Interdem (FMA, interdimensional police force)
“I’d stop right there if I was you.”
Their target froze, fingers trembling uncertainly above the glossed metal plating of the gate’s main console. Ed tensed instinctively but Roy warned him off with a casual wave, polished boots clicking neatly on the tiles as he stepped forward.
“Roy Mustang of the Central ID Division,” he introduced himself to the target, flicking his badge with the perfect mix of officiousness and bored superiority. He leveled an authoritative look at the man. “Mr. Alvin Dart, you have been found guilty of trespassing in an alternate dimension under section 42 paragraph nine of the Syling Code. Please come with us.”
A moment of silence, then, “How do you know who I am?”
“Unauthorized inter-dimensional travel is a serious crime in the Pan-Ex Union,” Roy told him, the urbane threat in his voice made all the stronger by the polite, bland way in which he said it. “You’ve been under close supervision since you left Dimension R4-73.”
Dart started to chuckle, a high, panicked sound that ratcheted through the air and made the hackles on Ed’s neck rise. He shifted restlessly, only the phantom press of Al’s hand on his shoulder keeping him from sprinting forward and clocking the psycho one before things got messy.
“A crime?” Dart demanded incredulously, laughter fading as he rounded on them, ratty brown jacket flaring sharply incongruent against metal and chrome. He leveled an accusatory finger at Roy.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve worked towards this day?!” he screeched, loud and dangerously close to hysterical. “I’ve invented an inter-dimensional traveling machine! Me! How dare you call me a criminal for the greatest invention my world has even seen?!”
The last was practically a scream and Ed braced himself, certain things were about to go to hell in a hand-basket very quickly. Most of their assignments usually did.
Only Roy still seemed calm, hands sliding casually into his pockets as he smiled thinly. “My apologies Mr. Dart,” he offered, flatly insincere. “I’m sure it is difficult to realize how much more advanced this dimension is to yours, yet that does not change the fact that you do not belong here. Interdem does not take kindly to interlopers.”
Dart’s eyes flashed, his whole body trembling with rage, and Roy’s smirk widened.
“Only members of the ID may travel through dimension gates with impunity,” he continued, obviously relishing each word, and Ed was reminded once again why Roy was so good at this job. It was easy to get under a target’s skin when you were the most irritating bastard in the world.
And Roy was only getting started. He sniffed dismissively as he looked down his nose at the target. “You, Mr. Dart, are considerably less privileged than members of the ID. You have neither the authority nor the right to travel through dimensions - and are particularly out of place in so advanced a country as this. I’m afraid you’re better off leaving the dimensional travel to those who are better suited for it.” A pompous smirk. “Like me.”
There was a breathless, furious silence, long enough for Ed to wonder cautiously if Dart might actually take the bait after all. It would depend on how strongly the Sinbiote impulses were influencing his thoughts - and how much of his human psyche had survived his first trip through the gates.
Roy waited patiently, the smug superiority radiating from him enough to make Ed’s jaw clench even when it was pointed elsewhere. If anyone could pull this act off, it’d be Roy.
And then the silence snapped, a snarl of frustration shattering through the air as Dart exploded into motion, bolting away from the dimensional gate dangerously fast.
But not towards Roy.
The moment Dart lunged for the catwalk railing Ed was running, tearing across the floor as the target vanished over the edge in a flurry of limbs and tangled hair. There was nothing on the other side but air but Ed didn’t pause, just grabbed the railing with both hands and vaulted over, coat flaring out behind him as gravity kicked in and he tumbled down, plummeting towards the ground five floors below.
Roy’s face appeared over the railing above him, absolutely livid, but Ed didn’t have the chance to gloat about that right then.
Nor did he have the time to put together a spell that would keep him from splattering messily all over the first floor, but there was an easy solution to that.
He sucked in a deep breath. “AL!!”
Strong arms wrapped immediately around his waist and Ed let himself sink into his brother’s hold, trustingly calm as Al slowed his fall into a smooth, controlled descent.
A hollow explosion shuddered up from below as Dart hit the ground, the startled cries of civilians echoing in the aftershock. Safe in Al’s grip, Ed watched as Dart scrambled out of the crater the impact had made and started running, looking none the worse for wear from the five story drop.
