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prose_alchemistTitle: Blood Ties (11/14: Battle)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence and blood.
Characters: A whopping big ensemble across two worlds, although the strongest focus is on Ed.
Setting: First anime. Same timeframe as CoS, two years after the end of the series.
Summary: Alternative to Conqueror of Shamballa. An old enemy plunges Ed into the dark secrets of his new world, linked to the alchemy he thought lost to him—while in Amestris, Al faces a life-or-death choice. Will the nightmare Ed is drawn into provide the key to both their fates?
Disclaimer: They belong to Hiromu Arakawa. I’m just playing with them.
By the time the Hunters had left their fortress, the dhampirs smelled no trace of Hohenheim, but even their senses were no match for a dog’s—and if nothing else, Cyclone was certainly an enthusiastic tracker. Having been given the scent from one of Hohenheim’s changes of clothes, he took off at once, insistently straining at the leash in Hawkeye’s hand. The Hunters followed his wagging tail, letting him lead them at a pace that was sometimes just short of a run.
The streets they traveled proved not to be especially busy, but Ed was aware that they must have been a strange sight for the people they did pass under the streetlamps. Even in London, it couldn’t be every day that one saw nine very different figures all dressed in black, taking a dog for a none-too-leisurely walk in the dark.
However, in short order, Ed found something else to make him uneasy. He had no firsthand memory of the path they followed, but from Noa’s knowledge, he began to realize they were retracing the Hunters’ steps from the night before.
His suspicion was confirmed when Cyclone hauled them determinedly into a long and shadowed alley. The air was tainted with lingering traces of blood and smoke—and near the middle of the alley, Ed noticed a door set into the brick wall on one side. Its wood was freshly splintered by a gouge that penetrated clear through it.
Ed remembered the pain of a blade piercing his body, trapping him. His stomach lurched, and he looked away quickly, to see Cyclone prancing excitedly around a small spatter of red on the ground.
“Cyclone, what’s the matter with you?” Ed snapped at the dog. “All you’ve shown us is where Dad cut himself last night!”
“I don’t think so.” Francesca crouched to examine the ominous droplets, frowning. “Vato and I came back afterward to clean up—you know we have to do that when a dhampir is wounded, to keep anyone from coming in contact with our blood. But this blood is fresh…” She leaned down close and closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of the bloodstain through parted lips. “And it smells like Hohenheim.”
Ed’s heart twisted. “You mean he came back here?”
“It makes as much sense as anything,” Falman murmured grimly. “He wouldn’t know where to look for Envy. It’d be natural enough to start in the last place we saw him.”
“Then Envy found him here and…” Ed shut his eyes and swallowed hard.
Noa spoke to him, touching his shoulder. “Your father’s body isn’t here, Ed. He might still be alive.”
“He probably is.” Opening eyes that were suddenly hard, Edward clenched his fists. “If Dad wanted to use himself as bait, he got his wish. Of course Envy wouldn’t kill him yet. He’ll want me to find them first, so he can take us both together, and kill me while Dad watches… or maybe the other way around. But Envy is the one playing into Dad’s hands that way.”
“If the three of you are in one place, Hohenheim might find his chance to use Envy to open the Gate and send you through,” Bradley followed. He eyed Ed intently. “The rest of us have the knowledge to do this without you. Are you still sure it’s wise for you to continue?”
“Maybe not wise—but it’s what I have to do. If Dad is hurt too badly to make it, I… I need him to know…” Ed shivered and turned away, with an uncomfortable shrug. “Anyway, we can actually count on Envy’s help there. He knows Dad can still hurt him with alchemy. He won’t let him have the chance to try that again.”
Havoc let out a dissatisfied grunt. “Or maybe Envy’s taken Hohenheim’s blood. Then he’ll know everything about how alchemy works here, and exactly what Hohenheim wanted to do. Not so good for us.”
“Maybe. I’m just hoping Envy is as creeped out as I would be by the idea of knowing all Dad’s secrets.” Ed grimaced. “Somehow I don’t think he’d want Dad’s memories of…”
“Of his first son,” Noa finished for him softly. “The young man he meant Envy to be.”
Ed shook his head aggressively, as if to shake out the painful thoughts that were in it, and turned to Hawkeye. “We’ve gotta pick up the trail. It shouldn’t be hard. Envy wants us to follow it.”
“Right,” the woman acknowledged briskly, as she bent down to scratch Cyclone’s ears and murmur a command.
In response, the dog turned quickly to continue down the alley. His nose swiveled back and forth over the ground, and within moments he was pulling at his leash again, with eager whines and tail wags.
“He’s got it,” Hawkeye announced, and they were off again.
For nearly twenty minutes they continued to follow Cyclone—but the Hunters might have been able to find the trail even without his help. Here and there along the way, a few more drops of recently-spilled blood were splashed on the pavement, at intervals too regular to be random.
Envy was drawing them a map.
As the number of scarlet clues mounted, so did Ed’s sick feeling of anxiety. He could only wonder how badly his father was injured, and it felt to him as if hours passed before Cyclone pulled them away from the street, to cross the dirt and gravel covering the grounds of a construction site.
In the center of a fenced-in lot cluttered with building materials and heavy equipment, a half-finished structure rose several stories into the sky. Exposed girders and the towering steel framework of a crane stretched blackly into the moonlight from the topmost completed floor. Through blank openings where windowpanes had yet to be installed, a dim, shadow-filled light could be seen glowing from light bulbs inside the empty concrete shell.
Cyclone made straight for the gaping portal that was to be the building’s main entrance. At the threshold, a smear of blood stained the cement, much larger than any of the other droplets that had dotted their path.
“It seems Envy is advertising his address,” Bradley muttered grimly.
“Or marking his grave.” Ed turned to face the other Hunters. “Sig, Riza, Heymans… Stay close, and don’t try anything heroic. We need you alive to make this work—and if Envy has found that out from my father, you’ll be his first targets.”
Breda uttered an ambivalent grunt, but Sig and Hawkeye nodded.
“Okay…” For the first time Ed realized how strange it was, to have a heart that was utterly silent instead of pounding when he felt so tense and fearful—but his fear was not for himself. It was for Hohenheim, and for the Hunters. Noa and the others didn’t deserve to be caught up in what was, at its most fundamental, a monstrously ugly family matter.
Ed took a deep breath, drew his sword, and led the way into the hollow structure.
Beyond the entryway was a broad open space that would eventually be the ground-floor lobby. There were no furnishings or decorations, only a few abandoned tools and a pile of bricks sitting on the dusty concrete floor. The elevator shafts were empty black chasms with a flimsy line of rope tied across their openings as a barrier, but the steps in the corner stairwell lacked only a coat of paint.
At the end of his leash, Cyclone whined and jerked toward the stairs, but the Hunters no longer needed his help. Under stifling odors of mortar, sawdust, and machine grease, the dhampirs could smell Hohenheim… and blood. The injured man was not far away. At this range, they could track the scents themselves, and the trail led upward.
Quickly and quietly, the Hunters ascended to the second floor, and found themselves facing intersecting hallways. On this level, interior walls partitioned future office spaces, creating a maze that could hide danger around every corner. Only two light bulbs were strung at the opposite ends of the hall, casting precious little illumination into the dark rooms on either side, and the elevator shafts yawned open like twin abysses a few steps away.
There was a rust-colored smudge of blood on the wall facing the stairwell. Hohenheim’s scent was still strong in the air, and now, it was mixed with Envy’s.
“Another arrow pointing the way?” Bradley muttered.
“Or just bait in a trap.” Ed warily approached the bloodstain and reached out, nearly touching it, but not quite. The smell of it made his veins stir with a hideous yearning, and he silently cursed himself. He could still be almost as dangerous to his allies as he was to his enemies. On top of everything else, he didn’t need the fear of how he would react when they found his father, bleeding rich warm life…
His flesh hand clenched, thumping the plaster angrily. He shook his head and pushed away from the wall, as his automail fingers tightened their grip on his sword.
“Come on. We’ve got no choice but to search the whole floor. Let’s split up—two dhampirs to each human. Sig, you’re with Noa and me.”
The Hunters promptly reshuffled into three parties. Havoc and Francesca gravitated to Hawkeye, leaving Breda with Falman and Bradley. Then the groups separated, starting off down different hallways to make a thorough sweep of the rooms.
Ed and Noa moved with cautious slowness, inspecting the dark, empty offices around them. Rather reluctantly, Sig kept pace between them, positioned to be defended if a sudden threat appeared. It was clear that the brawny man hated being protected, instead of doing the protecting himself; but without him, the two dhampirs would be incapable of alchemy.
