The Whole Point of Magic...

...Is that it is inexplicable - Margot Fonteyn Fics and knitting: rumbelle, anyelle, anyem, Stargate:Universe, Lost, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

[a-monthly-rumbelling]

Time for a change

Hello all, it’s your Monthly Rumbelling mod @worryinglyinnocent here. 

After just over three years of running the Monthly Rumbelling blog, I’ve decided to call time on my stay here. I’ve been slowly reducing my Tumblr presence over the last few months, and I’m no longer really involved in the rumbelle fandom very much. 

The time has come for me to move on to pastures new, and that means leaving A Monthly Rumbelling behind. 

I’m intending to get next quarter’s prompts up at the weekend and get all the reminder posts queued up, so whoever takes over from me has some breathing space to get to grips with the blog and decide what changes they want to make. 

If you’d like to take over running A Monthly Rumbelling, please ping me (@worryinglyinnocent), or send an ask, or pigeon post, semaphore, whatever your preferred communication method is. 

If there are no takers then the blog will simply lie dormant after next quarter, I have no plans to delete anything. :-)

[worryinglyinnocent]

Sorry to bother you. Do you have a link to a fic you did where Rumple answers a summons from a couple of children to help their sick mother, brings Belle along with him and minimizes the price of magic because they're children?

Certainly!

Comfort for Desperate Souls

[worryinglyinnocent]

A Short Word Explosion About Jane Seymour

SO... I saw Six (the musical) live this weekend, and my brain is now a hamster in a wheel because A) IT WAS FANTASTIC and B) English royal history is my jam (I mean, I am English and we have a stupendously fucked up royal history to get into, so I think I can be forgiven). 

Anyway, it got me thinking about the wives and whilst I have thoughts on all of them and always have had, the one I always keep coming back to is Jane. Now, the entire point of Six is to show that trying to compare the wives and playing favourites is extremely stupid, which it is, but Jane’s always been the one that I find the most interesting, probably because history at large tends to portray her as the most boring. 

She’s the very definition of a pivot point. There’s so much historical potential that got cut short when she died. 

I think people tend to write Jane off as having had it easy because she was the wife that Henry ‘truly loved’ and she doesn’t seem to have been anywhere near as abused as the other five. But I think everyone tends to overlook the likelihood that Henry only ‘loved’ her because she gave him the male heir he was so desperate for. Would he still have ‘truly loved’ her if Edward had been Edwina? I  think it would have been a very, very different story then. 

She also gets brushed aside as being a meek and mild goody-two-shoes, but I think that there must have been more to her than that. She’d already seen what had happened to Catherine of A and Anne B by this point. She’d already seen that being obedient and loyal was no guarantee of longevity in the end, and she’d already seen that being anything less than obedient and loyal was a one-way ticket to the scaffold. I think there’s a certain political savviness under the mild exterior, playing the game because staying quiet was the best way to stay in her privileged position and not be banished to a nunnery or summarily decapitated when Henry eventually got tired of her.

It makes me wonder what would have happened if Jane had survived. Would Henry have stayed with her and Anna of C, Katherine H and Katherine P been spared their fates, or would he have found an excuse to lop her head off a couple of years down the line? So much could have been different, or it might all have exactly the same.

Which is why I think she’s so interesting, even if her story is not as dramatic as the other wives. 

Anyway, that’s enough from me. Everyone go and see Six, it’s phenomenal!

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Safe from the Storm

Summary: A companion piece to last year’s Sheltered by Memories, requested by an anonymous Tumblr user. 

When Ed is three years old, a thunderstorm rocks Resembool, and Hohenheim comforts his terrified wife and son. 

Rated: G

Safe from the Storm

The storm has been hanging heavy in the air all day, clouds rolling on the horizon and getting closer and closer to Resembool. Everyone has been predicting that it will hit tonight. Before he met Trisha, Hohenheim would not have minded the storm. In fact, he would have welcomed it; the late summer air has been stifling and oppressive recently,  and a storm would clear out the heat and re-energise the atmosphere, refreshing everything. 

Since meeting Trisha, though, thunderstorms have taken on a whole new meaning. He remembers the first time that it stormed since they started living together, just a couple of months into her pregnancy. She had screamed in terror at the first flash of lightning, diving under the kitchen table and refusing to come out. He had crawled under there with her and held her as she sobbed in fear, not getting up until long after the storm had passed and the lightning was well over the hills and off towards Eastern City. 

Trisha has been terrified of thunderstorms ever since she was a child, and although Hohenheim does not fully understand her fear, he nevertheless respects it, and whenever lightning cuts the sky, he will do whatever she needs to make her feel safe, whether that’s hiding all the silverware or just letting her bury her face in his chest until it’s all over. 

Trisha knows that the storm is coming. He can see the tension in her as she moves around the house, getting dinner ready and putting the boys to bed, glancing out of the windows every few minutes even after all the curtains have been drawn. The anticipation of it unnerves her even more than the actual thunder and lightning do at times.

“We’ll be fine,” he assures her as they get ready for bed, and Trisha sighs, pausing in brushing out her hair. 

“We’re on the top of a hill,” she points out. “We’re the tallest thing for miles around.”

“The tree is taller than the house. If anything comes down here, it’ll get the tree.”

“I don’t want a burning tree next to the house any more than I want a burning house.”

