FMA [BigBang Fic]: ACIS: Central City (6/7)
Title: ACIS: Central City
Genre: Divergence, Mystery, Family
Summary: Mangaverse, divergence. Central City 1910 - 1916. Political upheaval has restructured the proud nation of Amestris to a blooming democracy, where the art of alchemy is no longer glorified, but monitored for the distrust it has sown. In this obstructive climate, Roy Mustang’s investigative team must track down a familiar face, for ties to a brutal homicide case.
Rating: T
Word count: 30.000+
Spoilers: mild spoilers for everything, which includes the new movie
Disclaimer: Everything FMA belongs to Arakawa & BONES.
Warnings: minor character deaths, bit of cussing, some gore (crime scene, not much you can do about it.)
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PREVIOUS
PART 5
Monday, April 12, 16:42 - West Area - Frontier town - Pendleton
The off-key whistling of a Xingese drover, who called himself Han, announced an ox drawn hay cart, passing through a deserted part of the Wild West. His cheerfulness clashed with the rising anxieties of the four people hitchhiking in the dry hay. They drove through many jagged peaks and canyons, with stretches of overgrown ground in-between. The land looked like it had not changed since the beginning of time and felt foreign enough to be the milestone markers to the ends of the earth. In reality, the rough terrain sheltered their destination: the often fatally disputed border town of Pendleton. The quartet plus odd man out made for a peculiar group, indeed. The stoic Ishvalan, his wounds sloppily treated and wrists cuffed behind his back, was just the beginning. The others included a heavily wounded, snoozing senior field agent, an agitated, fretting young woman whom no one would suspect to be a government operative, and a buff young man with only half his limbs in working order. There was a joke to be had in there, the more cynical of the lot mused.
The Xingese man unceremoniously left them to fend for themselves a quarter mile out from the town fences, waving once he urged his oxen on their way. The quartet got a good look at the gates as they made their way up the road leading into Pendleton.
The sunny, blue sky clashed with the barbed wire barricades surrounding the ghost town, where only those cloaked in Amestrian blue uniforms roamed. The bright colour contrasted sharply with the iron-rich reddish earth.
As Pendleton was considered an active front in the war zone, being allowed to approach and finally receiving clearance from the security patrols to proceed further was a painfully slow and hazardous process for their ragtag group. During each longer period, the odd bunch of travellers were made to wait there were at least ten different guns aimed at their vital organs.
The stretch of no man’s land to the west was quiet for a hotspot of conflict, though a state of alert was rigorously maintained. No active clashes from the direction of the descending sun painted the earth a darker red that day. Surprisingly, it was due north of the ghost town where dust swirled and kicked up. Shouting, the bark of many guns and even the roar of an armoured tank could be heard blowing the thick packed earth, solid rock and who knew what else to kingdom come.
The captain who was to grant the mismatched colleagues entrance and their own personal guards, straightened after he inspected their presented badges for forgery. The man actually saluted their company when he first addressed the least likely person of their merry band.
“Sir,” the man greeted Misha, and waved over the nearest corporal. He ordered said person to retrieve a medic and a specialist, the latter to remove the restraints Havoc had managed to shackle onto the Ishvalan. “Western Command gave orders to assume you incapacitated when you failed to report in by noon today and launched the Operation Red River. Casualties on our side are twenty-four, with fifty-two wounded.” The captain looked shamed by his commanders’ error in judgement. “The Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the operation sent the foot soldiers in first to scout the perimeter. We had anticipated a measure of vigilance and resistance from the enemy, but not an entire platoon of vicious chimera.”
Winry and Edward protested loudly and even Havoc objected when the specialist was introduced and, with little ado, freed Misha from his cuffs. Even with the Ishvalan’s destructive alchemy contained as it was, the man was still a physical threat and these western idiots wanted to set him loose? Their protest was stifled by the captain.
“We had direct orders to let this man assist the cause. Miss Rockbell is free to accompany him in her own capacity as federal agent, should she wish to.” Winry involuntarily moved a step away from the Ishvalan, closer to the sagging Jean and Edward.
“You two, however,” the captain paused to appreciate the state they were in. The clothes on Havoc’s left side were saturated with blood, while Edward dragged the weight of two borderline dysfunctional limbs. He complained of a killer headache now that the sedatives had run their course. “Will catch the first train back to Central, once the medic has patched you up.”
The Ishvalan made to leave the trio behind and head for the battlefield, leaving the others hanging in anticipation for a murderous outburst that never came. Not from the Ishvalan at least.