Al let him fall the last few feet and Ed hit the ground running, plowing straight through a group of businessmen who didn’t get out of the way in time. People scattered wildly around him but Ed paid only scant attention, eyes bouncing over the crowd for a sight of his target.
*Edward!* Roy’s voice crackled in his earpiece, the sound sharp and uneven thanks to the distance, and Ed cursed inwardly that Hughes had been transferred off their team. Communication was so much easier when there was a telepath around.
*Don’t forget that he’s an Envy-type!* Roy was saying and Ed rolled his eyes even as he spring boarded straight over a surprised man’s head and kept running. *Don’t lose sight of him or we’ll never find him in all these people!*
“I’m on it,” Ed growled back, putting on an extra burst of speed as a flash of brown cut through the corner of vision. He veered after Dart as the man headed for the door, trusting Al to keep pace. “But don’t blame me if this gets messy.”
Interdem forces will be responsible for locating and isolating individuals suffering from Sinbiotic dehumanization and preventing their continued use of inter-dimensional gates. To facilitate this process, ID teams will be composed of diversely originated individuals whose dimension-specific abilities will provide manifold options for apprehending interlopers.
Ed burst through the doors and stumbled to an abrupt halt, Al skidding straight through him before he managed to stop.
“Um…?” Al’s outline was faint and indistinct in the bright sunlight as he blinked around the concourse. “Where is he?”
Ed swore creatively. “Hawkeye!” he barked, cupping his mic with one hand. “A little help would be good!”
*Target sighted at three o’clock,* Hawkeye’s voice buzzed in his ear and Ed took off immediately, trusting her eyesight implicitly. *He’s on the western edge of the concourse.*
“Where’s he headed?” Ed demanded, vaulting neatly over a park bench.
*Into the main area of town,* Hawkeye responded after a moment, and Ed had a quick mental flash of her hovering high above the city, tawny wings spread to their fullest as she tracked their target. *Towards the Monotaph Building.*
“Shit,” Ed declared succinctly. “Come on Al,” he declared. “It’s time to fly.”
A quick incantation and gravity lost its hold on him, making it easy to skim rapidly over the concourse, a half foot off the ground and with Al insubstantial and steadfast at his side. People shrieked and darted out of his way, the speed of his passage rustling skirts and sending coats to flapping wildly in the wake.
Ahead of him he could just make out Dart’s jacket as the man barreled into the road, cutting through the busy noon-time traffic without a care for his own mortality. Which was pretty typical for Sinbiotes, but Ed didn’t relish the kind of paperwork they’d have to do if someone actually ran the idiot over.
“This is getting more complicated by the minute,” Al noted, the light puff of words mirroring Ed’s sentiments exactly.
*Roy and the others are on their way,* Hawkeye’s voice buzzed in his ear. *Can you hold the target until they arrive?*
“I need to catch up first,” Ed grumbled, eying the swell of cars and pedestrians unhappily. He hovered in place as he hesitated. “How am I supposed to find him in this mess?”
“Move up!” Al’s voice suggested in his ear. “The building on your left!”
Ed looked and grinned. “Perfect!” he declared, the words to a jump spell spilling fluidly off his tongue as he dug his heels in hard and pushed.
His first leap took him to the top of a street light and he barely paused before jumping again, the added momentum making it easy to reach the roof of the multilevel department store Al had spotted. It wasn’t nearly as high as most of the buildings in the core, but Ed wouldn’t be able to see for shit from thirty floors up anyway so this would work well.
His feet hit the roof with a neat little thump that echoed briefly as he darted along the roof-edge, eyes skimming rapidly over the ground in search of their target. “Where is he?” he demanded. “He’d better not have transformed!”
“There!” Al’s arm swung forward to point at a fleeing figure nearly three blocks away.
Ed reached immediately for the pouch at his belt, leaving Al to peer dubiously at the intervening space between them and their target.
“You sure you can hit him from here?” he asked.
Ed made a face as he pulled out a small, pearly-coloured stone and planted his feet.
“Give me some credit here, Al!” he grumbled, brow furrowing as he eyed the distance carefully. “I missed on purpose that time with Roy.”