Hohenheim goes over to her, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

The rain starts at that moment, a heavy, unrelenting downpour pattering hard on the roof, and Trisha gives another sigh, shivering with the knowledge that further disturbance will definitely be coming. Hohenheim takes the hairbrush from her unresisting hands, picking up where she had left off and running it gently through her chestnut locks, each stroke of the brush followed by one of his fingers. At last Trisha gives a small smile, leaning in against his hand.

“I know,” she says eventually. “I know you’ll protect us all.”

That does not stop her eyes drifting over to the window and the thick curtains with every squall of rain that hits the glass, and Hohenheim can’t blame her. The weather is usually so mild in Resembool, it’s rare indeed for it to hit extremes like this and it would unnerve most people, even those without a pre-existing fear of thunder.

He finishes brushing her hair and kisses the top of her head, and she laughs, their eyes meeting in the dressing table mirror. 

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure. Come to bed, my love. The storm won’t be over any quicker if you sit up and wait for it.”

“I know.” She gets up, taking one final glance at the window before she gets into bed, burrowing down under the blankets. They keep  the light on, but dim. At least it will soften the flashes of lightning for her. Trisha cuddles close next to him when he joins her, pressed in so tightly that there can barely be any air between them, but Hohenheim doesn’t mind. He wraps his arms around her, silently willing her to be able to sleep whilst she can. 

X

The lightning wakes him, a bright flash piercing through the room just a second before the thunderclap, and from Trisha’s nails suddenly digging into his chest, it’s woken her too. 

“It’s all right, love. I’m here, it’s all right.” He strokes her hair; at least the rain and wind have died back now and it’s only the thunder and lightning that they have to worry about. Gradually, Trisha unclaws her hands, twisting them into the fabric of his undershirt instead, her fists tight and hard as she screws her eyes up against the lightning as much as she could. She doesn’t speak, and neither does he; there isn’t anything to say apart from murmured nothings reassuring her that he’s still there and they are safe from the storm here, that there is nothing to worry about. 

The storm is right overhead and showing no signs of letting up. Hopefully they'll be able to get some more sleep tonight. He squints over at the clock on Trisha’s nightstand, they could only have had an hour or so at the most. 

Hohenheim hears the door creak and he pushes himself up as much as he can without dislodging Trisha’s hold on him, looking over her shoulder to see Ed’s little tousled head peering into the room with wide and frightened eyes. 

“It’s ok,” he says. “Come in, Ed. Come here.”

Ed runs across the room on light, pattering feet as another flash of lightning makes Trisha cringe again, launching himself onto the bed in a bid for safety and scrambling around to get as much of himself  under the covers as he could, as quickly as possible. 

This is going to require some logistical manoeuvering. Keeping one arm around the still-quivering Trisha, Hohenheim shifts over onto his back and finds Ed, pulling him in close on his other side. His son immediately stops fidgeting, burrowing into his side and staying there in a tight ball.

“It’s all right,” he soothes. “We’ll be all right.”

The storm continues to rage. Now that it has woken him, Hohenheim knows that he will not be able to get back to sleep again until it’s all over, and he would not have done even if he wasn’t sharing his bed with Ed and Trisha, neither of whom will sleep again until it’s all over by any means. He doesn’t mind. They’re counting on him to keep them safe, and that’s what he’ll do. It’s hardly a chore; you’re supposed to keep the people that you love safe. It’s all part and parcel of loving them.

The storm finally seems to be dying back, and Trisha starts to relax in minute degrees beside him, until the thunder decides that it’s lulled them into a false sense of security enough and gives a deafening crash when they’re least expecting it. Trisha squeaks, immediately tensing and pressing her face into his shoulder, and Ed gives a little sob. 

“It’s ok. It’s ok, I’m right here.” He wracks his brains, trying to think of what Trisha does to calm the boys when they’re scared and frantic, unable to sleep after dreams have turned to nightmares and pulled them from their slumber. Usually she sings to them. 

Hohenheim does not have a great singing voice and cannot remember any of Trisha’s lullabies, but the souls are humming in his veins, a tune from his own long-distant and long-forgotten childhood drifting back to him, increasing in pitch through his mind until he finds himself humming along with them. 

Eventually, the storm begins to quieten, and so the souls begin to quieten too, satisfied of a job well done in the name of keeping Ed and Trisha calm.

“I’ve never heard that before,” Trisha whispers. She does not let go of him, but she does unburrow herself a little and look up at him, giving a weak smile. “Is that one from Xerxes?”

He nods. 

“It’s beautiful.”

The souls give a chorus of thanks and appreciation of Trisha’s excellent musical taste, even if Hohenheim’s execution of the tune left a lot to be desired, and Hohenheim just rolls his eyes at their antics. On his other side, he feels Ed untense a little, his scared and shallow breathing finally evening out into soft sleep.

The sky is beginning to lighten outside the window. The storm is over at last, and Hohenheim finally closes his eyes as the bedroom becomes peaceful once more.

X

The day dawns bright and clear and sunny, just as he knew it would. Hohenheim glances down at Trisha and Ed on either side of him, both sleeping peacefully if still clinging to him with a limpet hold. 

He doesn’t mind. It isn't like he has anywhere else to be right now. 

He hears unbalanced footsteps in the corridor and Al toddles into the room, dragging his stuffed kitten with him. He looks at the scene with the eyes of a two-year-old who has slept like the dead through the worst thunderstorm of recent history, before shuffling over to the bed, clambering up and promptly falling asleep again, wedged against his father’s feet. 

