021 [Accidental voice]
[For those using the Sirius Cybernetics Flaming Ferret Parental Filter, they will be redirected to this classic, wholesome cartoon.]
( I didn't wanna hurt you, but you're pretty when you cry... )
( I didn't wanna hurt you, but you're pretty when you cry... )
[What did they do to her? He's going to kick their asses when he finds them...]
Where are you?
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[He always gets there too late, doesn't he?]
Polly...
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Begging never works, does it, Ed?
[She walks toward him calmly, an almost affectionate smile on her face.]
More time, more knowledge, once last breath... one last smile.
Maybe if you asked to suffer more. Then at least you wouldn't be denied.
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What happened? What did they do to you?
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The doctors helped. They set me free.
[Her mind reaches out to his, the touch oppressive, invasive, smothering.]
She'll never be able to run again.
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Set you free? Run? Polly, this isn't like you.
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Oh, but it is just, like me Ed... Do you have any idea the things I've seen? The things I've felt? The old woman was only the beginning...
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No... No, I don't know. But that doesn't mean I don't understand.
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But you will.
[She sent the memories shrieking into his mind, swallowing him whole in a sea of pain. The creatures are ghostly pale, but all too solid--their weight crushes, claws piercing flesh as they clutch at limbs, jaws that could break stone pulverizing bone. Teeth tear at flesh, but it's obvious that feeding is not the primary goal. It's too messy, too chaotic.]
[A leg is torn forcibly from its socket, femur dug out and snapped so that the animals can get at the marrow, his ribcage is torn asunder, belly opened like a present. Any human would've passed out long ago, but there is no such respite here, and in the background always the sound of their hyena-like cries and the knowledge that this has happened and would happen again... and again... and again...]
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[This just might top his list of 'Edward Elric's Most Painful Experiences', despite it being all in his mind. Just because his limbs aren't really there anymore doesn't make the phantom pain he sometimes feels from them any less real, and his brain processes the memories from Polly in exactly the same way, overlaying his nerves with the sensations from hers.]
[Within seconds, he's collapsed to the floor, screaming from the pain.]
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[After a solid five minutes, she lets the memories slip away, crouches down beside him, and runs a hand over his yellow hair.]
Now, Ed. Now you understand.
[Rising, she walks away. There is still a whole ship for her to terrorize.]
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[All Ed wants to do is pass out. Just... not yet. Because he does understand, and he has for years, what pain and suffering can do to a person. He's seen it in himself, in his teacher, in the soldier that came back from Ishval changed, in Scar... Sometimes all you can do is run from the pain, and if Polly has been running from something like this, he doesn't blame her in the least.]
[That doesn't mean he can just let her go around torturing people though. And as his mind starts to lose its grip on consciousness, he makes one last appeal to her, focusing his eyes on her back as she walks away. He has no idea if she'll hear him, because he can't do that mind talk thing, but he has to try.]
[Polly, don't do this.]
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[For a split second, something desperate and wordless reaches back--]
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somewhere
he wasn't sure yet, especially with Ling kind of fucked up after what Polly had done to him.
That lump on the floor over there looks familiar.]
Geez...
[Greed stumbled over to Ed, and started poking him in the face]
Crazy bitch got you too, huh.
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