“Oi, Captain Idiot!” Ed banked on the man’s affront to stop ignoring their protests. “Did the sun boil your brain? Why are you releasing him? He almost killed all of us!” Ed’s left arm gesticulated wildly between Misha and his own companions. Just because the Ishvalan hadn’t murdered them in their sleep over the past few days - they’d rotated vigil to be sure - didn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind. Men like him were ruthless.
Then Ed turned towards the balding man, who’d undone Misha’s cuffs with little fuss and the ease of habit. It infuriated Ed all the more, for his own countless failures to do just that. “Hey, you, Kinky Geek! If you’re open for business, why not take these off,” Ed shook his left sleeve away from his own bracelet, “now you’ve sprung homicidal over there?”
The assassin paused long enough to give Edward a warning, before the State Restriction scientist could even process Ed’s impetuous request.
“Your soul should have returned to Ishvala this week, Elric. There are two reasons standing between you and that fate, and you’d better heed them. That restriction,” he nodded at the alchemic repressor Edward just could not get rid of, “and more importantly the protection of the Rockbells’ daughter.”
Both Winry and Ed gaped at the haunted man who had almost been the death of both of them.
“The moment you discard those, you’ll be another enemy for me to hunt down. Remember that well.” With those foreboding words, the scarred Ishvalan left to separate more mortal souls from their living shells during the in-full-swing Red River Op.
The medic treated and bandaged the nasty wound to Jean’s ribs. Winry was still processing the shock of the past few hours while Edward stewed over a lost golden opportunity, as the still flustered scientist had hastily scurried off. Winry only had superficial scratches and bruises and, when Edward’s turn came, he grumbled at the medic that all he needed was a mechanic. When informed that the nearest mechanic was located in West City, Edward didn’t take it well.
Winry looked contemplative. “You know,” she finally interrupted Ed. “My grandmother was an automail mechanic.”
Edward wasn’t in the mood for small talk. To him, nice or not, Winry Rockbell was an odd nuisance - slanted against ACIS on Kimblee’s side of bureaucracy - that he needed to be rid of before all else.
“That’s nice. So?” His insincerity to stop any chatter didn’t work.
Winry looked at him, a ‘you don’t want to mess with me’ look firmly back in place in those blazing blue eyes, now that her tormentor had gone. “I’ve read most of her books. I could take a look at the damage. I can’t possibly make things worse.”
Ed wanted to protest just how badly she could mess up with the wiring, if she was just going to play around. But the limbs felt like they would need replacing anyway, and at the moment they were little more than dead weight. He was in no condition to follow Misha and find out the secrets hidden under the desert. Al called the shot. “That might be helpful, thank you.”
She looked honestly surprised. Even Havoc, sitting nearby, paused in lighting his cigarette. Alphonse chuckled, interpreting their stares. “Brother is actually quite considerate, once you learn to read him.” He defended his self-sacrificing older sibling. “You just caught him at the wrong time.”
Alphonse sighed. “Besides, we need to be able to move around, if we are going to help out there.” He pointed in the direction of the violent conflict on the horizon, where the forbidden research center carved out one of the rock peaks. The younger Elric flexed his left hand and looked toward Jean once the doctor was out of earshot. “And once all that senseless fighting is over, we need to confiscate their research notes before the military can run off with it.”
* * *
Before the scarred Ishvalan’s arrival, the soldiers from western headquarters had been making slow progress across no man’s land. Their march toward one of the many crags in the largest jutting rock that harboured the perfectly concealed entrance to the Thule facility’s suspected misdeeds was a slow progression with heavy casualties. After Misha, wounded and bandaged up though he was, ploughed his way through the resistance, the going got easier a lot faster for the regular soldiers.
Alphonse - and Edward - following after as soon as their still malfunctioning, but at least moveable automail would allow, got their first taste of a large scale slaughter. The bodies of humans, chimeras and even a few human chimeras littered the grounds around the entrance. Most men had been savaged; most chimera been riddled with bullets. However, where the scarred Ishvalan had bowled through, a trace of mangled bits and pieces of various types of partially decomposed chimeras decorated the sandy planes. With Misha’s coming, close combat resistance had dropped a sharp 90%. Alphonse suppressed a shudder of revulsion. If Misha hadn’t held back on the train, he and Ed might have ended up as such a blotch of gore. In the back of his mind, Ed snarled at Al’s thought. Not only was it completely counterproductive to their often acknowledged survival spirit, but it also poked at Edward’s memories of the most traumatic day in their lives. Both the brothers could normally agree that those memories were better left suppressed in some dark corner, gathering dust.