Hohenheim smiles. They’ve barely slept - apart from Al - and Trisha will be tired and Ed will be fractious from the broken night. He’ll have to go out and assess the storm damage; see how much of Trisha’s vegetable garden can be salvaged, and check the roof for missing tiles.

Right here and now, though, with Trisha by his side and their boys curled up with them, Hohenheim would not exchange this moment for anything, and he only wishes that it could somehow last forever.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (31/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [Twenty-Five] [Twenty-Six] [Twenty-Seven] [Twenty-Eight] [Twenty-Nine] [Thirty] [AO3]

==

Thirty-One

The first thing that Al felt was warmth, the warmth of someone’s hand holding his, and as he opened his eyes, he saw Ed grinning down at him. The hand squeezed his, and he tried to squeeze back, but all his muscles felt so weak that even that was a stretch. 

“Hey, Al. Welcome back.”

It was strange to be back, a rush of sensation that was at once overwhelming and yet also wonderfully familiar. 

“Is everyone ok?” he asked.

“Yeah, everyone’s fine, just a bit battered. We’re more worried about you.” Ed helped him to sit up and Al realised that he was draped in Mustang’s coat as a blanket. He looked around at the chaos in the pseudo-throne room, at the groups of people gathering and checking that everyone was ok. Everyone else was giving them some space and privacy, Teacher and Sig off to one side but obviously keeping an eye on them. 

“Alphonse!” There was a small pink blur and suddenly May threw herself at him, sobbing profusely. “Oh, Alphonse, you’re back! You’re ok!”

“I’m ok, May.”

She got off him then, alternating between bawling and apologising for hurting him. He must have looked a sight, barely more than skin and bone, with flaking fingernails like Lust’s talons and hair longer than Hohenheim’s. 

“We should probably get you to the hospital.” Ed helped him put Mustang’s coat on properly, the thing was so large on him it felt like a shroud, and Ed pulled him to his feet. His knees buckled almost immediately; he’d managed the few steps through the gate to get back here, but now whatever connection there had been between him and Ed was truly severed and his body was having to sustain itself without any alchemical intervention. He sagged against Ed. 

“I could probably carry you,” Ed said conversationally. “You can’t be that heavy.”

“You’ve just nearly died,” Al pointed out. “You’re not exactly in the best shape yourself.”

“Would you like a hand there, Elrics?”

It was Patience, looking at them fondly, and Al nodded gratefully. There was no shame in accepting help, not when they had so many friends who were so willing to give it to them without being asked. Patience took his other side and put an arm around him and together, the three of them, strange siblings as they were, made their way out of the throne room and away from the carnage. There would be time to catch up with everyone later. For now, Al had his body back, and that was the only thing that mattered. 

X

“Are you all right, sir?” 

Hawkeye was coming over to him, and Mustang nodded. 

For a long time they just looked at each other, and even though nothing was said, Mustang knew that they were both thinking the same thing. 

I thought I’d lost you forever.

“Yes, Lieutenant. I’m fine.” He realised that he probably didn’t look fine; the front of his uniform was saturated with the blood that had poured out of his nose, but that had stopped bleeding now and his head was very gradually stopping feeling like it was being turned inside out. 

“Good.”

What hurt the most now were his hands, sliced through, palms sticky with the dried blood from the impalement that Bradley inflicted, with spark cloth sticking to the skin and pulling on the edges of the wound. He flexed his fingers and winced, the action pulling in all the wrong places. 

He felt a gentle touch against his wrist and looked down to see that Hawkeye had taken his hand. 

“We should get your injuries tended, sir,” she said. “Your hands need to be bandaged.”

She led him over to the dais where the throne had been and sat him down before going off to source medical supplies from one of the homunculi, and Mustang watched her go. It had been such a close run thing for both of them, and when he thought about everyone he had almost lost during the long months of this fight - Hughes outside wreaking merry hell having nearly lost his life to a bullet; Havoc downstairs keeping the catacombs safe after almost exploding in the residence; Hawkeye still walking with a limp from their encounter with Lust underground… 

It was almost a miracle that they had managed to come out of it as comparatively unscathed as they had done. He looked around for Patience, probably the only reason that he was here right now with no injuries other than the ones inflicted by Bradley, but the homunculus was nowhere to be seen. Neither were the Elric brothers, but Mustang had faith that they’d be ok. He’d track them down later, but right now they probably needed some time to themselves to process everything that had happened. 

Hawkeye came back over with disinfectant and bandages, and she sat down beside him, her touch featherlight and gentle as she pulled the slashed gloves off his hands, peeling them away from the wounds. 

He knew that he was in good hands too, and whatever happened now that the regime had been so completely uprooted, he knew that Hawkeye would always have his back, just as he would always have hers. 

They would always be safe with each other.

X

Although Pasha knew, objectively, that he had never seen Izumi in this life before, there was something about her that seemed instinctively familiar, and as such, he could not stop staring at her, watching her as she moved through all the hubbub and the hustle and bustle that had accompanied Alphonse’s return from the gate. It was only once things had started to calm down that she noticed his eyes on her, and she gave him a tentative smile before coming over. 

It was a moment that neither of them would ever be able to properly describe for as long as they lived, but they both just knew.

Pasha had spent a lot of time with Tempe, Chary and Dili over the years, but none of them had ever felt like a mother figure to him; more like aunties. Patience and Chass were more like siblings, Humility was never really around that much, and Hohenheim was, well, Hohenheim. 

Izumi, though… Even though he had never met her, he just knew. 

“Mom?”