Only a few minutes’ search was enough to determine that the hallway and its bare rooms were clear, and the other two teams of Hunters met the same result. Either Envy had moved Hohenheim from that floor to another, or he had left the traces of their presence as a diversion.
“Nothing?” Ed asked tersely as the Hunters converged again by the stairwell, already knowing the answer.
There were murmured negatives and shakings of heads, and Francesca volunteered, “Only a really big spider.” She shuddered and grimaced. “I hate spiders…”
Noa scowled at her, and Ed couldn’t help half-smiling. His secondhand memories told him spiders were the one subject on which the two girls’ opinions sharply differed, leading to past heated arguments about their disposal.
“Okay,” he sighed, shrugging off the brief moment of nervous humor. “On to the next—”
His words were cut off by a sudden, loud rattling of metal from behind him, seizing the attention of them all. He turned to see a blacker shadow bursting out of the darkness of the elevator shaft.
Envy.
The two seconds that followed were a blur to Ed. He saw golden hair and glittering fangs flying at him, and then something shoved him roughly to the floor. Bodies tangled above him with shouts and gasps and a few soft thuds. The nearest light bulb was smashed, abruptly dimming that end of the hallway.
As Ed clawed his way to his feet, he glimpsed Envy flowing into the stairwell.
Hawkeye had lost her grip on Cyclone’s leash in the confusion. The snarling dog raced after the homunculus, and she gave chase, ignoring the shouts of Bradley and Falman for her to stop.
Of course. Cyclone was her lover’s favorite dog, after all.
Bradley swore and went after her, followed by Breda and Falman. Ed was about to do the same; but that impulse was arrested when he glanced back at those who remained, and realized what damage was left in the wake of Envy’s tornadic passage through their midst.
Sig was leaning against the wall, his left hand clutching his upper right arm. It was bleeding fairly heavily from a deep gash. Havoc was nursing a cut on his left cheek as well, but his wound would heal rapidly.
But on the floor beside Edward, where Noa knelt…
Francesca lay cradled in Noa’s arms, her eyes wide and lips parted in an expression of quizzical surprise, her face paler than even a dhampir’s should have been. Bloodscent radiated from her, and Ed’s stomach turned as he faintly made out the fast-spreading stain on her dark clothes. Blood was pouring from her chest.
From her heart.
“No!” Ed gasped, falling to his knees beside the two young women.
A small cough shuddered through Francesca. Her eyelids fluttered a little, and her lips twisted wanly as her gaze turned up to meet Noa’s.
“Biggest… s-spider I ever saw…”
Her last breath exhaled softly as her eyes closed, and her body relaxed in Noa’s arms.
Noa bowed her head, hugging Francesca’s still form tightly against her chest. Her shoulders shook with silent tears.
“We’ll kill it for you,” the gypsy whispered tremblingly. “I promise.”
Ed felt a vast, sick hollowness open up in the pit of his stomach. He stood slowly, looking away from the grieving Hunter and her best friend’s body, staring at nothing.
Some leader you are, Elric.
Not now. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t indulge himself in the luxury of self-blame. He was still a leader here, and his people were in disarray. Half of them were pursuing Envy blindly, and two of those still with him were wounded.
His golden eyes rose gravely to Sig. The big man’s hand was clenched around his arm like a tourniquet. He was breathing hard from more than pain or exertion, and his pupils were dilated. He was trying very hard to look calm—but he was dripping with the scent of fear.
He had been cut by the same blade that pierced Francesca’s heart.
With a sudden cold resolve, Ed stripped off his gloves and approached Sig. His left hand touched the blood oozing from beneath the human’s fingers. Fighting back the vile urge to taste it, he drew a thick smear of it across the back of his automail hand.
His father’s repairs to the prosthetic had dealt mainly with small and complex moving parts in the fingers. The larger sections of outer plating on the hand and arm were still the original Amestrian steel, and if Hohenheim’s claims were true…
Closing his eyes in concentration, Ed clapped his hands together, and his flesh fingers touched the streak of blood on the metal.
Blue-white light flared beneath his hand. The upper surface of his steel fist warped and flowed, extruding four clawlike, inch-long spikes from the knuckles.
Sig watched, and his entire body slumped with the release of his breath. He didn’t need Ed to tell him what the experiment proved: Francesca’s blood had not been transferred to him on Envy’s knife. He was not infected with dhampirism.
Grimly Ed studied his handiwork, flexing the joints of his mechanical fingers under the claw-spikes. It was only a small transmutation, as much a test of this world’s alchemic technique as it was of the integrity of Sig’s blood—but it would not be without its uses. Before that moment, his successful use of alchemy would have been a thing of joy and wonder, but now he only wanted to push his newly augmented fist through Envy’s face.
“Noa,” he said tonelessly.
For a brief moment, Noa was still. Then she lowered Francesca’s body to the floor, slowly and gently, and stood up. Her face was awash with tears… but when she met Ed’s gaze, her eyes were a burning scarlet.
He had never seen that fury in her before.
“Let’s go,” she said, in a hard, steady voice. “Before we lose anyone else.”
Havoc lowered his hand from the already half-healed slash on his cheek. He started to speak, but Ed cut him off with a short gesture.
“Take care of Sig’s arm first,” the teenager said firmly, trying to pretend he felt even close to comfortable giving orders. “You can catch up with us then.”
“You can’t use alchemy without me,” Sig rumbled.
“We’ll make do until we find Riza or Heymans—but you won’t be any help if you bleed to death,” Ed snapped. He shot a final glance at Havoc, and was surprised to receive an intent, obedient nod. The older man’s belligerence toward him had vanished.
“Come on,” Ed murmured to Noa. He picked up his sword where it had fallen in the chaos of the attack, and straightened to move on toward the stairs…
Only to freeze as a tall, dark figure suddenly loomed into the doorway of the stairwell.
It wasn’t Envy. It was Maes Hughes, bloodstained and wild-eyed, with a sword clenched in his two-fisted grip.
“What the—?” Ed gulped, instinctively backing away and raising his own sword. Sig and Havoc shrank back against the wall as well; but Noa stood paralyzed between the Hunters and the rogue, her sword lowered halfway in uncertainty.
“Sorry for crashing the party.” Hughes grinned derangedly and took a step closer. “Cyclone was easy to track, you know. Especially after I had a friendly little visit with Roy.”
Noa gasped. “Maes, what did you do to him?”
“Nothing that won’t heal. I didn’t need to hurt him much. All I really wanted to know was how to make alchemy work, and I got that… plus a few other things.” Hughes’ fevered gaze shifted to Sig—and then to Ed.
“I wanted to use Envy to go home… but you’ll do, won’t you?”
With that, Hughes lunged, sword raised. Ed lifted his blade to meet the blow, but Noa intercepted it, bracing herself between them. Hughes’ sword clashed against hers, almost forcing her to her knees, and he growled in anger at the interference.
Edward started forward—and then, with an effort, he stopped himself. He didn’t dare move within Hughes’ reach yet, when a source of human blood was so near as well. One misstep in the narrowness of the hallway, one clap of the rogue’s hands, and his life and Sig’s would be over… and the Gate would be opened, to let Hughes and his poisoned blood carry the horror of dhampirism to the other side.
In a burst of inhuman strength, Noa shoved against Hughes’ sword with her own. He staggered backward, barely avoided being pinned by her blade, and came on again all the more savagely.
As Noa battled with the man who was once her protector, Ed shot a desperate glance at Havoc and Sig. The dhampir was wavering with sword in hand, torn between defending his wounded human comrade and moving to Noa’s aid.
“Jean, get Sig out of here!” Ed shouted.
Havoc flinched. “But—!”
“Hughes can’t transmute me without Sig’s blood! We’ll handle this—just go! Find the others!”
Reluctantly, the other Hunter obeyed. Noa had forced Hughes back a few steps, giving Havoc the chance to seize Sig by his uninjured arm and hustle him into the dark of the stairwell.
With Sig removed from the battle zone, Ed was free from the danger of becoming material for a transmutation. He lurched forward to join Noa, knowing his risk was now less than hers. If Hughes killed Ed, he would be forced to seek out Envy or another vampire as his key to opening the Gate, and one of those monsters would be far more difficult to subdue. For his own convenience, then, he would hesitate to harm Ed; but in his maddened rage, he might do anything to his own foundling who stood between them.