Alphonse followed in the wake of the dead, dying and the advancing soldiers, down out of the dry heat and blinding sunlight and into the cool belly of the hidden facility. As he progressed farther down into the torchlight, the spiralling slope of the natural cave walls gave way to manmade doors - so Al discovered upon looking through a few doorways, thrown open either by escaping scientists, experiments or invaders, or a few simply kept unlocked - and the labs they hid from scrutiny of both the population and the majority of Amestris’ government.
Most laboratories they passed were devoid of life. The scientists had either fled the commotion, taking the most valuable parts of their research with them, or they’d been so absorbed in their work that either the soldiers or Misha had taken them by surprise. If the latter had happened upon them, there were bloody corpses left behind. When it had been the soldiers, they’d got orders to take as many of the scientists alive as possible. Had the scientists resisted too violently, for example by trying to set their precious specimens upon the bluecoats, then fire had been opened at will and there were still bodies for the clean-up team to pick up.
Alphonse knew he needed to vacate this slaughterhouse before the body bags came in. He couldn’t take nearly as much time as he needed to look through the few scattered research notes left behind in various labs. His one bit of luck was that the scientists had apparently felt safe enough from the outside world they hadn’t bothered with encrypting their work. This let Al more readily discard what work didn’t appear to have any use to him as he scavenged the labs.
Anything reporting the successful merger of two species got slipped into the canvas bag hung over his left shoulder. Such notes might just hold a vital clue to unmerging his own soul from his brother’s body, when the time came. At that rate, other papers, likely from research assistants on subjects like lobster/algae symbiosis, got left behind. A repugnant folder, labelled Xerxian Supremacy Breeding Programme, found in an utterly overturned, larger than average lab, gave Al pause. He leafed through some observations, catching a few random dates like 1899 and 1900, both reporting on the success of mating Remnant #23 with Subject E78. The project had been cancelled in 1902 for reasons that had been blacked out on the paper, before resuming again as if it had never been on hold, two years later. Not seeing any relevance and discomforted by the idea of breeding humans for some sort of specific gene pool, Al left that file alone and searched for other clues. In doing so, he noticed that the far wall looked like it had been recently patched up through alchemy. If his knocking hadn’t have sounded hollow, it might have been nothing. Maybe it wasn’t anything; both Misha and the military seemed to have brushed past it, but Alphonse thought - more than a little spurred on by Ed’s own curiosity - it couldn’t hurt to take a look. There was a certain scent on the air, Al realised, that Ed recognised. Agitated feedback flooded Alphonse’s system, a queasy feeling settling in his stomach along with the sensation.
“What is it?” Al asked his brother out loud, because Ed just didn’t deal in ‘upset’. Ed normally got pissed off, plain morose or pulled a mother hen impression. This new kind of discomfort unsettled Alphonse.
‘This smell, I hate it.’ His brother wasn’t talking about the blood or the fire or the stale air in which the other scents mingled. It was something else, fleeting yet lingering. Al was drawing a blank, but he trusted Ed on the matter. Whatever was unnerving his brother, it was a recollection currently beyond their grasp. Though, if the bad feeling was anything to go by, perhaps they were better off not knowing. It wasn’t like they had time to squander, either. Better to get on with their job.
Alphonse was again distracted from his self-appointed task of deconstructing the cover-up wall, this time by sounds much closer than the more distant shots of soldier retribution and remaining chimeras being caged or killed.
A long, low whine echoed off the large cavernous path just outside the lab. It was followed by a harsh shushing sound and a man speaking in hushed tones. Prodded to find out if the stranger was friend or foe, Al moved closer to the partially open doorway and hoped Ed’s automail didn’t squeak too loudly to be detected by whoever happened by.
As he moved closer, Al finally got into hearing range. The man speaking was definitely not someone either he or Ed knew, judging by his voice. “You just have to be a good girl while we play hide and seek with the soldiers, okay, Nina?”
A deep, raspy voice that didn’t sound anything like a little girl - or even a little boy - answered slowly. “Okay.”
As the man and the ‘good girl’ passed under the torch mounted next to the door, Alphonse got a good look at the pair of them. A dreadful shiver ran down his spine. The average looking, hollow faced man kept shooting furtive looks around him. His slender, trembling hand clenched around a pistol, as if he expected the soldiers or Misha to descend upon them at any moment. A man on the run, though his overall appearance was too clean and well-kept for a former experiment or prisoner, surely. One of the scientists trying to slip past the Amestrian army, maybe? At the assumed scientist’s side limped a vaguely doglike chimera. A shot had grazed one of its hind legs, which had been hastily bandaged, though whether for the sake of the chimera’s health or just to prevent a blood splatter trail, Al couldn’t guess. The beast - possibly part little girl - sought the man’s comfort by nuzzling his unoccupied hand.