X

It was complete chaos, Riza thought as she looked around the ostentatious throne room that had been the scene of a showdown for the ages. Looking at it up close now instead of just observing, powerless, from the lower levels, she still couldn’t believe that this had been sitting on top of Central Command ever since its inception. 

Still, even though it was chaos, with people running around and checking everyone was ok, it was a happy sort of chaos rather than a frantic one. It was all over, and the very world itself could breathe a sigh of relief. 

“Lieutenant Hawkeye.” 

She turned to see Tempe coming into the room with a few of the Briggs soldiers, and she was surprised to see the rifle resting against her shoulder. Tempe followed her eyeline and smiled. 

“Well, you didn’t get the marksmanship skills from your father, did you?”

Riza had to grin at that. Things were certainly going to be strange from now on, knowing that Tempe was her mother in another life, and that she was still here and even if she didn’t fully remember, that there was some kind of connection between them. Maybe now that the fate of the world wasn’t at stake, they would have time to get to know each other a little better.

X

“Do you think that everything’s going to be ok now?”

Hohenheim startled; he had not heard Diligence come up beside him, so lost in his own thoughts as he had been. She laughed at his start, and he had not heard her laugh for so long. 

“I think so,” he said eventually. “There are a lot of pieces to pick up, but that’s for people other than me to deal with. My part is done.” He looked over at Humility, effortlessly directing troops here, there and everywhere as the generals loyal to Father were rounded up and the others got medical attention. General Armstrong was arguing about needing medical attention, but Hohenheim couldn’t say that he was altogether surprised by that.

“What will you do now?” Dili asked. “Your entire life has been building towards this moment for hundreds of years, and now you have the rest of your life ahead of you. What are you going to fill it with?”

You, Hohenheim thought. I don’t care how much longer I have left to live, be it days or millennia, as long as it’s with you.

“I don’t know.”

Dili smiled. “Well, just let me know if you want help figuring it out.”

Hohenheim could only stare after her as she went to help Tempe with bandaging up the injured.

X

She knew that she shouldn’t be here, and she knew that she looked a bit creepy just standing here outside a hospital room, but she couldn’t help it. She had to know that they were ok. Diligence peeped through the glass panel in the door, looking at Ed and Al as they slept, Al for the first time in years. Her sons. 

“Come on.” An arm slipped through hers and she let Patience guide her away. They were wearing a soft, indulgent smile. “You remember them now, then?”

Diligence nodded. It had taken months for the memories to come back to her in dribs and drabs and little flashes here and there, but she remembered her life before. She remembered her identity. She was Trisha Elric, and those boys were her children, and they had been through so much without her in their lives; they had been through hell and back to try and see her again, and they had continued living in a kind of hell even as they didn’t know that they had, in a way, succeeded and she was here and living once more. There were so many emotions, she didn’t even know where to begin. And then there was the boys’ father, and then there was Hohenheim, and then there was her newfound family of homunculi, and the fact she could never really go back to her old life, that so much had changed in the intervening time.

“It’ll be ok,” Patience said. “You’ll find a way, all of you. If there’s one thing that’s true of both you and the Elrics, it’s that you’re stubborn. At least we know where they get it from now.”

Dili laughed. “Yes, I think that one’s on me.”

“Do you think that this means we can stop keeping an eye on them?” Patience asked. Dili just raised an eyebrow. “No, you’re right. They can still get into a bunch of trouble even without alchemy.”

Dili just hoped that she would be around to witness some of that trouble in the years to come. 

X

“Take care of yourselves! Don’t forget to write!”

“Patience.”

“Change your socks every day!”

“Patience!”

“Always look both ways when you cross the road!”

“Patience!” Temperance finally managed to shut Patience up with a dig in the ribs, to which they protested profusely. For his part, Ed was dying of laughter as he and Al leaned out of the train window to say their goodbyes to all of their friends in Central before they made the journey back to Resembool. 

It was quite the motley crew that had gathered to see them off, a veritable crowd coming together for just two people, but if the other people in the station were alarmed, then they didn’t show it. The seven homunculi were all there, although that might have been because they had also come to see off Humility, who was heading back to Briggs to tie up loose ends there, and Chastity, who was heading out to Liore in the east to search for clues to his past and potentially reunite with Rose - the chronologically youngest of Hohenheim’s family, the timing of his resurrection lined up with when Father Cornello had tried to pull her boyfriend back from beyond the grave with his incomplete Philosopher’s Stone. Even Hohenheim had turned up; and seeing him outdoors was more disturbing than seeing the crowd come to wave them off. 

“Patience, they can take care of themselves,” Temperance said. “They’ve been doing it for a while now and they’re perfectly fine.”

“I know, I know, but they’re my younger brothers! I worry!”

Ed thought about all the times that Patience had turned up to help them out of trouble in the past, and he couldn’t exactly blame them for trying to keep an eye on him and Al. 

“Besides, the point is that they shouldn’t have to take care of themselves,” Patience continued, before turning to address Ed and Al. “You know that you always have a family here in Central if you ever need one. All you have to do is call. If I can’t get Hohenheim to install a phone in the catacombs then I’ll do it myself. I reckon Fuery’s taught me and Pasha enough about wiring now.”

Ed smiled. “Thanks, Patience. We appreciate it.” 

“Let us know when you get back safely,” Hawkeye said. “And feel free to swing by Central Command if you’re ever in the area again.”

“You’re welcome to stay with us whenever you want,” Gracia added, Hughes nodding his agreement. 