Hughes was larger than Ed or Noa, almost as strong as both of them together—and the tight confines of the dead-end hallway were a difficult space for combat, giving them no chance to maneuver around him for an attack from a different angle. He met their combined strike, parrying their blades, and shifted his weight to kick out at Edward. A swift contortion allowed Ed to avoid the kick, but it also threw off his balance. He stumbled against the wall and went down hard on his automail knee.
“Don’t make me hurt you, Noa,” Hughes ground out as he advanced on the pair… and there was something chilling in his low, rough voice. The words were a plea. She was the one person some part of him was still struggling to protect from his own madness, because a little of his life was in her veins.
“You’re the only one who can stop this!” Noa cried out, planting herself in front of Ed to shield him. “Remember how you felt about me, Maes. I can’t let you hurt my foundling—any more than you could!”
For a single moment, the words reached Hughes. His eyes softened, and he paused, the point of his sword sinking a little.
Then the moment slipped away, and with an animal snarl, he renewed his siege on their tenuous position.
His blows were less calculated, but more furious than ever. Noa gasped as her arms and knees buckled under the savage force of his swinging blade. She fell to her knees, unguarded for one instant, and Hughes struck the left side of her head with the blunt pommel of his sword. It was not meant to be a killing blow, but it was enough to bring her down, dazed and bleeding from her temple.
The sight of Noa’s fall caused a fresh rage to well up within Ed, pushing him past the restraint of mere defense and into a willingness to kill. He flung himself at Hughes with a wordless cry, aiming for the larger dhampir’s neck, but Hughes dodged the sweep of the blade. His sword came down hard on top of Ed’s, pinning it to the floor, and one fist launched upward at the teenager’s face. Although Ed recoiled, the punch still sent him sprawling beside Noa.
With eyes gleaming red, Hughes stalked toward them.
Suddenly he let out a screech, his body twisting violently. He fell forward onto his knees, one hand clutching his sword and the other clawing wildly over his shoulder, and Ed saw the handle of a knife protruding from the center of the rogue’s back.
“Miss me, Fullmetal?” asked a maddeningly familiar voice from the threshold of the stairwell.
Relief and joy blossomed in Ed’s heart as he looked beyond Hughes to the doorway, and saw Roy Mustang standing there. The one-eyed man looked shaken by what he had just done, but there was a trembling ghost of a smile on his lips.
Old habits rushed to the fore all too easily, and Ed bent his own smile into a dirty scowl. “Way to safeguard the secrets of alchemy, moron!”
“Yeah, well, some idiot tried to convince me I could be a hero…” Mustang flinched as Hughes reeled to his feet and staggered against the wall, still groping for the knife in his back. “Get out of here—I’ll finish this!”
Offering no argument, Edward stood, and pulled Noa up beside him. She was still stunned by the healing blow to her head, but as he rushed her past her snarling and writhing mentor, she jerked away from him slightly in resistance.
“It’s my place to do this—I owe it to Maes—”
“You paid your debt to him a long time ago.” Mustang reached out and seized her elbow, helping Ed to propel her toward the stairwell. “This is the last chance I’ll ever have to pay mine.”
At the doorway, Noa hesitated; and behind Mustang, Hughes finally managed to grasp the handle of the knife. He wrenched it out of his back with the roar of a beast, and turned to seek his escaping prey.
“Protect Fullmetal!” Mustang shouted at Noa, as he drew his sword and braced himself to face Hughes.
Those words were enough. With a shuddering half-sob, Noa tore herself away. She allowed Ed to pull her onto the stairs, and they hurriedly began to climb, as the sounds of clashing metal resonated from below.
A sudden movement above them caused Ed to tense instinctively, but it was only Havoc emerging from the fifth-floor doorway, as if he meant to come back to their aid. Seeing Ed and Noa below him, he quickly leaned over the railing. “You alright?”
“Somebody’s gotta help Roy!” Ed shot back imperatively.
“What—”
“Mustang! He’s down there with Hughes!”
Falman appeared at Havoc’s side, and had the good sense not to ask any questions. He seized Havoc by the arm and began to haul him down the stairs.
“The others are up there,” Falman supplied quickly, as the two men passed Ed and Noa.
Upon reaching the fifth-floor landing, Ed could immediately see the rest of the Hunters through the doorway, grouped together in a cavernous open space where interior walls had yet to be built. Bradley and Breda were standing guard, while Hawkeye bandaged Sig’s arm. It was a relief to see the wayward human woman, and even Cyclone, who whined and paced restlessly at the end of his leash.
As Ed and Noa emerged from the stairwell, Bradley stepped forward. “Jean told us—”
“Yeah. Hughes,” Ed muttered. “Apparently he attacked Roy earlier… and Roy followed him here.”
Hawkeye gave a start. “Roy is here?” she gasped, and began to rise.
Ed clamped his steel hand on her shoulder. “You can’t go down there! Neither can Sig or Heymans. Any one of you would be half the material Hughes needs for alchemy. If Envy was to jump into that fight too…” He shook his head firmly and withdrew his hand. “Jean and Vato went back to help Roy. They’ll be alright.”
Reluctantly, Hawkeye accepted his insistence. Her shoulders sagged a little, and she turned to finish tying off the makeshift bandage on Sig’s arm.
Judiciously Ed avoided looking at the red-spotted cloth. “What happened up here?”
“Nothing.” Hawkeye’s voice was flat and hard. “Envy got away from Cyclone and me. I think he’s still climbing the elevator shafts somehow.”
“He’ll be back. Now that we have alchemy, I’m pretty sure even he knows better than to take us all on at once. That has to be why he’s playing this cat-and-mouse game—to pick us off one by one.” Ed scowled. “And he’s gonna have an even easier time now that we’re split up to deal with Hughes.”
“And still no sign of Hohenheim,” Bradley added. “We checked for his scent on the third and fourth floors, but there was no trace of him there. The trail still leads upward.”
“Envy could be with him now. He could decide he doesn’t need Dad now that we’re in his trap.” Ed clenched his spiked fist. “We have to keep going!”
“Shouldn’t we help put down Maes first—or at least wait for the others?” Hawkeye protested.
Bradley shook his head. “Edward is right. The more quickly we act, the better our chances of finding Hohenheim alive. Let’s move.”
Even as the nominal leader of the expedition, Ed was glad to have Bradley’s authority behind him. The others might have balked further at the orders of the teenaged interloper, but the Councilor’s word spurred them to obey without argument. Hawkeye and Breda helped Sig to his feet, and as a group the Hunters began moving toward the stairs.
Standing nearest to the doorway, Ed naturally fell into the lead, with Noa close behind him. His sword had never left his hands since they came up from below, but he gripped it more tightly as they approached the stairs. With each step, he deliberately filled his lungs with a breath, almost tasting the air for smells of danger.
The Hunters cautiously ascended. There were no scent traces at the sixth floor. The trail led on toward the seventh—and when they reached the landing half a floor below, they saw open sky above them. A draft of cool, fresh air filtered down, carrying the scents of Hohenheim, Envy, and blood.
Slowly and silently the Hunters crept up the stairs, and with his sword at the ready, Ed warily peeked over the edge of the landing. The seventh floor was the last completed level, making it the de facto roof of the unfinished building. The partial walls were little more than uneven parapets from which bare girders protruded, and to the left, the crane they had noticed from the outside rose up against a blue-black night sky. The only illumination was the light of the moon.
There was no immediate sign of Envy… but Hohenheim was slumped in the far corner. His arms were stretched out at his sides and his wrists tied tightly to a heavy girder, a binding that was clearly intended to prevent him from using alchemy. A powerful bloodscent rolled off of him. His downturned face was cut and bruised, his lips were torn, and his deteriorating flesh was visible through rents in his shirt: red and fibrous as raw meat, now cracked and bleeding from a monstrous beating.
He was still breathing, and that in itself was miraculous.
“Dad!” Edward gasped. All caution forgotten, he bounded up the last few steps and ran forward.
Hohenheim flinched and raised his head. His eyes flashed with sudden alarm, and he opened his mouth to utter a warning—but his voice was drowned out by an explosive, ear-splitting shriek and groan of tortured metal.
Ed turned in horror to see the crane falling, bursting the chains and steel straps that secured it. With the majestic grace of an ancient oak, the towering machine sagged and plunged forward… straight toward the opening of the stairwell, and the other Hunters who were just poking their heads over the edge.
Bradley and the three humans obeyed their instincts, diving back down into the stairwell as the crane fell; but Noa leaped forward, determined to stay with Ed. As she scrambled to escape from beneath the crane’s shadow, Ed’s shout of her name was inaudible beneath the screeching of steel, and he had no time to do anything else but hit the deck.