It spoke again, a soft whine trailing its words. “It hurts, Daddy.”
It seemed as if the brothers felt a simultaneous blow to their midriff. Al’s breath caught as the memories from two different viewpoints tried to overlap and meld together in his mind. The memory took the brothers - shoved them, really, down memory lane at breakneck speed - back to that day, in that dark room, to that lowest moment of utter despair.
‘“Hurt-s.”’/-‘“Hurt-s.”’- The shifting, partially overlapping viewpoints associated with the traumatic memory, one from Ed’s point of view at a young age, the other an impression of Al’s soul trapped in their failure, fought for their attention. It physically hurt. Alphonse’s sense of the present blurred. His - Ed’s - head pounded as blood rushed in his ears and his stomach turned at the repressed shock and revulsion which lingered with that dark memory. Alphonse’s thoughts twisted their way through Ed’s mind, rushed to the next thing Al remembered: an endless plain of white and a huge set of stone doors. There was a person there, Alphonse had seen him before, last time too, but last time was later than what Al just thought of. Not that he was given the time to analyse, he just caught a glimpse of a starving body with a long, golden mane, reaching for him and, in response, Al felt an overwhelming sense of belonging and the desire to grab that hand.
The sense and sight were abruptly cut off as Alphonse’s awareness was jerked back violently. He could feel his consciousness slam back into his brother’s body, exactly like the feeling of falling into a void when on the edge of dreams. Ed - Al realised once he managed to focus on the present - faced the man. A gun pointed at Ed’s face and the man was asking questions. Alphonse tuned into the talk.
“Golden hair and eyes.” The man’s eyes glazed over, he continued in a mutter, mostly to himself. “I never thought Marcoh had actually produced any substantial results for Edison.” His gaze lingered on the half-functional automail limbs. Small eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Not that Edison would ever grant the resources to a failure to get expensive replacements.”
The man was obviously a loon, Ed concluded as he twisted his automail away from the guy’s stare. Still, a maniac who sprouted names like those of the Crystal Alchemist and former Brigadier General Edison could be useful, once some actual facts got extracted from the ramble. Best to gift-wrap the likely mad scientist for ACIS authority to deal with, Ed decided.
The man wasn’t finished yet. “If you’re not an experiment, then you’re with the soldiers. An expendable liability. Years of work they’ve ruined.” He cocked the gun. Al was ready this time and a low wall of earth sprang into existence to ricochet the bullet. A large hand, made of the same mineral composition immobilised his attacker, while the man marvelled at his display of alchemy.
“You are one of his creations! Improbable, but the facts are there. Your colouring could have been attributed to a genetic glitch, but to possess the quick reflexes and superior affinity for alchemy as well... The chances are astronomical.”
‘Definitely a mad scientist.’
The chimera had positioned itself in front of the caught scientist, clearly defensive, yet not attacking.
This left all the short span of time Alphonse needed to inspect the hidden section he’d discovered earlier. It turned out to be pretty disappointing. It had most definitely been part of one large laboratory; however now it stood ransacked and deserted.
Loud growls made Al swivel back to the chimera and captured scientist. Misha was making his way back up to the surface it would seem, and had happened upon them. Again Al witnessed the killer in those ruby eyes as Misha passed judgement on the other man.
“Shou Tucker, the Sewing-Life Alchemist.”
Alphonse was surprised; Ed full blown shocked that the raving imbecile was a former State Alchemist.
“He knows a lot, he might prove useful.” Al volunteered in order to deter the scarred Ishvalan. Neither of the brothers condoned coldblooded murder, no matter what heinous deeds Tucker might have committed.
Ruby eyes regarded Al frostily. “He is a breathing sin upon Ishvala’s larger creation. Obliterating such evil and its consequences,” the tattooed man spared a glance at the growling chimera, “would be a kindness for the greater good.”
Ed started moving almost before Misha, nearly the same time as the chimera leapt. Ed screamed, furious, because he knew that chimera was part little girl. Al shoved Ed aside, clapping hands together to form spikes out of the ground to drive the man away from his next victims. Alphonse was fast as ever. The Ishvalan was faster.
Al and Ed stared in equal horror at the mess Misha made of their attack, the alchemist and, most importantly, the chimera.
The assassin turned away from the bodies. “The next time you attempt to strike me, this will be you.” He indicated the two corpses that now joined the multitude of his victims. “Come, Elric. We will leave this hellhole now.”
The man who had singlehandedly turned the tide on the Red River Op left the horror of the Thule Facility in ruins.