“Brother,” Al sighed, but Ed wasn’t listening anymore, attention on the surge of power rising up within him in response to the containment spell murmuring through his blood.
His arm pistoned forward and the stone left his hand like a shot, streaking rapidly through the air towards its target.
Dart stumbled heavily as the thing took him full in the back, and Ed was glad he couldn’t hear the man’s yell as the pearly substance began spreading thick and heavy across his limbs, coating him in a second skin.
Ed set his heels against the roof edge and pushed off, the wind singing in his ears as he leapt over several feet of empty air towards the closest building.
“That won’t hold him for long!” Al reminded him, yelling slightly to be heard as Ed landed and sprinted ahead, light and agile as a cat. “How soon will Roy and the others arrive?”
“Probably not soon enough!” Ed shot back, though the words lack heat. “But it shouldn’t be too hard to restrain an isolated Envy-type until they show up!”
Ed sensed more than saw Al’s gaze go back towards their target, now fully encased in the pearly, rock-hard containment shell. “I hope so, brother. Interdem’s going to have a fit if we screw this one up.”
While insanity, dismemberment and ‘soul death’ are possible side effects of unprotected inter-dimensional travel, the emotional distillation of entities to their base motivations is the most common and socially hazardous result. Studies have proven that entities suffering from Sinbiotic dehumanization often develop abilities that mirror those of the Sin Deity they manifest most strongly. [see The Behaviouralist Papers by Dr. Tim Marcoh (posthumous)]
The containment spell was already weakening by the time they dropped down onto the empty side street where Dart stood. Ed could see fine cracks skittering along the shell’s pearly surface and knew it wouldn’t be long before the thing shattered entirely around those hollow indentations.
“Al, barrier. Now.” Ed’s tone brooked no opposition. “I’ll take care of Dart.”
Al nodded and closed his eyes. The air shimmered as the barrier went up around them, roadways melting into house façades until they stood alone in the middle of a ring of impassive buildings, completely cut off from the rest of the city. Unless Dart could fly - which Ed doubted - he wasn’t getting out of here without a fight.
“You’d better be on your way, you bastard.” Ed told his mic, watching the jagged fissures in the shell gouge themselves steadily deeper as Dart struggled. “Cause I’m so blaming you if things go to hell.”
*Duly noted, Edward,* his headpiece responded dryly. Ed couldn’t tell if the slight hitch in Roy’s voice was exertion from rushing to help or just static on the line. He figured probably the latter. *Just try not to blow up any important buildings this--*
The shell exploded outward with a thunderous noise, chunks of dulled pearl blasting through the air and smashing hard into the steel-hard walls of Al’s barrier. They thudded to the ground like cannonballs, the larger pieces taking chunks out of the cement as they fell.
Ed paid scant attention, eyes trained on the man standing tall and impassive in the centre of the fallen debris.
“Was that your doing?” Dart asked, strangely calm as he brushed loose bits of shell off his sleeves.
Ed dropped into a ready crouch. “Don’t try a thing, you bastard,” he warned.
The man sneered at him through his tangled hair. “Watch it little boy,” he warned. “You’re going to get hurt if you play at being a grown up.”
Ed bristled instinctively, a furious growl bubbling up from his throat. “Who’re you calling--”
“Not now Ed!” Al’s voice cracked like a whip behind him. “We’ve got a job to do!”
Ed grit his teeth, reining in his anger through sheer force of will. “I know, I know,” he growled, doing his best to breathe deeply. “No spazzing out on the clock.”
Dart snorted derisively, the faintest touch of confusion lingering around the edges of his expression.
Ed’s jaw clenched.
He drew himself up arrogantly, letting a bit of Roy-like disdain creep into his voice as he glared at Dart. “Kid or not, I’m still more than enough to kick your ass, old man. Maybe you oughta give up now and save yourself the embarrassment.”
“Watch your mouth.” Dart’s eyes were as flat as his voice and Ed barely braced himself in time as Dart lunged at him, eyes wild and fists swinging.
The hit sent him skidding back several feet but didn’t manage anything too serious. Ed managed a smirk as he resumed his stance, shaking his arms sharply to banish a lingering numbness.
A raised eyebrow from his opponent told him that Dart hadn’t been expecting him to stay standing. Good.