“Take care of yourselves,” he said. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ll stay out of trouble.”

“What trouble can we get into now?” Ed protested. “We’ve saved the world, we got our bodies back, it’s a quiet life for us from now on.”

Hughes and Mustang exchanged a clearly disbelieving look, but said nothing more. 

“I baked you some cookies.” Chary passed a basket through the window and Ed nearly staggered under the weight of it, placing it on the bench beside them next to Gracia’s quiche and apple pie. “I thought I’d make extra just in case Ling turned up again. He can smell sugar at thirty paces.”

The Xing contingent had left the previous day, off to present their findings to the emperor and reunite the warring clans. Although Ling and May were probably never going to see eye to eye about anything, a peaceful future was the one thing that they could definitely agree on, and now they had the power to bring it about in their hands. 

Diligence was the last to speak, taking Ed and Al’s hands in hers. 

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

Things were never going to get back to the way they were. Things had changed too much for that; they had spent more time without Mom than with her, and even though Diligence had most of her memories of her first life back, they all admitted that she was not exactly the same person as she was before. Ed and Al would never really be able to call her Mom again, probably never thinking of Diligence as their mother in the same way as Mom had been their mother, but she was still going to be important to them, and they were still important to her. The relationship was different now, but no less valuable.

“Take care of each other,” she said, squeezing their hands, before stepping back as the whistle sounded and the train began to move off. As they waved their goodbyes, Ed saw Hohenheim take her hand, and he smiled. 

It was a long ride back to Resembool, and although Al soon fell into a doze, Ed stayed thinking about everything that had happened over the last few years. When they had first set out on their quest to bring Mom back, they had never known everything that was in store for them, never known the scope of what they were getting themselves into, but in the end, he would not have had it any other way. As terrifying and trying and painful as the journey had been at times, he was proud of everything that they had achieved, and he knew that there were even more things left to achieve in the future; new forms of alchemy to discover, new things to learn, new ways to be. They had to keep moving forward, for the sake of everyone they had lost along the way. For the sake of Nina, if no one else. 

It had been a long and hard road that they had walked down these past few years, but now, this part of their journey had finally come to an end, and when he saw Winry’s tears of joy as she bounded down the steps of the Rockbell home to greet them, Ed knew that it had been worth every minute of it. 

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (30/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [Twenty-Five] [Twenty-Six] [Twenty-Seven] [Twenty-Eight] [Twenty-Nine] [AO3]

==

Thirty

It was all over, but Ed did not feel the slightest sense of relief as the homunculus vanished into nothing, disappearing back beyond the gate. All he could do was stare at Al’s empty shell of beat-up armour with nothing of his brother left inside it. He glanced down at his hands, the one weathered and strong and the other pale and bony. He had been so long without his right arm that it felt foreign now, almost as if it belonged to someone else. In a way, it was almost as if it had belonged to Al. This was what Ed had given up to bring Al back. This arm was Al’s, and in the moment of truth, Al had chosen to give it back to him, knowing that it was the only way to give Ed the best chance of going up against their father. 

He looked over at Al’s armour again. May was kneeling beside it, her eyes wide and utterly bereft, shaking with mute grief. Over in the other corner, Izumi was checking on Mustang. 

“Edward?” A light hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up to see Patience beside him, fully healed  again, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”

Ed shook his head. 

“No. No, I’m not all right. How can I ever be all right when…” He looked over at the armour again. 

“I’m sure there’s a way to get him back,” Patience said. “Just take a moment to decompress after everything that’s just happened. Just take a breath, ok?”

Ed nodded, trying to slow his breathing down, but every minute that he spent gathering his thoughts was another minute that Al spent waiting at the gate, and this time Ed likely wasn’t linked to him and keeping his body alive, and…

He felt the floor shuddering under him; Hohenheim was pushing the throne room back down into its normal place on the top floor of Central Command. He could hear the shouts and cheers of the wider area who had been watching the epic battle going on above them, but he could not register them properly. 

Suddenly there were a lot more people in the room, too many people, and Ed looked up to see the rest of their group pouring in, taking in the devastation that surrounded them and then falling quiet when they saw Al’s lifeless armour and Ed’s flesh and blood arm where his automail had always been. The other homunculi were gathering around each other, all checking that they were ok after everything had happened; everyone else was grouping together too, Ling going to check on May, Hawkeye rushing over to Mustang. He saw Diligence push through the others towards Hohenheim, explaining that Scar was badly injured but safe down in the catacombs with Havoc and Fuery. All through the hustle and bustle, Patience still didn’t leave his side until Dili came over to them, and Ed heard them talking quietly about just what had happened. 

There had to be a way. There had to be something that he could do to get Al back. They had come so far. They had done so much. They had saved the entire country, and Al had sacrificed himself in the name of the greater good, to prevent further terror. Surely that had to count for something. Surely something could be done. 

“Ed?” Diligence sat down next to him, and after a moment, she chanced to put an arm around him. Exhausted both physically and emotionally, but still too shocked and numb to cry, Ed leaned in against her shoulder. 

“You can use my Stone,” Diligence said quietly. 

“What?”

“You can use the Philosopher’s Stone at my core to bring Al back.” 

“Are you nuts? Why would you even offer that? You’ve barely met us! Besides, we already said that we weren’t going to use a Stone to get our bodies back; we weren’t going to use other people’s lives to fix our mistake!”

“I’m your mother, Edward,” Diligence said. “Yours and Al’s. Maybe not in this lifetime. Maybe not in the way I was back when I was Trisha in my first life. But I am. And so it makes perfect sense to me.”