>>> NEXT <<<
Genre: Divergence, Mystery, Family
Summary: Mangaverse, divergence. Central City 1910 - 1916. Political upheaval has restructured the proud nation of Amestris to a blooming democracy, where the art of alchemy is no longer glorified, but monitored for the distrust it has sown. In this obstructive climate, Roy Mustang’s investigative team must track down a familiar face, for ties to a brutal homicide case.
Rating: T
Word count: 30.000+
Spoilers: mild spoilers for everything, which includes the new movie
Disclaimer: Everything FMA belongs to Arakawa & BONES.
Warnings: minor character deaths, bit of cussing, some gore (crime scene, not much you can do about it.)
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PREVIOUS
PART 5
Monday, April 12, 16:42 - West Area - Frontier town - Pendleton
The off-key whistling of a Xingese drover, who called himself Han, announced an ox drawn hay cart, passing through a deserted part of the Wild West. His cheerfulness clashed with the rising anxieties of the four people hitchhiking in the dry hay. They drove through many jagged peaks and canyons, with stretches of overgrown ground in-between. The land looked like it had not changed since the beginning of time and felt foreign enough to be the milestone markers to the ends of the earth. In reality, the rough terrain sheltered their destination: the often fatally disputed border town of Pendleton. The quartet plus odd man out made for a peculiar group, indeed. The stoic Ishvalan, his wounds sloppily treated and wrists cuffed behind his back, was just the beginning. The others included a heavily wounded, snoozing senior field agent, an agitated, fretting young woman whom no one would suspect to be a government operative, and a buff young man with only half his limbs in working order. There was a joke to be had in there, the more cynical of the lot mused.
The Xingese man unceremoniously left them to fend for themselves a quarter mile out from the town fences, waving once he urged his oxen on their way. The quartet got a good look at the gates as they made their way up the road leading into Pendleton.
The sunny, blue sky clashed with the barbed wire barricades surrounding the ghost town, where only those cloaked in Amestrian blue uniforms roamed. The bright colour contrasted sharply with the iron-rich reddish earth.
As Pendleton was considered an active front in the war zone, being allowed to approach and finally receiving clearance from the security patrols to proceed further was a painfully slow and hazardous process for their ragtag group. During each longer period, the odd bunch of travellers were made to wait there were at least ten different guns aimed at their vital organs.
The stretch of no man’s land to the west was quiet for a hotspot of conflict, though a state of alert was rigorously maintained. No active clashes from the direction of the descending sun painted the earth a darker red that day. Surprisingly, it was due north of the ghost town where dust swirled and kicked up. Shouting, the bark of many guns and even the roar of an armoured tank could be heard blowing the thick packed earth, solid rock and who knew what else to kingdom come.
The captain who was to grant the mismatched colleagues entrance and their own personal guards, straightened after he inspected their presented badges for forgery. The man actually saluted their company when he first addressed the least likely person of their merry band.
“Sir,” the man greeted Misha, and waved over the nearest corporal. He ordered said person to retrieve a medic and a specialist, the latter to remove the restraints Havoc had managed to shackle onto the Ishvalan. “Western Command gave orders to assume you incapacitated when you failed to report in by noon today and launched the Operation Red River. Casualties on our side are twenty-four, with fifty-two wounded.” The captain looked shamed by his commanders’ error in judgement. “The Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the operation sent the foot soldiers in first to scout the perimeter. We had anticipated a measure of vigilance and resistance from the enemy, but not an entire platoon of vicious chimera.”
Winry and Edward protested loudly and even Havoc objected when the specialist was introduced and, with little ado, freed Misha from his cuffs. Even with the Ishvalan’s destructive alchemy contained as it was, the man was still a physical threat and these western idiots wanted to set him loose? Their protest was stifled by the captain.
“We had direct orders to let this man assist the cause. Miss Rockbell is free to accompany him in her own capacity as federal agent, should she wish to.” Winry involuntarily moved a step away from the Ishvalan, closer to the sagging Jean and Edward.
“You two, however,” the captain paused to appreciate the state they were in. The clothes on Havoc’s left side were saturated with blood, while Edward dragged the weight of two borderline dysfunctional limbs. He complained of a killer headache now that the sedatives had run their course. “Will catch the first train back to Central, once the medic has patched you up.”
The Ishvalan made to leave the trio behind and head for the battlefield, leaving the others hanging in anticipation for a murderous outburst that never came. Not from the Ishvalan at least.