“Interesting,” the man murmured, face frighteningly devoid of anything resembling emotion. His gaze went to Ed’s arm, the glint of metal peeking out below his rucked back sleeve. “You’re a cyborg?” he asked, not really a question. “They don’t exist in my world, but I’ve seen a few since arriving here.” Pale lips twitched up in a goading smirk. “Did it hurt?”
Ed’s answering smile was all teeth. “Like you wouldn’t believe.” And he surged in fast and hard, metal arm swinging up under Dart’s guard towards his midsection.
Dart blocked the move with both arms, hop-stepping back a few paces before digging his heels in and pushing back. Ed cursed and ducked the elbow driving at his head, dodging and weaving as he tried to land a hit.
The man fought like a novice, all wildly swinging fists and sloppily kept guard, but the unnatural enhancement of Sinbiotization more than made up for it. Dart moved like a whirlwind, almost blurring in place as he evaded Ed’s attacks. He was strong too, Ed noticed, trying not to wince as a glancing blow clipped his ear and set the world to spinning. Ed began to sweat. This was not going to be easy.
A low jab cut towards his side and Ed jerked to avoid it, just enough off balance that he couldn’t dodge as Dart’s knee came up, fast and hard.
“Nngh!”
The blow caught him just under the ribs and Ed doubled over at the sudden, bursting pain. Dart followed up the hit with a wide sweep of his leg and Ed went down, hitting the floor with a startled curse. He winced at the heavy boot that pinned his flesh hand at the wrist before he could roll away. Dart towered above him with a grim smirk, hand raised to strike.
“Brother!”
Dart’s palm sliced downward and Ed reacted without thinking, a rapid spill of sound tumbling fluidly from his mouth.
Light flashed and Dart swore, stumbling back and clutching at his arm, eyes wide as saucers as he stared at the forked burn blackening his skin.
Ed got quickly to his feet, arms raised and ready to defend despite the throbbing pain in his side, but Dart just stared at him, eyes flickering between surprise, wonder and resentment.
“What was that?” he demanded, still cradling his burnt arm.
Shrugging deliberately, Ed didn’t answer.
“There’s no technology in this dimension that could do that,” Dart said slowly, fascination sharpening his features as he eyed Ed with a whole new interest. “And you don’t have anything on you besides those cyborg parts anyway.”
Ed said nothing, taking the opportunity to catch his breath. He was more than content to let Dart ramble if it kept the man distracted - and it was a helluva lot easier than fighting the psycho.
Dart shifted his weight back thoughtfully, placidly puzzled, and Ed remembered that the man had been a physicist when he was human. “And you said something before you hit me with…” a vague gesture at his arm, “whatever that was.”
“I couldn’t understand the language, but that doesn’t make sense because there’s only one official language here, isn’t there? Which means you can’t be from here if you know another - which means…” Dart’s jaw gaped as he stared wonderingly at Ed. “You’re from a different dimension too.”
“Well, yeah.” Ed tilted his head archly, one hand straying carefully to his pouch. “I’m a member of the ID, remember? I’m allowed to travel between dimensions.”
“And you can do magic.” Dart’s expression was torn between awe and want, a dark hunger twisting his features. “Where do you come from?”
“None of your business,” Ed retorted, fingers shifting lightly through the contents of his pouch. “And you’re about to be imprisoned for the rest of your miserable life anyway, so what do you care?”
Dark eyes were feral as Dart glared at him. “Tell me.”
Ed ignored him, canting his head over one shoulder as he palmed a perygon twig. “How you holding up back there, Al?” he called.
“I’m fine brother.” Ed could hear the strain in Al’s voice, the slightly breathless quality to it that came from holding onto a high illusion so long. “Are Roy and the others on their way yet?”
Ed made a face. “They’d better be, or I’m so kicking Roy’s a-”
“Answer me!”
Dart took a menacing step forward and Ed’s eyes narrowed at the bemused rage on the Sinbiote’s face. He didn’t have much time.
The fabrication spell was an easy one, a languid roll of sound polished by long years of practice. It was the work of a matter of moments to shift the perygon twig into a deadly, steel-edged sword, the crackle of light barely fading before Ed threw himself forward again, grinning hard and playing dirty.