With a desperate lunge, Noa tumbled to her hands and knees and rolled aside, as the crane’s several tons of framework crashed down over the stairwell opening. The upper end sliced through one of the half-erected walls, raining chunks of brick and concrete to the ground seven stories below.
Cement dust billowed up, suffused with gravel and knifelike shards of flying metal that tinkled as they fell… and then there was silence.
Sick with fear, Ed seized his fallen sword, pushed himself to his feet, and stumbled forward. The dust stung his eyes and coated his throat when he inhaled a breath to call out. “Noa!”
“Here…” A shadow moved in the thickest of the dust. Noa sat upright, and as Ed approached her through the chalky cloud, he realized she was clutching the back of her right leg. Her coat had protected her for the most part, but a jagged piece of shrapnel had caught her in the calf.
“Easy,” Ed murmured, and bent down to lift her up in his arms, trying to ignore the scent of her blood. He slipped his flesh arm around her back to support her, and started to move; but as he turned to lead her toward his father, Bradley’s keen voice suddenly penetrated from beneath the wreckage of the crane.
“Edward! Are you alright?”
“Yeah, we’re okay—but Dad isn’t!” Ed shouted back. “Do what you can to get through. We have to get him to a hospital!”
The only response was a sound of scraping metal, as the Hunters on the other side immediately threw themselves into the effort of forcing their way through the tangle of steel bars.
At last the dust was settling, and Ed could see his father again. Hohenheim was still slouched in the corner with hands tied, but he was clearly more alert than before. His eyes were fixed on his son and the young Hunter, the two dhampirs who had come to rescue him.
“Ed…” he began waveringly.
A sudden flash of helpless anger at the entire situation sparked in Edward. He growled loudly and moved toward Hohenheim, almost dragging Noa as she limped beside him.
“Don’t you dare say anything! At least one person is dead now because you decided to be an idiot! This time you’re going to listen to me for once in your miserable life—so shut up!”
Hohenheim closed his bleeding mouth, visibly taken aback… and from behind the dhampirs, a morbid chuckle oozed through the darkness.
A chill rose in Ed’s blood, and his automail fingers clenched tight around his sword. He turned, awkwardly pulling Noa with him, but she let out only the slightest grunt of pain as her healing leg was twisted.
“A happy family, as always.” A dark form sprang up onto the top of the crane’s wreckage. Envy leaned into the moonlight with a bitter smile, and gave the torn metal beneath him a meaningful tap with his foot. “I knew you’d bring your friends—but this is a family affair.”
Very slowly and deeply, Ed drew in a breath, and whispered to Noa.
“Can you get to Dad?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then protect him. But whatever you do, don’t untie him as long as I’m still alive.”
Noa gaped and clutched his arm. “Ed—”
“Don’t untie him!” Ed reiterated harshly, and pushed himself away from her, moving toward Envy with a singular deadly purpose.
He wasn’t even quite sure how this could possibly work anymore. The three human Hunters were cut off behind thousands of pounds of steel, and without them, he was as devoid of alchemy as he had ever been in this world. The only human blood within reach was his father’s—and he seriously doubted Hohenheim had enough blood left to survive the transmutation that would send Envy into oblivion. All he could hope was that he could hold his own long enough for the other Hunters to break through.
Envy leaped down from his perch and strode forward, drawing his own sword. His elegant, ruthless face glowed with an unholy anticipation.
“I’ve had enough of you!” Ed roared, and with all his might, he hurled himself at his father’s living sin.
Never in his life had Edward physically fought harder. Never before had he been able to fight so hard, with dhampir strength and reflexes fueled by instinctive, inhuman rage. The murderous power surging through his being was a drug unto itself, numbing the pain when Envy’s blade met his flesh, driving him to strike out all the more savagely.
For the Maes Hughes of both worlds. For Francesca and Noa and his father, for himself and for his brother. For every life that monster had ever touched in centuries of indulgent destruction.
Once again, Envy seemed startled by his underestimation of Ed. Between the relentless blows of Ed’s sword, his own blade landed only small swipes at Ed’s limbs and body, nicking automail plating and cutting fast-fading gashes into resilient undead skin. The strikes he sustained were equally minimal, but like a relentless swarm of insect bites, they maddened the vampire into lashing out ever more rashly.
Ed began to think he just might be able to keep it up long enough.
In the corner, Noa knelt beside Hohenheim, watching the battle with pain in her eyes; but at least for the moment, she obeyed Ed’s wishes, and held herself back from coming to his aid. Hohenheim strained uselessly at his bonds with whatever strength he had, pleading with her to untie him, but she would not.
Envy began to edge back from Ed’s furious attack. That apparent uncertainty aroused a new confidence in Ed, and the dhampir lunged—
The homunculus sidestepped abruptly. His left hand shot out, seizing Ed by the scruff of the neck to jerk him backward.
Something like an electric shock jolted through Ed. His sword fell from his open hand, and he looked down at his suddenly paralyzed body… to see the bloodied point of Envy’s sword protruding through his chest.
As Envy tore the impaling blade out of his back, Ed heard Noa scream his name, but he couldn’t answer her. His entire body seemed to have shut down, leaving him no voice, no movement, not even any pain. He crumpled forward like a broken doll, his open eyes staring toward Noa and his father, feeling only the strange sensation of his life gushing out of his punctured heart.
He knew this time would be the last.
Dimly he saw the crimson fire in Noa’s eyes, heard the sob that caught in her throat as she pressed her hands to Hohenheim’s blood-soaked shirt. She turned, clapped, and strode forward, and in that moment, all the gentle humanity in her was set aside. She became the monster Ed had seen in himself, but never in her: an enraged animal, a vengeful ghost with blood dripping from her hands.
One way or another, Envy seemed to realize the danger that blood posed to him. He hesitated for only a second, and then his shadow withdrew from above Ed. The homunculus leaped away and vanished over the top of the fallen crane, heading for the empty elevator shafts that remained unblocked.
Envy chose his battles cunningly. He would surely return before long, to finish off Hohenheim and Noa—but Ed could do nothing for them now. In a few more moments he would die, just as Francesca had died, for the heart was a dhampir’s one truly vulnerable organ. Its piercing was swiftly, inescapably fatal, and no amount of blood would regenerate that damage, even if there had been time for blood to be given.
For the first time since he was turned, he felt cold… and nothing else at all.
“Untie me, Noa!”
Hohenheim’s words arrested Noa in the act of moving toward Ed. The scarlet faded from her brimming eyes, and she turned despairingly from the son to the father.
“No matter how this ends, you know I won’t live to see the morning,” Hohenheim said, in a voice of firm and quiet authority that might have compelled a mountain to move. “You can’t save me—so at least let me try to save my son. Untie me!”
For a long moment, Noa hesitated… and then she surrendered, her bitter tears spilling over.
Moving as if in a daze, she limped back to Hohenheim, drew her dagger, and slashed the ropes that bound his wrists. He struggled to rise, and she pulled him to his feet, letting him lean on her as he stumbled toward Ed’s motionless body.
A mute, futile yearning to protest fluttered within Ed, but he was unable to express it. Darkness clouded his vision, and he could feel his body letting go of his soul.
Hohenheim fell heavily to his knees beside Edward.
“I never meant this,” he whispered, leaning down tenderly over his child. “And now I… I don’t know if my life is worth enough to set this right. All I can do… is try.”
The sound of a clap rang clearly in the night air. Hohenheim’s hands came to rest on the bare skin of Ed’s cheek and the back of his neck; and somehow, for a brief moment, Ed felt the warmth of his father’s touch.
A burst of light coruscated around him, like the heart of an electrical storm. Somewhere far too close to him, he heard Noa scream, and then his own lungs echoed her cry in a blood-curdling shriek as his soul slammed down fully into his body again—only to rediscover pain.
An agony beyond comprehension exploded in his chest, flooding outward into every fiber of his being. He choked and thrashed as his insides convulsed under the onslaught of alchemic energy, his undead flesh overwhelmed by its living power. At the very epicenter of the torment was his heart, throbbing dully beneath his breastbone as the transmutation closed his wound…
Yet the healing was not the cause of the most intense pain. Something more than mere regeneration was happening to him.
After seven days of silence, Edward’s heart had begun to beat again.
© 2011 Jordanna Morgan
Chapters: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8 :: 9 :: 10 :: 11 :: 12 :: 13 :: 14 :: Epilogue ::
Author:
jordannamorganArchive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence and blood.