“Oi, Captain Idiot!” Ed banked on the man’s affront to stop ignoring their protests. “Did the sun boil your brain? Why are you releasing him? He almost killed all of us!” Ed’s left arm gesticulated wildly between Misha and his own companions. Just because the Ishvalan hadn’t murdered them in their sleep over the past few days - they’d rotated vigil to be sure - didn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind. Men like him were ruthless.
Then Ed turned towards the balding man, who’d undone Misha’s cuffs with little fuss and the ease of habit. It infuriated Ed all the more, for his own countless failures to do just that. “Hey, you, Kinky Geek! If you’re open for business, why not take these off,” Ed shook his left sleeve away from his own bracelet, “now you’ve sprung homicidal over there?”
The assassin paused long enough to give Edward a warning, before the State Restriction scientist could even process Ed’s impetuous request.
“Your soul should have returned to Ishvala this week, Elric. There are two reasons standing between you and that fate, and you’d better heed them. That restriction,” he nodded at the alchemic repressor Edward just could not get rid of, “and more importantly the protection of the Rockbells’ daughter.”
Both Winry and Ed gaped at the haunted man who had almost been the death of both of them.
“The moment you discard those, you’ll be another enemy for me to hunt down. Remember that well.” With those foreboding words, the scarred Ishvalan left to separate more mortal souls from their living shells during the in-full-swing Red River Op.
The medic treated and bandaged the nasty wound to Jean’s ribs. Winry was still processing the shock of the past few hours while Edward stewed over a lost golden opportunity, as the still flustered scientist had hastily scurried off. Winry only had superficial scratches and bruises and, when Edward’s turn came, he grumbled at the medic that all he needed was a mechanic. When informed that the nearest mechanic was located in West City, Edward didn’t take it well.
Winry looked contemplative. “You know,” she finally interrupted Ed. “My grandmother was an automail mechanic.”
Edward wasn’t in the mood for small talk. To him, nice or not, Winry Rockbell was an odd nuisance - slanted against ACIS on Kimblee’s side of bureaucracy - that he needed to be rid of before all else.
“That’s nice. So?” His insincerity to stop any chatter didn’t work.
Winry looked at him, a ‘you don’t want to mess with me’ look firmly back in place in those blazing blue eyes, now that her tormentor had gone. “I’ve read most of her books. I could take a look at the damage. I can’t possibly make things worse.”
Ed wanted to protest just how badly she could mess up with the wiring, if she was just going to play around. But the limbs felt like they would need replacing anyway, and at the moment they were little more than dead weight. He was in no condition to follow Misha and find out the secrets hidden under the desert. Al called the shot. “That might be helpful, thank you.”
She looked honestly surprised. Even Havoc, sitting nearby, paused in lighting his cigarette. Alphonse chuckled, interpreting their stares. “Brother is actually quite considerate, once you learn to read him.” He defended his self-sacrificing older sibling. “You just caught him at the wrong time.”
Alphonse sighed. “Besides, we need to be able to move around, if we are going to help out there.” He pointed in the direction of the violent conflict on the horizon, where the forbidden research center carved out one of the rock peaks. The younger Elric flexed his left hand and looked toward Jean once the doctor was out of earshot. “And once all that senseless fighting is over, we need to confiscate their research notes before the military can run off with it.”
* * *
Before the scarred Ishvalan’s arrival, the soldiers from western headquarters had been making slow progress across no man’s land. Their march toward one of the many crags in the largest jutting rock that harboured the perfectly concealed entrance to the Thule facility’s suspected misdeeds was a slow progression with heavy casualties. After Misha, wounded and bandaged up though he was, ploughed his way through the resistance, the going got easier a lot faster for the regular soldiers.
Alphonse - and Edward - following after as soon as their still malfunctioning, but at least moveable automail would allow, got their first taste of a large scale slaughter. The bodies of humans, chimeras and even a few human chimeras littered the grounds around the entrance. Most men had been savaged; most chimera been riddled with bullets. However, where the scarred Ishvalan had bowled through, a trace of mangled bits and pieces of various types of partially decomposed chimeras decorated the sandy planes. With Misha’s coming, close combat resistance had dropped a sharp 90%. Alphonse suppressed a shudder of revulsion. If Misha hadn’t held back on the train, he and Ed might have ended up as such a blotch of gore. In the back of his mind, Ed snarled at Al’s thought. Not only was it completely counterproductive to their often acknowledged survival spirit, but it also poked at Edward’s memories of the most traumatic day in their lives. Both the brothers could normally agree that those memories were better left suppressed in some dark corner, gathering dust.