The man faltered under Ed’s charge, not able to strike back with a sword-length between them, but the tight clench of his jaw made it clear he wasn’t beaten yet. His altered body responded to Ed’s strikes faster than he could make them, leaving Dart free to press slowly back, hands blurring around the glinting flash of the blade.
Ed gritted his teeth as the hilt grew slippery in his hands. He’d nicked Dart a few times, had struck a handful of glancing blows with the flat and his feet, but not enough to bring the man down. He had to find a way to incapacitate his opponent - but without killing him in the process. A particularly fierce kick made him stumble and he cursed. Easier said than done.
*Edward!* his earpiece snapped, and Ed didn’t think he’d ever been so pleased to hear that voice in his entire life. He ducked under a straight thrust. *Where in the blazes are you?*
“A block north of the Monotaph Building,” Ed panted, “Al’s put up a barrier.” He followed a quick feint with a roundhouse kick that caught Dart on the upper thigh. The man’s leg wobbled, but didn’t give. “And hurry the hell up!”
*I see you now,* Hawkeye’s voice murmured. *I’ll let you know when they’re approaching.*
‘Got it!” He was bleeding from a gash in his forehead, Ed realized suddenly, the red fluid running into his eye and making it hard to see. Dart’s eyes followed the wash of blood, his body listing to the side it had blinded Ed on, and Ed realized what he had to do.
He stumbled back drunkenly, left arm falling slightly as he swiped at the blood in his eye. Dart took the bait, madness in his eyes as he lunged for the opening Ed had left.
Ed let his legs buckle, body slithering to the floor as Dart’s arm whooshed harmlessly through the space where his throat had been a moment before. Then he tensed, toes digging in hard as he pushed himself back up, blade humming in an unerring arc straight for Dart’s now unprotected side.
The chiming scream of tearing steel keened through the air and Ed stared in shock as his sword broke sharply against Dart’s skin, leaving him painfully, dangerously vulnerable.
Dart’s fist caught him full in the stomach before he could think to defend, the force of the blow sending him flying back against the barrier hard enough that he rebounded when he hit it. His vision swam with red and Ed could feel his ears ringing as he slumped forward, strangely numb to the pain shattering through his chest.
“Brother!” Al yelled, worried.
“Don’t move Al!” Ed coughed roughly, wiping blood away from his lips as he staggered to his feet. The hilt of his sword was still in his hand and Ed could see the rest of it glinting innocuously on the ground several feet behind his opponent.
Dart smirked at him, cruelly pleased, and Ed’s eyes trained unerringly on the place where his sword had failed to cut. There was no wound beneath Dart’s ripped shirt, but Ed could see the shift and pulse of deepest black along the exposed skin for several heartbeats before it receded.
“Oh, you’re kidding me,” he groaned, hardly able to believe his bad luck. “I’m going to kill Roy when I see him!”
“You’re pretty good kid,” Dart observed, eyes dark and terrible as he stalked closer. Ed straightened hurriedly, trying to ignore the way his legs trembled. “But you shouldn’t be trying to stop me.” The voice was calm, deceptively sane, the edge of shattered reason in it turning Ed’s blood to ice.
“You’ve traveled through the dimensions,” Dart said, wanting sharp on his face. “You know what it’s like to see something new, to go somewhere completely different. I want that too. Power. Magic. Technology. Knowledge. I want all of it - I want everything.”
Ed grit his teeth, steeling himself against the tug of a familiar longing, and Dart cocked his head curiously to one side.
“You feel the same,” he observed, almost dreamlike. He stalked closer, gliding with the smooth, slinking gait of a panther though his eyes burned with want. Ed wondered how in hell Roy could have thought this guy was an Envy-type. “I can feel your desire, boy. You want the power offered by the gates. So why don’t you just go? Why stay here and stop others from getting what they want?”
The crackling of his earpiece distracted him from the question.
*They’ll be with you in just a few minutes, Edward.* Hawkeye’s voice barely registered over the pounding in his ears. *Coming up from the south side.*
“Well?” Dart asked, knowing smirk nearly as irritating as Roy’s.
“Brother?” he heard Al ask, worried but trusting and Ed managed a shaky grin as he gripped his shattered sword.