Characters: A whopping big ensemble across two worlds, although the strongest focus is on Ed.
Setting: First anime. Same timeframe as CoS, two years after the end of the series.
Summary: Alternative to Conqueror of Shamballa. An old enemy plunges Ed into the dark secrets of his new world, linked to the alchemy he thought lost to him—while in Amestris, Al faces a life-or-death choice. Will the nightmare Ed is drawn into provide the key to both their fates?
Disclaimer: They belong to Hiromu Arakawa. I’m just playing with them.
By the time the Hunters had left their fortress, the dhampirs smelled no trace of Hohenheim, but even their senses were no match for a dog’s—and if nothing else, Cyclone was certainly an enthusiastic tracker. Having been given the scent from one of Hohenheim’s changes of clothes, he took off at once, insistently straining at the leash in Hawkeye’s hand. The Hunters followed his wagging tail, letting him lead them at a pace that was sometimes just short of a run.
The streets they traveled proved not to be especially busy, but Ed was aware that they must have been a strange sight for the people they did pass under the streetlamps. Even in London, it couldn’t be every day that one saw nine very different figures all dressed in black, taking a dog for a none-too-leisurely walk in the dark.
However, in short order, Ed found something else to make him uneasy. He had no firsthand memory of the path they followed, but from Noa’s knowledge, he began to realize they were retracing the Hunters’ steps from the night before.
His suspicion was confirmed when Cyclone hauled them determinedly into a long and shadowed alley. The air was tainted with lingering traces of blood and smoke—and near the middle of the alley, Ed noticed a door set into the brick wall on one side. Its wood was freshly splintered by a gouge that penetrated clear through it.
Ed remembered the pain of a blade piercing his body, trapping him. His stomach lurched, and he looked away quickly, to see Cyclone prancing excitedly around a small spatter of red on the ground.
“Cyclone, what’s the matter with you?” Ed snapped at the dog. “All you’ve shown us is where Dad cut himself last night!”
“I don’t think so.” Francesca crouched to examine the ominous droplets, frowning. “Vato and I came back afterward to clean up—you know we have to do that when a dhampir is wounded, to keep anyone from coming in contact with our blood. But this blood is fresh…” She leaned down close and closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of the bloodstain through parted lips. “And it smells like Hohenheim.”
Ed’s heart twisted. “You mean he came back here?”
“It makes as much sense as anything,” Falman murmured grimly. “He wouldn’t know where to look for Envy. It’d be natural enough to start in the last place we saw him.”
“Then Envy found him here and…” Ed shut his eyes and swallowed hard.
Noa spoke to him, touching his shoulder. “Your father’s body isn’t here, Ed. He might still be alive.”
“He probably is.” Opening eyes that were suddenly hard, Edward clenched his fists. “If Dad wanted to use himself as bait, he got his wish. Of course Envy wouldn’t kill him yet. He’ll want me to find them first, so he can take us both together, and kill me while Dad watches… or maybe the other way around. But Envy is the one playing into Dad’s hands that way.”
“If the three of you are in one place, Hohenheim might find his chance to use Envy to open the Gate and send you through,” Bradley followed. He eyed Ed intently. “The rest of us have the knowledge to do this without you. Are you still sure it’s wise for you to continue?”
“Maybe not wise—but it’s what I have to do. If Dad is hurt too badly to make it, I… I need him to know…” Ed shivered and turned away, with an uncomfortable shrug. “Anyway, we can actually count on Envy’s help there. He knows Dad can still hurt him with alchemy. He won’t let him have the chance to try that again.”
Havoc let out a dissatisfied grunt. “Or maybe Envy’s taken Hohenheim’s blood. Then he’ll know everything about how alchemy works here, and exactly what Hohenheim wanted to do. Not so good for us.”
“Maybe. I’m just hoping Envy is as creeped out as I would be by the idea of knowing all Dad’s secrets.” Ed grimaced. “Somehow I don’t think he’d want Dad’s memories of…”
“Of his first son,” Noa finished for him softly. “The young man he meant Envy to be.”
Ed shook his head aggressively, as if to shake out the painful thoughts that were in it, and turned to Hawkeye. “We’ve gotta pick up the trail. It shouldn’t be hard. Envy wants us to follow it.”
“Right,” the woman acknowledged briskly, as she bent down to scratch Cyclone’s ears and murmur a command.
In response, the dog turned quickly to continue down the alley. His nose swiveled back and forth over the ground, and within moments he was pulling at his leash again, with eager whines and tail wags.
“He’s got it,” Hawkeye announced, and they were off again.
For nearly twenty minutes they continued to follow Cyclone—but the Hunters might have been able to find the trail even without his help. Here and there along the way, a few more drops of recently-spilled blood were splashed on the pavement, at intervals too regular to be random.
Envy was drawing them a map.
As the number of scarlet clues mounted, so did Ed’s sick feeling of anxiety. He could only wonder how badly his father was injured, and it felt to him as if hours passed before Cyclone pulled them away from the street, to cross the dirt and gravel covering the grounds of a construction site.
In the center of a fenced-in lot cluttered with building materials and heavy equipment, a half-finished structure rose several stories into the sky. Exposed girders and the towering steel framework of a crane stretched blackly into the moonlight from the topmost completed floor. Through blank openings where windowpanes had yet to be installed, a dim, shadow-filled light could be seen glowing from light bulbs inside the empty concrete shell.
Cyclone made straight for the gaping portal that was to be the building’s main entrance. At the threshold, a smear of blood stained the cement, much larger than any of the other droplets that had dotted their path.
“It seems Envy is advertising his address,” Bradley muttered grimly.
“Or marking his grave.” Ed turned to face the other Hunters. “Sig, Riza, Heymans… Stay close, and don’t try anything heroic. We need you alive to make this work—and if Envy has found that out from my father, you’ll be his first targets.”
Breda uttered an ambivalent grunt, but Sig and Hawkeye nodded.
“Okay…” For the first time Ed realized how strange it was, to have a heart that was utterly silent instead of pounding when he felt so tense and fearful—but his fear was not for himself. It was for Hohenheim, and for the Hunters. Noa and the others didn’t deserve to be caught up in what was, at its most fundamental, a monstrously ugly family matter.
Ed took a deep breath, drew his sword, and led the way into the hollow structure.
Beyond the entryway was a broad open space that would eventually be the ground-floor lobby. There were no furnishings or decorations, only a few abandoned tools and a pile of bricks sitting on the dusty concrete floor. The elevator shafts were empty black chasms with a flimsy line of rope tied across their openings as a barrier, but the steps in the corner stairwell lacked only a coat of paint.
At the end of his leash, Cyclone whined and jerked toward the stairs, but the Hunters no longer needed his help. Under stifling odors of mortar, sawdust, and machine grease, the dhampirs could smell Hohenheim… and blood. The injured man was not far away. At this range, they could track the scents themselves, and the trail led upward.
Quickly and quietly, the Hunters ascended to the second floor, and found themselves facing intersecting hallways. On this level, interior walls partitioned future office spaces, creating a maze that could hide danger around every corner. Only two light bulbs were strung at the opposite ends of the hall, casting precious little illumination into the dark rooms on either side, and the elevator shafts yawned open like twin abysses a few steps away.
There was a rust-colored smudge of blood on the wall facing the stairwell. Hohenheim’s scent was still strong in the air, and now, it was mixed with Envy’s.
“Another arrow pointing the way?” Bradley muttered.
“Or just bait in a trap.” Ed warily approached the bloodstain and reached out, nearly touching it, but not quite. The smell of it made his veins stir with a hideous yearning, and he silently cursed himself. He could still be almost as dangerous to his allies as he was to his enemies. On top of everything else, he didn’t need the fear of how he would react when they found his father, bleeding rich warm life…
His flesh hand clenched, thumping the plaster angrily. He shook his head and pushed away from the wall, as his automail fingers tightened their grip on his sword.
“Come on. We’ve got no choice but to search the whole floor. Let’s split up—two dhampirs to each human. Sig, you’re with Noa and me.”
The Hunters promptly reshuffled into three parties. Havoc and Francesca gravitated to Hawkeye, leaving Breda with Falman and Bradley. Then the groups separated, starting off down different hallways to make a thorough sweep of the rooms.
Ed and Noa moved with cautious slowness, inspecting the dark, empty offices around them. Rather reluctantly, Sig kept pace between them, positioned to be defended if a sudden threat appeared. It was clear that the brawny man hated being protected, instead of doing the protecting himself; but without him, the two dhampirs would be incapable of alchemy.