Ed shook his head. “No. No, I won’t do that. We might have messed everything up when we brought you back, but now that you’re back, I’m not letting you go a second time, not even when it’s the most logical solution. This is something I need to fix.”

“Sometimes things can’t be fixed with alchemy, Ed.” Diligence’s voice was soft, but there was no chastisement in it, just stating a simple truth. Ed thought back to the bridge he’d failed to build in Rush Valley, to Nina, to the moment when he had first mooted the idea of bringing Mom back to life with alchemy and set them on this path. 

Some things could not be fixed with alchemy. 

In that moment, Ed realised what he needed to do. 

“No,” he said to Diligence, but this time he turned to face her properly, and he felt a determined smile spreading over his features. “No. There’s another way. I know there is.”

He stood up, making his way over to Al.

“I’m going to get him back,” he announced to the gathered groups within the room. “Everyone stand back, and someone find me some chalk to draw the circle with. This is the last time the Fullmetal Alchemist will use alchemy, so enjoy the show, folks.”

This time, Ed felt no fear or trepidation as he made the journey to the gate, just closing his eyes and letting the flow take him. He knew exactly what to expect when he reached his destination, and he knew exactly what to do once he got there.

He felt the sensation of movement stop, and he opened his eyes. 

“Back again so soon?”

“I’ve come for Al,” Ed said levelly. “It’s time that he went home, whole and in one piece.”

“And what would you give up to allow him to return with you? Surely you haven’t forgotten the law of equivalent exchange. His body and soul both reside here now. What is of equal value to that?”

“This.” Ed jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards his gate. “After sacrificing everything we sacrificed to see the full alchemical truth, after performing the ultimate taboo transmutation, what could be a more fitting price than the ability to ever use that knowledge and do it again?”

“Are you sure about that, alchemist?”

“My name is Edward, not alchemist. I’m a person first and foremost, a human being. Alchemy does not define me. A while back, someone told me that I was nothing without my alchemy, and for a long time, I believed them. But I’m not. I know that now. Alchemy is not the most important part of my life. It never was, although I never realised that. There are things that are so much more important. Besides, I have my friends and family to help me out. Who needs alchemy when you have that?”

Truth smiled, but for once, the strange rictus grin in the middle of the featureless face seemed to be warm and genuine rather than the horrible thing that it had always been before.

“That’s the right answer, Edward! Go ahead and take him home, the door’s right over there!”

Ed clapped, feeling the energy ring out and taking in that all-to- familiar ozone scent of alchemy one last time before he slammed his palms down on the gate, watching it crumble into nothingness and revealing Al behind it, his expression completely calm and serene.

“Sorry it took a while,” Ed said as he went over to him, helping him to his feet. 

“It’s all right. I knew you would come.”

Al’s gate was creaking open, the light of Truth shining through it. 

It was time to go home.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (29/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [Twenty-Five] [Twenty-Six] [Twenty-Seven] [Twenty-Eight] [AO3]

==

Content Warning: Canon-typical violence

Twenty-Nine

Ed would admit that he was desperate. He had no idea what to do now, and looking at Teacher, he could see that she had no idea what to do either. They were cut off from their back-up, and the only reinforcements that they did have up here in the throne room were both unconscious. Considering Father’s vast power, it would be stupid to try and attack him now, just the two of them. 

Maybe with Al and Hohenheim they could have put up a good defence, but Ed still couldn’t help thinking about the fact that Mustang was probably going to appear in their midst soon. He didn’t want to think about what state the colonel might be in, and having to take care of him in the middle of a pitched battle wouldn’t have been easy.

There was a tiny little cough from Al’s armour and Ed looked across at him, but he showed no signs of waking. Indeed, the little cough seemed to have echoed from within his chest cavity rather than being his normal voice. 

He ventured closer as the cough came again, and this time it was loud enough for Father to have heard it too.

“How interesting.” He stepped down from his throne and came towards Al; Ed threw himself between them. 

“If you lay a finger on him…”

Father dutifully did not move any closer, but there was the crackle of alchemy and Al’s chest cavity opened of its own accord, revealing May curled up inside. Ed gave her a hand out and she glared at Father.

“Hmm. An interesting stowaway for sure, but ultimately of no use or interest.”

Ed clapped, ready to defend May to the last, although he had no idea quite how he would do it when Father could perform alchemy merely by thinking. 

Before Father could do anything, however, there was a bright crack of alchemic lightning and a heavy thud, everyone’s attention immediately being drawn to the centre of the room, where two figures had just landed in an ungainly heap. One of them got shakily to their feet, and Ed recognised a very battered-looking Patience. 

“I think I speak for everyone when I say let’s never do that again ever. You all right, Colonel?”

Ed’s blood ran cold and he raced across the floor with Teacher towards the colonel, who hadn’t managed to get further than all fours. Mustang’s nose was streaming blood, and Ed dreaded to think what Truth might have taken from him at the gate, even more so when he knew that Mustang would never have performed human transmutation willingly.

“Ok, that’s not good.” Patience’s flippant attitude dropped and they crouched down beside Mustang again, fishing in a pocket and coming up with a handkerchief. “Right, lean forward, can you still see?”

There was a nasal affirmative; at least Mustang was still conscious and coherent so there was some hope that it wasn’t his brain pouring out of his nostrils. Ed noticed that his hands were injured too, blood on his slashed gloves that had not come from his nose. He chilled further when he realised that meant Mustang would not be able to perform flame alchemy.