“Al!” he directed, gritting his teeth against the pain as he forced his body upright. “Get ready on the south! The cavalry’s on its way - finally.”
Dart cocked his head at him, curious. “Who are you talking to?”
Ed stepped slowly forward, face bleak. “Do you have any idea what you’ve become?” he asked instead, mind sharpening as a thick gray calm washed over him. “Of what we do to ourselves when we travel carelessly through the dimensions?”
“We transcend humanity!” Dart crowed, fierce and chillingly exultant. “I am one of the chosen!” His legs shifted wider and he pinned Ed with a warning glare. “But you deny your own call. And those who stand in my way will die.”
“I won’t give you the chance to dimension shift again,” Ed declared flatly, cold even to his own ears. He tilted his head challengingly. “Want to know why?”
Dark eyes narrowed. “Tell me.”
“Brother?”
*Edward!*
“AL, NOW!”
He surged forward to intercept Dart’s swing with his metal arm, the dull thrum of pain jarring into his shoulder even as Al’s power rushed over him in a great, roiling wave. The houses to his right flickering out of existence as the sound of rushing feet clattered across his senses, three figures skidding to a stop a short distance away.
Roy was first, eyes sharp and palms flaring fire bright. Fury was behind him, already transformed and infinitely unthreatening despite it. Clawed hands twined anxiously as the myopic lycanthrope tried to decide whether to join in the fight, eyes wide and nervously helpful behind the glasses perched comically on his black snout. Havoc was there too, omnipresent cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and his expression wary as he watched Ed and Dart circle.
Dart’s eyes flicked towards the newcomers, body tensing readily. Ed cursed and launched himself into a flurry of blows, pushing his body to the limit as he struggled to hold Dart’s attention. Dart shuffled back grudgingly, arms up to ward off the barrage, skin flickering intermittently black in response.
“Havoc!” Ed heard Roy snap, and he felt rather than saw Havoc shoulder his missile rifle and brace himself. Ed wouldn’t be able to get out of range without giving Dart an opening.
And the not-Envy-type could probably take care of all of them before Roy even realized what they were facing.
Dart lashed out with both palms and Ed stumbled back, breathing hard and feeling his ribs creak warningly. The man’s eyes darted towards the gap in Al’s illusion and Havoc’s jaw tightened as he reached for the trigger.
Why had he gotten up this morning? “Oi, Dart!” Ed called, shifting into a casual slouch despite the way it made his chest tighten painfully. The man’s head swiveled reflexively towards him and Ed grinned, a dark, humourless expression. “You wanted to know why?” he asked, not even trying to hide it as he reached for his pouch. Dart’s eyes jumped to the movement of his hand, wanting and eager and curious all at once. “Why I don’t just let guys like you do whatever they want? Why I don’t do the same myself?”
His hand emerged from his pouch fisting a handful of shining dust, its amber glint nearly as bright as his brother’s eyes.
Not that anyone knew it.
“Why?” Dart demanded, face a mask of greed. “Tell me why!”
He looked Dart straight in the face. “Because you can’t see my brother, you bastard.”
And he flung the handful of dust directly at the other man with all the force he could manage.
“Roy!!” he bellowed, backpedalling desperately.
And Sins be praised, the man actually took the hint for once. Fire sparked immediately between Roy’s fingers, jolting through the air towards where Dart stood coughing and struggling to breathe in the dust-thick air.
Then licking flames collided with the specially treated particles and the whole thing exploded.
Ed was knocked off his feet by the blast, pain lancing through his limbs as his body refused to cooperate. He barely registered the thundershock dissolution of the rest of the barrier, or the sudden appearance of Al’s hands on his shoulders. All of his attention was on their target.
Dart screamed, a harsh, gurgling sound that ratcheted off the walls and echoed the hungry lick of the flames. He doubled over onto the floor, hardly more than a helpless shadow amid blazing orange. His Sinbiote nature was still trying to protect him, Ed realized, diamond-hard blackness flickering rapidly back and forth across his skin until he resembled nothing more than a great, mottled snake, writhing in the flames.
But it wasn’t enough, not against magic fire, and Ed watched Dart’s face blacken and peel, skin melting while his hair burned and his body convulsed.