Alphonse followed in the wake of the dead, dying and the advancing soldiers, down out of the dry heat and blinding sunlight and into the cool belly of the hidden facility. As he progressed farther down into the torchlight, the spiralling slope of the natural cave walls gave way to manmade doors - so Al discovered upon looking through a few doorways, thrown open either by escaping scientists, experiments or invaders, or a few simply kept unlocked - and the labs they hid from scrutiny of both the population and the majority of Amestris’ government.
Most laboratories they passed were devoid of life. The scientists had either fled the commotion, taking the most valuable parts of their research with them, or they’d been so absorbed in their work that either the soldiers or Misha had taken them by surprise. If the latter had happened upon them, there were bloody corpses left behind. When it had been the soldiers, they’d got orders to take as many of the scientists alive as possible. Had the scientists resisted too violently, for example by trying to set their precious specimens upon the bluecoats, then fire had been opened at will and there were still bodies for the clean-up team to pick up.
Alphonse knew he needed to vacate this slaughterhouse before the body bags came in. He couldn’t take nearly as much time as he needed to look through the few scattered research notes left behind in various labs. His one bit of luck was that the scientists had apparently felt safe enough from the outside world they hadn’t bothered with encrypting their work. This let Al more readily discard what work didn’t appear to have any use to him as he scavenged the labs.
Anything reporting the successful merger of two species got slipped into the canvas bag hung over his left shoulder. Such notes might just hold a vital clue to unmerging his own soul from his brother’s body, when the time came. At that rate, other papers, likely from research assistants on subjects like lobster/algae symbiosis, got left behind. A repugnant folder, labelled Xerxian Supremacy Breeding Programme, found in an utterly overturned, larger than average lab, gave Al pause. He leafed through some observations, catching a few random dates like 1899 and 1900, both reporting on the success of mating Remnant #23 with Subject E78. The project had been cancelled in 1902 for reasons that had been blacked out on the paper, before resuming again as if it had never been on hold, two years later. Not seeing any relevance and discomforted by the idea of breeding humans for some sort of specific gene pool, Al left that file alone and searched for other clues. In doing so, he noticed that the far wall looked like it had been recently patched up through alchemy. If his knocking hadn’t have sounded hollow, it might have been nothing. Maybe it wasn’t anything; both Misha and the military seemed to have brushed past it, but Alphonse thought - more than a little spurred on by Ed’s own curiosity - it couldn’t hurt to take a look. There was a certain scent on the air, Al realised, that Ed recognised. Agitated feedback flooded Alphonse’s system, a queasy feeling settling in his stomach along with the sensation.
“What is it?” Al asked his brother out loud, because Ed just didn’t deal in ‘upset’. Ed normally got pissed off, plain morose or pulled a mother hen impression. This new kind of discomfort unsettled Alphonse.
‘This smell, I hate it.’ His brother wasn’t talking about the blood or the fire or the stale air in which the other scents mingled. It was something else, fleeting yet lingering. Al was drawing a blank, but he trusted Ed on the matter. Whatever was unnerving his brother, it was a recollection currently beyond their grasp. Though, if the bad feeling was anything to go by, perhaps they were better off not knowing. It wasn’t like they had time to squander, either. Better to get on with their job.
Alphonse was again distracted from his self-appointed task of deconstructing the cover-up wall, this time by sounds much closer than the more distant shots of soldier retribution and remaining chimeras being caged or killed.
A long, low whine echoed off the large cavernous path just outside the lab. It was followed by a harsh shushing sound and a man speaking in hushed tones. Prodded to find out if the stranger was friend or foe, Al moved closer to the partially open doorway and hoped Ed’s automail didn’t squeak too loudly to be detected by whoever happened by.
As he moved closer, Al finally got into hearing range. The man speaking was definitely not someone either he or Ed knew, judging by his voice. “You just have to be a good girl while we play hide and seek with the soldiers, okay, Nina?”
A deep, raspy voice that didn’t sound anything like a little girl - or even a little boy - answered slowly. “Okay.”
As the man and the ‘good girl’ passed under the torch mounted next to the door, Alphonse got a good look at the pair of them. A dreadful shiver ran down his spine. The average looking, hollow faced man kept shooting furtive looks around him. His slender, trembling hand clenched around a pistol, as if he expected the soldiers or Misha to descend upon them at any moment. A man on the run, though his overall appearance was too clean and well-kept for a former experiment or prisoner, surely. One of the scientists trying to slip past the Amestrian army, maybe? At the assumed scientist’s side limped a vaguely doglike chimera. A shot had grazed one of its hind legs, which had been hastily bandaged, though whether for the sake of the chimera’s health or just to prevent a blood splatter trail, Al couldn’t guess. The beast - possibly part little girl - sought the man’s comfort by nuzzling his unoccupied hand.