Only a few minutes’ search was enough to determine that the hallway and its bare rooms were clear, and the other two teams of Hunters met the same result. Either Envy had moved Hohenheim from that floor to another, or he had left the traces of their presence as a diversion.
“Nothing?” Ed asked tersely as the Hunters converged again by the stairwell, already knowing the answer.
There were murmured negatives and shakings of heads, and Francesca volunteered, “Only a really big spider.” She shuddered and grimaced. “I hate spiders…”
Noa scowled at her, and Ed couldn’t help half-smiling. His secondhand memories told him spiders were the one subject on which the two girls’ opinions sharply differed, leading to past heated arguments about their disposal.
“Okay,” he sighed, shrugging off the brief moment of nervous humor. “On to the next—”
His words were cut off by a sudden, loud rattling of metal from behind him, seizing the attention of them all. He turned to see a blacker shadow bursting out of the darkness of the elevator shaft.
Envy.
The two seconds that followed were a blur to Ed. He saw golden hair and glittering fangs flying at him, and then something shoved him roughly to the floor. Bodies tangled above him with shouts and gasps and a few soft thuds. The nearest light bulb was smashed, abruptly dimming that end of the hallway.
As Ed clawed his way to his feet, he glimpsed Envy flowing into the stairwell.
Hawkeye had lost her grip on Cyclone’s leash in the confusion. The snarling dog raced after the homunculus, and she gave chase, ignoring the shouts of Bradley and Falman for her to stop.
Of course. Cyclone was her lover’s favorite dog, after all.
Bradley swore and went after her, followed by Breda and Falman. Ed was about to do the same; but that impulse was arrested when he glanced back at those who remained, and realized what damage was left in the wake of Envy’s tornadic passage through their midst.
Sig was leaning against the wall, his left hand clutching his upper right arm. It was bleeding fairly heavily from a deep gash. Havoc was nursing a cut on his left cheek as well, but his wound would heal rapidly.
But on the floor beside Edward, where Noa knelt…
Francesca lay cradled in Noa’s arms, her eyes wide and lips parted in an expression of quizzical surprise, her face paler than even a dhampir’s should have been. Bloodscent radiated from her, and Ed’s stomach turned as he faintly made out the fast-spreading stain on her dark clothes. Blood was pouring from her chest.
From her heart.
“No!” Ed gasped, falling to his knees beside the two young women.
A small cough shuddered through Francesca. Her eyelids fluttered a little, and her lips twisted wanly as her gaze turned up to meet Noa’s.
“Biggest… s-spider I ever saw…”
Her last breath exhaled softly as her eyes closed, and her body relaxed in Noa’s arms.
Noa bowed her head, hugging Francesca’s still form tightly against her chest. Her shoulders shook with silent tears.
“We’ll kill it for you,” the gypsy whispered tremblingly. “I promise.”
Ed felt a vast, sick hollowness open up in the pit of his stomach. He stood slowly, looking away from the grieving Hunter and her best friend’s body, staring at nothing.
Some leader you are, Elric.
Not now. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t indulge himself in the luxury of self-blame. He was still a leader here, and his people were in disarray. Half of them were pursuing Envy blindly, and two of those still with him were wounded.
His golden eyes rose gravely to Sig. The big man’s hand was clenched around his arm like a tourniquet. He was breathing hard from more than pain or exertion, and his pupils were dilated. He was trying very hard to look calm—but he was dripping with the scent of fear.
He had been cut by the same blade that pierced Francesca’s heart.
With a sudden cold resolve, Ed stripped off his gloves and approached Sig. His left hand touched the blood oozing from beneath the human’s fingers. Fighting back the vile urge to taste it, he drew a thick smear of it across the back of his automail hand.
His father’s repairs to the prosthetic had dealt mainly with small and complex moving parts in the fingers. The larger sections of outer plating on the hand and arm were still the original Amestrian steel, and if Hohenheim’s claims were true…
Closing his eyes in concentration, Ed clapped his hands together, and his flesh fingers touched the streak of blood on the metal.
Blue-white light flared beneath his hand. The upper surface of his steel fist warped and flowed, extruding four clawlike, inch-long spikes from the knuckles.
Sig watched, and his entire body slumped with the release of his breath. He didn’t need Ed to tell him what the experiment proved: Francesca’s blood had not been transferred to him on Envy’s knife. He was not infected with dhampirism.
Grimly Ed studied his handiwork, flexing the joints of his mechanical fingers under the claw-spikes. It was only a small transmutation, as much a test of this world’s alchemic technique as it was of the integrity of Sig’s blood—but it would not be without its uses. Before that moment, his successful use of alchemy would have been a thing of joy and wonder, but now he only wanted to push his newly augmented fist through Envy’s face.
“Noa,” he said tonelessly.
For a brief moment, Noa was still. Then she lowered Francesca’s body to the floor, slowly and gently, and stood up. Her face was awash with tears… but when she met Ed’s gaze, her eyes were a burning scarlet.
He had never seen that fury in her before.
“Let’s go,” she said, in a hard, steady voice. “Before we lose anyone else.”
Havoc lowered his hand from the already half-healed slash on his cheek. He started to speak, but Ed cut him off with a short gesture.
“Take care of Sig’s arm first,” the teenager said firmly, trying to pretend he felt even close to comfortable giving orders. “You can catch up with us then.”
“You can’t use alchemy without me,” Sig rumbled.
“We’ll make do until we find Riza or Heymans—but you won’t be any help if you bleed to death,” Ed snapped. He shot a final glance at Havoc, and was surprised to receive an intent, obedient nod. The older man’s belligerence toward him had vanished.
“Come on,” Ed murmured to Noa. He picked up his sword where it had fallen in the chaos of the attack, and straightened to move on toward the stairs…
Only to freeze as a tall, dark figure suddenly loomed into the doorway of the stairwell.
It wasn’t Envy. It was Maes Hughes, bloodstained and wild-eyed, with a sword clenched in his two-fisted grip.
“What the—?” Ed gulped, instinctively backing away and raising his own sword. Sig and Havoc shrank back against the wall as well; but Noa stood paralyzed between the Hunters and the rogue, her sword lowered halfway in uncertainty.
“Sorry for crashing the party.” Hughes grinned derangedly and took a step closer. “Cyclone was easy to track, you know. Especially after I had a friendly little visit with Roy.”
Noa gasped. “Maes, what did you do to him?”
“Nothing that won’t heal. I didn’t need to hurt him much. All I really wanted to know was how to make alchemy work, and I got that… plus a few other things.” Hughes’ fevered gaze shifted to Sig—and then to Ed.
“I wanted to use Envy to go home… but you’ll do, won’t you?”
With that, Hughes lunged, sword raised. Ed lifted his blade to meet the blow, but Noa intercepted it, bracing herself between them. Hughes’ sword clashed against hers, almost forcing her to her knees, and he growled in anger at the interference.
Edward started forward—and then, with an effort, he stopped himself. He didn’t dare move within Hughes’ reach yet, when a source of human blood was so near as well. One misstep in the narrowness of the hallway, one clap of the rogue’s hands, and his life and Sig’s would be over… and the Gate would be opened, to let Hughes and his poisoned blood carry the horror of dhampirism to the other side.
In a burst of inhuman strength, Noa shoved against Hughes’ sword with her own. He staggered backward, barely avoided being pinned by her blade, and came on again all the more savagely.
As Noa battled with the man who was once her protector, Ed shot a desperate glance at Havoc and Sig. The dhampir was wavering with sword in hand, torn between defending his wounded human comrade and moving to Noa’s aid.
“Jean, get Sig out of here!” Ed shouted.
Havoc flinched. “But—!”
“Hughes can’t transmute me without Sig’s blood! We’ll handle this—just go! Find the others!”
Reluctantly, the other Hunter obeyed. Noa had forced Hughes back a few steps, giving Havoc the chance to seize Sig by his uninjured arm and hustle him into the dark of the stairwell.
With Sig removed from the battle zone, Ed was free from the danger of becoming material for a transmutation. He lurched forward to join Noa, knowing his risk was now less than hers. If Hughes killed Ed, he would be forced to seek out Envy or another vampire as his key to opening the Gate, and one of those monsters would be far more difficult to subdue. For his own convenience, then, he would hesitate to harm Ed; but in his maddened rage, he might do anything to his own foundling who stood between them.