“Ed, we've got this, you get back to Al and May,” Teacher said. 

“It’s almost time,” Patience agreed. “He’ll start as soon as Al and Hohenheim are conscious.”

Across the room, Ed could see Hohenheim beginning to stir and pick himself off the ground. Maybe if Al stayed out of it just a little while longer, they could do something, maybe…

There was a metallic ringing sound in his ears, and he knew from May’s sudden pained expression that something had shifted. He clapped his hands together, but he couldn’t feel the alchemy. He was powerless. 

The sky was almost full dark outside now, it was nearly time. 

Al suddenly sat bolt upright with a gasp and Ed ran over to him.

“Al! Are you ok?”

“Ed? What’s happening? Where are we?” He patted his chest frantically. “Where’s May, she was in my armour, did she get left behind?”

“I’m here Alphonse.” May patted his hand, trying to smile and put a brave face on it, but Ed could see just how scared she was.

Al gave a sigh of relief and looked around the room. “Where are we?”

“This is the very top of Central Command.” Ed nodded towards their father. “Where the country is run from.”

Father just smiled. Everyone was conscious now, and he had all five sacrifices ready and waiting, powerless to do anything to stop him. All of the parts of his plan were in place.

“Now that we’re all here and all awake, I think that it’s time to begin.”

The sun faded from view completely as Father pressed his hands together, and shadows began to snake rapidly across the floor from his feet, grabbing Ed and Al before either of them could dodge out of the way and wrapping around them to immobilise them before throwing them out to the corners of the room, pulling them down onto the ground.

“Is this Pride?”

“No.” Hohenheim, evidently still groggy, was similarly restrained, and Ed could see that Teacher and the colonel were getting the same treatment. Patience was unaffected, and they grabbed May out of the shadow’s path, carrying her to the very edge of the room as the sacrifices were positioned onto the points of a huge transmutation circle. “No, this is Homunculus’s true form. He created Pride in his own image.”

Ed looked on in horror as his father’s body began to melt and disintegrate into shadow, a mass of eyes and teeth just like Pride had been but so much worse. 

Then there was only blinding pain and oblivion as the Promised Day began in earnest.

X

“Edward? Edward, are you all right?”

Ed forced his eyes open; every nerve felt like he’d been squished through a laundry mangle five times over, but he had to know what was happening, he had to see for himself. Hohenheim was crouched beside him, holding out a hand. Across the room, Al was sitting up too, with May fussing over him, and he could see Izumi and Mustang getting to their feet as well. At least Mustang’s nose seemed to have stopped bleeding now.

He really didn’t want to look at the centre of the room, but his eyes were drawn to the throne nonetheless. Father was sitting there again, at least, Ed assumed it was him. He’d regained his physical form but lost about two decades from his original appearance, now looking like a young man, although his cold, arrogant expression remained the same.

“Hohenheim, is that what you looked like when you were younger?” Patience asked.

Hohenheim glanced over at Father as he helped Ed back to his feet, the others all coming over and congregating around them. Right now safety in numbers was probably their only chance.

“Yes.”

“Wow. You were really very pretty, you know.”

“Patience, much as I love your compliments, now’s not the time.”

“You’re absolutely right and good grief!”

Father’s form appeared to shift before their very eyes, morphing out of solid form and into something more resembling the true many-eyed, many-toothed shadow form before reforming back into the youthful appearance, but he still seemed unable to hold the form, as if all the souls now inside him were bubbling under the surface, squirming to get out of their new prison. 

“I take it back, you were definitely not pretty.” Patience just looked on, agog. “What the everloving heck is going on?”

Ed couldn’t explain it, and from the look on Father’s face, he couldn’t explain it either. 

“My failsafe.” Hohenheim’s expression was grim, but there was nonetheless a note of triumph in his voice, and as he went on to explain what he had been doing for the past few years, Ed had to agree that the triumph was definitely deserved. Gradually laying down souls in the ground to counteract Father’s nationwide circle using the shape of the umbra, he could reverse what Father had just done without any conscious intervention on his own part.

The expression of utter rage on Father’s face as he realised that it had all been for nothing and he could not hold onto those millions of souls would have been a delight to behold had the circumstances not been so dire. 

He could not keep hold of the souls much longer, not when Hohenheim’s alchemy had activated and was working of its own accord. There was a shriek of alchemic power and the sound of thousands upon thousands of souls screaming as they poured out of him and back towards their bodies, and Ed allowed himself a sigh of relief. Even if they couldn’t defeat Father and fell at this last hurdle, their friends outside weren’t dead. They’d managed to stop that, at least.

Now that Father did not have the power of the souls inside him, though… How would he hold onto the full, unmitigated power of Truth?

Ed ducked on instinct as a blast of pure alchemic energy flew across the room towards them, even though he knew it would probably be a useless defence. He clapped but there was still nothing doing. Scar must not have been able to set the counter-circle in place yet, and he was counting down the seconds until he felt it come back to him. 

Right now he was powerless, and so were Al, Teacher and Mustang. It was up to May and Hohenheim to save them all from this madman.

They were doing the best they could, May keeping the room steady around them whilst Hohenheim held back Father’s continued attack. Ed could see his hands disintegrating down to the bone and reforming with the crackle of the Philosopher’s Stone.