It spoke again, a soft whine trailing its words. “It hurts, Daddy.”
It seemed as if the brothers felt a simultaneous blow to their midriff. Al’s breath caught as the memories from two different viewpoints tried to overlap and meld together in his mind. The memory took the brothers - shoved them, really, down memory lane at breakneck speed - back to that day, in that dark room, to that lowest moment of utter despair.
‘“Hurt-s.”’/-‘“Hurt-s.”’- The shifting, partially overlapping viewpoints associated with the traumatic memory, one from Ed’s point of view at a young age, the other an impression of Al’s soul trapped in their failure, fought for their attention. It physically hurt. Alphonse’s sense of the present blurred. His - Ed’s - head pounded as blood rushed in his ears and his stomach turned at the repressed shock and revulsion which lingered with that dark memory. Alphonse’s thoughts twisted their way through Ed’s mind, rushed to the next thing Al remembered: an endless plain of white and a huge set of stone doors. There was a person there, Alphonse had seen him before, last time too, but last time was later than what Al just thought of. Not that he was given the time to analyse, he just caught a glimpse of a starving body with a long, golden mane, reaching for him and, in response, Al felt an overwhelming sense of belonging and the desire to grab that hand.
The sense and sight were abruptly cut off as Alphonse’s awareness was jerked back violently. He could feel his consciousness slam back into his brother’s body, exactly like the feeling of falling into a void when on the edge of dreams. Ed - Al realised once he managed to focus on the present - faced the man. A gun pointed at Ed’s face and the man was asking questions. Alphonse tuned into the talk.
“Golden hair and eyes.” The man’s eyes glazed over, he continued in a mutter, mostly to himself. “I never thought Marcoh had actually produced any substantial results for Edison.” His gaze lingered on the half-functional automail limbs. Small eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Not that Edison would ever grant the resources to a failure to get expensive replacements.”
The man was obviously a loon, Ed concluded as he twisted his automail away from the guy’s stare. Still, a maniac who sprouted names like those of the Crystal Alchemist and former Brigadier General Edison could be useful, once some actual facts got extracted from the ramble. Best to gift-wrap the likely mad scientist for ACIS authority to deal with, Ed decided.
The man wasn’t finished yet. “If you’re not an experiment, then you’re with the soldiers. An expendable liability. Years of work they’ve ruined.” He cocked the gun. Al was ready this time and a low wall of earth sprang into existence to ricochet the bullet. A large hand, made of the same mineral composition immobilised his attacker, while the man marvelled at his display of alchemy.
“You are one of his creations! Improbable, but the facts are there. Your colouring could have been attributed to a genetic glitch, but to possess the quick reflexes and superior affinity for alchemy as well... The chances are astronomical.”
‘Definitely a mad scientist.’
The chimera had positioned itself in front of the caught scientist, clearly defensive, yet not attacking.
This left all the short span of time Alphonse needed to inspect the hidden section he’d discovered earlier. It turned out to be pretty disappointing. It had most definitely been part of one large laboratory; however now it stood ransacked and deserted.
Loud growls made Al swivel back to the chimera and captured scientist. Misha was making his way back up to the surface it would seem, and had happened upon them. Again Al witnessed the killer in those ruby eyes as Misha passed judgement on the other man.
“Shou Tucker, the Sewing-Life Alchemist.”
Alphonse was surprised; Ed full blown shocked that the raving imbecile was a former State Alchemist.
“He knows a lot, he might prove useful.” Al volunteered in order to deter the scarred Ishvalan. Neither of the brothers condoned coldblooded murder, no matter what heinous deeds Tucker might have committed.
Ruby eyes regarded Al frostily. “He is a breathing sin upon Ishvala’s larger creation. Obliterating such evil and its consequences,” the tattooed man spared a glance at the growling chimera, “would be a kindness for the greater good.”
Ed started moving almost before Misha, nearly the same time as the chimera leapt. Ed screamed, furious, because he knew that chimera was part little girl. Al shoved Ed aside, clapping hands together to form spikes out of the ground to drive the man away from his next victims. Alphonse was fast as ever. The Ishvalan was faster.
Al and Ed stared in equal horror at the mess Misha made of their attack, the alchemist and, most importantly, the chimera.
The assassin turned away from the bodies. “The next time you attempt to strike me, this will be you.” He indicated the two corpses that now joined the multitude of his victims. “Come, Elric. We will leave this hellhole now.”
The man who had singlehandedly turned the tide on the Red River Op left the horror of the Thule Facility in ruins.
>>> NEXT <<<