Hughes was larger than Ed or Noa, almost as strong as both of them together—and the tight confines of the dead-end hallway were a difficult space for combat, giving them no chance to maneuver around him for an attack from a different angle. He met their combined strike, parrying their blades, and shifted his weight to kick out at Edward. A swift contortion allowed Ed to avoid the kick, but it also threw off his balance. He stumbled against the wall and went down hard on his automail knee.
“Don’t make me hurt you, Noa,” Hughes ground out as he advanced on the pair… and there was something chilling in his low, rough voice. The words were a plea. She was the one person some part of him was still struggling to protect from his own madness, because a little of his life was in her veins.
“You’re the only one who can stop this!” Noa cried out, planting herself in front of Ed to shield him. “Remember how you felt about me, Maes. I can’t let you hurt my foundling—any more than you could!”
For a single moment, the words reached Hughes. His eyes softened, and he paused, the point of his sword sinking a little.
Then the moment slipped away, and with an animal snarl, he renewed his siege on their tenuous position.
His blows were less calculated, but more furious than ever. Noa gasped as her arms and knees buckled under the savage force of his swinging blade. She fell to her knees, unguarded for one instant, and Hughes struck the left side of her head with the blunt pommel of his sword. It was not meant to be a killing blow, but it was enough to bring her down, dazed and bleeding from her temple.
The sight of Noa’s fall caused a fresh rage to well up within Ed, pushing him past the restraint of mere defense and into a willingness to kill. He flung himself at Hughes with a wordless cry, aiming for the larger dhampir’s neck, but Hughes dodged the sweep of the blade. His sword came down hard on top of Ed’s, pinning it to the floor, and one fist launched upward at the teenager’s face. Although Ed recoiled, the punch still sent him sprawling beside Noa.
With eyes gleaming red, Hughes stalked toward them.
Suddenly he let out a screech, his body twisting violently. He fell forward onto his knees, one hand clutching his sword and the other clawing wildly over his shoulder, and Ed saw the handle of a knife protruding from the center of the rogue’s back.
“Miss me, Fullmetal?” asked a maddeningly familiar voice from the threshold of the stairwell.
Relief and joy blossomed in Ed’s heart as he looked beyond Hughes to the doorway, and saw Roy Mustang standing there. The one-eyed man looked shaken by what he had just done, but there was a trembling ghost of a smile on his lips.
Old habits rushed to the fore all too easily, and Ed bent his own smile into a dirty scowl. “Way to safeguard the secrets of alchemy, moron!”
“Yeah, well, some idiot tried to convince me I could be a hero…” Mustang flinched as Hughes reeled to his feet and staggered against the wall, still groping for the knife in his back. “Get out of here—I’ll finish this!”
Offering no argument, Edward stood, and pulled Noa up beside him. She was still stunned by the healing blow to her head, but as he rushed her past her snarling and writhing mentor, she jerked away from him slightly in resistance.
“It’s my place to do this—I owe it to Maes—”
“You paid your debt to him a long time ago.” Mustang reached out and seized her elbow, helping Ed to propel her toward the stairwell. “This is the last chance I’ll ever have to pay mine.”
At the doorway, Noa hesitated; and behind Mustang, Hughes finally managed to grasp the handle of the knife. He wrenched it out of his back with the roar of a beast, and turned to seek his escaping prey.
“Protect Fullmetal!” Mustang shouted at Noa, as he drew his sword and braced himself to face Hughes.
Those words were enough. With a shuddering half-sob, Noa tore herself away. She allowed Ed to pull her onto the stairs, and they hurriedly began to climb, as the sounds of clashing metal resonated from below.
A sudden movement above them caused Ed to tense instinctively, but it was only Havoc emerging from the fifth-floor doorway, as if he meant to come back to their aid. Seeing Ed and Noa below him, he quickly leaned over the railing. “You alright?”
“Somebody’s gotta help Roy!” Ed shot back imperatively.
“What—”
“Mustang! He’s down there with Hughes!”
Falman appeared at Havoc’s side, and had the good sense not to ask any questions. He seized Havoc by the arm and began to haul him down the stairs.
“The others are up there,” Falman supplied quickly, as the two men passed Ed and Noa.
Upon reaching the fifth-floor landing, Ed could immediately see the rest of the Hunters through the doorway, grouped together in a cavernous open space where interior walls had yet to be built. Bradley and Breda were standing guard, while Hawkeye bandaged Sig’s arm. It was a relief to see the wayward human woman, and even Cyclone, who whined and paced restlessly at the end of his leash.
As Ed and Noa emerged from the stairwell, Bradley stepped forward. “Jean told us—”
“Yeah. Hughes,” Ed muttered. “Apparently he attacked Roy earlier… and Roy followed him here.”
Hawkeye gave a start. “Roy is here?” she gasped, and began to rise.
Ed clamped his steel hand on her shoulder. “You can’t go down there! Neither can Sig or Heymans. Any one of you would be half the material Hughes needs for alchemy. If Envy was to jump into that fight too…” He shook his head firmly and withdrew his hand. “Jean and Vato went back to help Roy. They’ll be alright.”
Reluctantly, Hawkeye accepted his insistence. Her shoulders sagged a little, and she turned to finish tying off the makeshift bandage on Sig’s arm.
Judiciously Ed avoided looking at the red-spotted cloth. “What happened up here?”
“Nothing.” Hawkeye’s voice was flat and hard. “Envy got away from Cyclone and me. I think he’s still climbing the elevator shafts somehow.”
“He’ll be back. Now that we have alchemy, I’m pretty sure even he knows better than to take us all on at once. That has to be why he’s playing this cat-and-mouse game—to pick us off one by one.” Ed scowled. “And he’s gonna have an even easier time now that we’re split up to deal with Hughes.”
“And still no sign of Hohenheim,” Bradley added. “We checked for his scent on the third and fourth floors, but there was no trace of him there. The trail still leads upward.”
“Envy could be with him now. He could decide he doesn’t need Dad now that we’re in his trap.” Ed clenched his spiked fist. “We have to keep going!”
“Shouldn’t we help put down Maes first—or at least wait for the others?” Hawkeye protested.
Bradley shook his head. “Edward is right. The more quickly we act, the better our chances of finding Hohenheim alive. Let’s move.”
Even as the nominal leader of the expedition, Ed was glad to have Bradley’s authority behind him. The others might have balked further at the orders of the teenaged interloper, but the Councilor’s word spurred them to obey without argument. Hawkeye and Breda helped Sig to his feet, and as a group the Hunters began moving toward the stairs.
Standing nearest to the doorway, Ed naturally fell into the lead, with Noa close behind him. His sword had never left his hands since they came up from below, but he gripped it more tightly as they approached the stairs. With each step, he deliberately filled his lungs with a breath, almost tasting the air for smells of danger.
The Hunters cautiously ascended. There were no scent traces at the sixth floor. The trail led on toward the seventh—and when they reached the landing half a floor below, they saw open sky above them. A draft of cool, fresh air filtered down, carrying the scents of Hohenheim, Envy, and blood.
Slowly and silently the Hunters crept up the stairs, and with his sword at the ready, Ed warily peeked over the edge of the landing. The seventh floor was the last completed level, making it the de facto roof of the unfinished building. The partial walls were little more than uneven parapets from which bare girders protruded, and to the left, the crane they had noticed from the outside rose up against a blue-black night sky. The only illumination was the light of the moon.
There was no immediate sign of Envy… but Hohenheim was slumped in the far corner. His arms were stretched out at his sides and his wrists tied tightly to a heavy girder, a binding that was clearly intended to prevent him from using alchemy. A powerful bloodscent rolled off of him. His downturned face was cut and bruised, his lips were torn, and his deteriorating flesh was visible through rents in his shirt: red and fibrous as raw meat, now cracked and bleeding from a monstrous beating.
He was still breathing, and that in itself was miraculous.
“Dad!” Edward gasped. All caution forgotten, he bounded up the last few steps and ran forward.
Hohenheim flinched and raised his head. His eyes flashed with sudden alarm, and he opened his mouth to utter a warning—but his voice was drowned out by an explosive, ear-splitting shriek and groan of tortured metal.
Ed turned in horror to see the crane falling, bursting the chains and steel straps that secured it. With the majestic grace of an ancient oak, the towering machine sagged and plunged forward… straight toward the opening of the stairwell, and the other Hunters who were just poking their heads over the edge.
Bradley and the three humans obeyed their instincts, diving back down into the stairwell as the crane fell; but Noa leaped forward, determined to stay with Ed. As she scrambled to escape from beneath the crane’s shadow, Ed’s shout of her name was inaudible beneath the screeching of steel, and he had no time to do anything else but hit the deck.
