful," Ed said. "So much for my vacation." He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing only a little as he stood up. "Let's hit the road, guys. Mustang, who you riding with?"

Roy gave him a Look. "You have to ask?"

There wasn't much in the room effects-wise and packing shit into the cars took barely any time at all. "Where are my keys?" Ed asked, and Al held them up. Ed held out his hand for them, and Al tucked them back into his hand. "Your arm is broken, there's no way in hell I'm going to let you drive," Al said. Ed growled at him, but relented, sulking his way into the passenger seat.

Al opened the driver's side door, but Mei caught his arm before he could duck into the car. She tugged him down into a brief kiss. "Be safe," Mei said.

"You too," Al responded, and Ed reached over and hit the horn on the steering wheel. "God, Ed!" Al rolled his eyes and gave Mei an apologetic smile. With a sigh Al slid down into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut. He glanced over at Ed, who drummed his fingers on the dash. "We're not listening to your mix tapes, Ed."

"Then let me drive."

"No," Al jammed the keys into the ignition and started the car. Immediately AC/DC started jamming through the speakers and Ed grinned as Al rolled his eyes. "Can't we listen to something else?"

"Just shut up and drive, Al."

-fin