“Poor bastard.” Ed sighed. “Why do so many people have to yearn for the impossible? It would have been so much easier if we’d been the only stupid ones.”
Al’s eyes were somber in the light of the flickering flames. “That’s not the way it works, brother. All we can do is help stop more people from ending up like us.”
Ed gripped his cyber arm, fingers grazing absently over hard, artificial contours and wired nerves. “Sucks sometimes, doesn’t it Al?”
“Yes brother. It does.”
In accordance with the Treaty of Amestris (A.T. 1410), Sinbiotic individuals forfeit their rights as human citizens and are to be placed under the jurisdiction of their manifested deities to prevent any further misuse of the inter-dimensional system.
Ed had managed to stagger carefully to his feet by the time Roy strolled over towards them, calm and smugly self-satisfied.
“Well Edward,” he observed as he drew up. “I do appreciate your keeping the property damage to a minimum for once, but might I suggest not taking your destructive impulses out on yourself in the interim?”
Ed rolled his eyes, leaning only slightly into Al’s supporting arm. “You are such a useless bastard, you know that?” He gestured towards where Havoc and Fury were busy carting the insensate Dart out to where the cruiser waited. Sparks flickered across the man’s blackened skin as his body began the laborious process of re-knitting itself, though slowly enough that they’d have no problem getting him to the temple of the Sins before he woke. “Why in the name of the Seven Sins did you think that man was an Envy-type?” he demanded, livid all over again.
“It’s hardly my fault Envy-types and Greed-types are so similar,” Roy protested mildly, and Ed didn’t even want to consider the hint of what might have been apology lurking in the corners of the man’s dark eyes.
He settled for raising an accusatory eyebrow. “You’d better not let either of them hear you say that or they’re going to take turns killing you.”
“Thank you for your concern, Edward,” Roy responded, every inch the proper Captain save for the mocking tilt to his grin. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
Then he turned slightly and inclined his head at the space on Ed’s left. “And thank you too, Alphonse,” he said politely, as sincere as he ever got. “You are always a great help.”
“My pleasure Captain,” Al replied, indistinct cheeks pinking slightly. And there was no way Roy could have heard him, or even seen the nod, yet the smile he offered back would have fooled almost anyone into believing otherwise. And Ed knew Roy couldn’t see Al, no one could, but there was no denying the man’s uncanny knack for knowing where Al was, for guessing when he spoke. And, unless mutants were a lot more spiritually astute than they claimed to be, Roy had to be spending far too much time watching Ed with Al and taking his cues from there.
Which bothered him in all sorts of ways he wasn’t really sure he wanted to think about right now, if ever.
Roy gave him a do-not-argue-with-your-commanding-officer face. “I’ll expect a full report on my desk in the morning,” he declared officiously. “And we’ll go visit Lord Greed tomorrow to give him a full account of his new charge.”
Ed groaned. “You’re a sadist,” he accused.
Roy shrugged. “Not entirely. I could always insist that you complete it tonight.”
Ed eyed him warily. “And why aren’t you?”
An enigmatic smile. “Because, if the way you’re draped all over your brother is any indication of your physical well-being, I expect you’re going to spend most of the evening in the hospital rather than writing illegible reports. Come along Alphonse,” he added, shouldering Ed’s other arm and steering them all towards the main street before Ed could do much more than gape. “Let’s take care of your idiot brother before he passes out from blood loss.”
“I’m right behind you, Captain.”
Ed hung his head in despair. “You’re both bastards.”
“And you’re stuck with us,” Al agreed cheerfully, ghostly hands cold in contrast to Roy’s much larger ones. “So you’d better get used to it.”
“I agree,” Roy replied facetiously, and Ed kicked him, just because he could.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he grumbled, resolving inwardly to bleed on Roy’s uniform as much as possible while they dragged him to the hospital. All in all, just a regular kind of day.
“Alright brother.”
“Whatever you say Edward.”
The first and foremost role of the ID Divisions shall be to maintain the balance between the world’s dimensions and to protect all citizens from the dangers inherent in inter-dimensional contact. The ID are the first, last and strongest defense against the wants and fears that inhabit the space between worlds and within all of mankind.
Pan-Ex Union - Syling Code A.T. 1412
~owari