With a desperate lunge, Noa tumbled to her hands and knees and rolled aside, as the crane’s several tons of framework crashed down over the stairwell opening. The upper end sliced through one of the half-erected walls, raining chunks of brick and concrete to the ground seven stories below.
Cement dust billowed up, suffused with gravel and knifelike shards of flying metal that tinkled as they fell… and then there was silence.
Sick with fear, Ed seized his fallen sword, pushed himself to his feet, and stumbled forward. The dust stung his eyes and coated his throat when he inhaled a breath to call out. “Noa!”
“Here…” A shadow moved in the thickest of the dust. Noa sat upright, and as Ed approached her through the chalky cloud, he realized she was clutching the back of her right leg. Her coat had protected her for the most part, but a jagged piece of shrapnel had caught her in the calf.
“Easy,” Ed murmured, and bent down to lift her up in his arms, trying to ignore the scent of her blood. He slipped his flesh arm around her back to support her, and started to move; but as he turned to lead her toward his father, Bradley’s keen voice suddenly penetrated from beneath the wreckage of the crane.
“Edward! Are you alright?”
“Yeah, we’re okay—but Dad isn’t!” Ed shouted back. “Do what you can to get through. We have to get him to a hospital!”
The only response was a sound of scraping metal, as the Hunters on the other side immediately threw themselves into the effort of forcing their way through the tangle of steel bars.
At last the dust was settling, and Ed could see his father again. Hohenheim was still slouched in the corner with hands tied, but he was clearly more alert than before. His eyes were fixed on his son and the young Hunter, the two dhampirs who had come to rescue him.
“Ed…” he began waveringly.
A sudden flash of helpless anger at the entire situation sparked in Edward. He growled loudly and moved toward Hohenheim, almost dragging Noa as she limped beside him.
“Don’t you dare say anything! At least one person is dead now because you decided to be an idiot! This time you’re going to listen to me for once in your miserable life—so shut up!”
Hohenheim closed his bleeding mouth, visibly taken aback… and from behind the dhampirs, a morbid chuckle oozed through the darkness.
A chill rose in Ed’s blood, and his automail fingers clenched tight around his sword. He turned, awkwardly pulling Noa with him, but she let out only the slightest grunt of pain as her healing leg was twisted.
“A happy family, as always.” A dark form sprang up onto the top of the crane’s wreckage. Envy leaned into the moonlight with a bitter smile, and gave the torn metal beneath him a meaningful tap with his foot. “I knew you’d bring your friends—but this is a family affair.”
Very slowly and deeply, Ed drew in a breath, and whispered to Noa.
“Can you get to Dad?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then protect him. But whatever you do, don’t untie him as long as I’m still alive.”
Noa gaped and clutched his arm. “Ed—”
“Don’t untie him!” Ed reiterated harshly, and pushed himself away from her, moving toward Envy with a singular deadly purpose.
He wasn’t even quite sure how this could possibly work anymore. The three human Hunters were cut off behind thousands of pounds of steel, and without them, he was as devoid of alchemy as he had ever been in this world. The only human blood within reach was his father’s—and he seriously doubted Hohenheim had enough blood left to survive the transmutation that would send Envy into oblivion. All he could hope was that he could hold his own long enough for the other Hunters to break through.
Envy leaped down from his perch and strode forward, drawing his own sword. His elegant, ruthless face glowed with an unholy anticipation.
“I’ve had enough of you!” Ed roared, and with all his might, he hurled himself at his father’s living sin.
Never in his life had Edward physically fought harder. Never before had he been able to fight so hard, with dhampir strength and reflexes fueled by instinctive, inhuman rage. The murderous power surging through his being was a drug unto itself, numbing the pain when Envy’s blade met his flesh, driving him to strike out all the more savagely.
For the Maes Hughes of both worlds. For Francesca and Noa and his father, for himself and for his brother. For every life that monster had ever touched in centuries of indulgent destruction.
Once again, Envy seemed startled by his underestimation of Ed. Between the relentless blows of Ed’s sword, his own blade landed only small swipes at Ed’s limbs and body, nicking automail plating and cutting fast-fading gashes into resilient undead skin. The strikes he sustained were equally minimal, but like a relentless swarm of insect bites, they maddened the vampire into lashing out ever more rashly.
Ed began to think he just might be able to keep it up long enough.
In the corner, Noa knelt beside Hohenheim, watching the battle with pain in her eyes; but at least for the moment, she obeyed Ed’s wishes, and held herself back from coming to his aid. Hohenheim strained uselessly at his bonds with whatever strength he had, pleading with her to untie him, but she would not.
Envy began to edge back from Ed’s furious attack. That apparent uncertainty aroused a new confidence in Ed, and the dhampir lunged—
The homunculus sidestepped abruptly. His left hand shot out, seizing Ed by the scruff of the neck to jerk him backward.
Something like an electric shock jolted through Ed. His sword fell from his open hand, and he looked down at his suddenly paralyzed body… to see the bloodied point of Envy’s sword protruding through his chest.
As Envy tore the impaling blade out of his back, Ed heard Noa scream his name, but he couldn’t answer her. His entire body seemed to have shut down, leaving him no voice, no movement, not even any pain. He crumpled forward like a broken doll, his open eyes staring toward Noa and his father, feeling only the strange sensation of his life gushing out of his punctured heart.
He knew this time would be the last.
Dimly he saw the crimson fire in Noa’s eyes, heard the sob that caught in her throat as she pressed her hands to Hohenheim’s blood-soaked shirt. She turned, clapped, and strode forward, and in that moment, all the gentle humanity in her was set aside. She became the monster Ed had seen in himself, but never in her: an enraged animal, a vengeful ghost with blood dripping from her hands.
One way or another, Envy seemed to realize the danger that blood posed to him. He hesitated for only a second, and then his shadow withdrew from above Ed. The homunculus leaped away and vanished over the top of the fallen crane, heading for the empty elevator shafts that remained unblocked.
Envy chose his battles cunningly. He would surely return before long, to finish off Hohenheim and Noa—but Ed could do nothing for them now. In a few more moments he would die, just as Francesca had died, for the heart was a dhampir’s one truly vulnerable organ. Its piercing was swiftly, inescapably fatal, and no amount of blood would regenerate that damage, even if there had been time for blood to be given.
For the first time since he was turned, he felt cold… and nothing else at all.
“Untie me, Noa!”
Hohenheim’s words arrested Noa in the act of moving toward Ed. The scarlet faded from her brimming eyes, and she turned despairingly from the son to the father.
“No matter how this ends, you know I won’t live to see the morning,” Hohenheim said, in a voice of firm and quiet authority that might have compelled a mountain to move. “You can’t save me—so at least let me try to save my son. Untie me!”
For a long moment, Noa hesitated… and then she surrendered, her bitter tears spilling over.
Moving as if in a daze, she limped back to Hohenheim, drew her dagger, and slashed the ropes that bound his wrists. He struggled to rise, and she pulled him to his feet, letting him lean on her as he stumbled toward Ed’s motionless body.
A mute, futile yearning to protest fluttered within Ed, but he was unable to express it. Darkness clouded his vision, and he could feel his body letting go of his soul.
Hohenheim fell heavily to his knees beside Edward.
“I never meant this,” he whispered, leaning down tenderly over his child. “And now I… I don’t know if my life is worth enough to set this right. All I can do… is try.”
The sound of a clap rang clearly in the night air. Hohenheim’s hands came to rest on the bare skin of Ed’s cheek and the back of his neck; and somehow, for a brief moment, Ed felt the warmth of his father’s touch.
A burst of light coruscated around him, like the heart of an electrical storm. Somewhere far too close to him, he heard Noa scream, and then his own lungs echoed her cry in a blood-curdling shriek as his soul slammed down fully into his body again—only to rediscover pain.
An agony beyond comprehension exploded in his chest, flooding outward into every fiber of his being. He choked and thrashed as his insides convulsed under the onslaught of alchemic energy, his undead flesh overwhelmed by its living power. At the very epicenter of the torment was his heart, throbbing dully beneath his breastbone as the transmutation closed his wound…
Yet the healing was not the cause of the most intense pain. Something more than mere regeneration was happening to him.
After seven days of silence, Edward’s heart had begun to beat again.
© 2011 Jordanna Morgan
Chapters: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8 :: 9 :: 10 :: 11 :: 12 :: 13 :: 14 :: Epilogue ::