At last the sustained attack stopped as suddenly as it had started, and as the lightning finally faded and Hohenheim and May could get their breath back, Ed could see why Father had stopped. Even though the souls of Amestris had been released, Father was still unable to keep his human shape, shifting and disintegrating and healing on a constant loop. 

He gave a roar of rage, going for Hohenheim again. 

“What have you done?”

“For once, this one’s not my fault.” Hohenheim deflected the blow before it could connect but it sent him off balance, Ed and Al both shot forward to prop him up. “I have as little idea of what’s happening as you do. Unless…” He glanced behind him at Patience, who was checking on Mustang. “Unless your five sacrifices were only four. If the alchemist doesn’t pay a toll then they never see the truth, and if they never see the truth, then they’re useless to you. With only four sacrifices, the power would not settle properly.”

Mustang had come through with Patience. Patience had a stable Philosopher’s Stone at their core. Patience’s Stone had paid the toll instead of Mustang. 

Father had consumed God, but now it seemed that God was trying to consume him instead. 

He was still shifting and changing form as he continued to rage, and Hohenheim could not hold back the searing alchemy at the same time as stopping the punch to his gut, Father trying to siphon out the souls within him to bolster his own Philosopher’s Stone even as he kept trying to go for the others that Hohenheim was defending.

Ed was powerless to do anything except watch.

X

Scar let Chastity and Chary all but drag him into the middle of the chamber, and he slammed his hands down against the complex array that had been hidden in his brother’s notebooks. 

Bright white lightning flared out, and he took a moment to appreciate a job well done before allowing himself to pass out from the blood loss. 

X

Ed felt the metallic ringing sound again, and he clapped on instinct, hearing the crack of alchemy and smelling the ozone, the tectonic energy practically singing in his veins. The rush of power was intoxicating almost, not just the ability to perform alchemy again, but the sheer force of it, the like of which he had never felt before. The layer of Philosopher’s Stone under the earth had not just nullified his alchemy whilst Father had it active, it had been dampening the effects for all the time that he had been using it. 

Ed slammed his hands down on the ground, destroying the floor into an explosion of concrete, stone and timber, shards flying and impaling Father, sending him flying and cutting him off from Hohenheim, who collapsed onto his knees with a groan of exertion. Teacher too was on the offensive, alchemy ringing out and mangling the floor even more as she pummelled Father.

Ed was back, and he was angry, and he was going to beat this Bearded Bastard to within an inch of his pathetic life, because he had just killed everyone in Amestris, because he thought that he could be God, and because, above all else… 

“You killed my mom!”

Al needed no prompting to get into the fray, working in tandem with May’s flying kunai as she did what she could as well to defend Mustang and Hohenheim, Patience darting in between the flying alchemy looking for any opportunity to land a physical blow.

Even as they all threw everything they had at him, though, Ed knew that they would end up fighting a losing battle. Although Father was nowhere near as powerful as he could have been had he held the full power of Truth, he still had far more power than all of the rest of them, and he would never hold back, not when he had nothing to lose like this. Ed could see him draw in his power, and a massive blast of lightning ricocheted around the room, sending spots dancing in front of Ed’s eyes. 

For a moment he was certain that he was dead, but then Hohenheim was back on his feet and coming between them, and Patience was pushing Mustang and Teacher down out of the radius, and Al’s armoured body was steadfastly taking the blast to protect Ed and May as much as he could as they scrabbled back against the far wall and realised there was nowhere left to run…

The light faded. Ed watched in horror as Father tossed Hohenheim aside like a ragdoll and Teacher hauled herself up to go and check on him, winded and weakened from the blast. Al’s armour was wrecked and almost in pieces. Patience was flat on their back, Philosopher’s Stone sparking as they healed from whatever damage the blast had caused them. May was already exhausted from the strain of holding everything together, struggling to get back on her feet. Mustang was still covered in blood and still couldn’t transmute.

Father was coming towards Ed.

As he looked at the scorch marks on the wall next to him, a hair’s breadth from where he was pressed up against the stone, Ed realised something very fundamental and terrifying.

His arm was gone. His arm was gone, smashed to smithereens even more effectively than it had been during that first fight with Scar, and like that first fight with Scar, Ed could feel the panic begin to course through his veins, because he had no defence now, and he had no alchemy, and because this monstrosity with the power of a god had wiped the floor with everyone else. This time there would be no Patience jumping in at the last minute to buy him time before the military arrived. 

The military would not arrive. No one else was coming, no one else could come, it was all down to those of them in this room, and there was nothing any of them could do right now.

Father was still coming towards Ed.

He felt the soft whoosh of moving air beside him, and glanced to see May’s kunai in a perfect formation around his shoulder stump.

No. No, no, anything but that. No.

“ALPHONSE!”

The light was blinding and the pain was searing white hot. 

But his arm was back. Barely more than skin and bone, the nails long and cracked and worn, but it was an arm and a hand that he had not had before, and right now, Ed could feel nothing but rage, alchemy forgotten as he pushed himself back onto his feet and stood to face the flickering thing coming towards him, clapping and smacking and sending shards flying, before punching out with both fists and thrashing the grotesque monster, landing blow after blow in the hope of easing some of his pain by causing as much as possible to his father. You killed my mom and you took my brother from me, and I will make you HURT.

He was weakening, Ed could see that from the way the alchemic lightning was flickering around him constantly now, expending all of the souls in the Stone at a phenomenal rate just to try and keep his form stable as he struggled to contain all the power of god within an imperfect vessel. He would not contain it much longer, he could not, as long as Ed just kept forcing him to use the Stone to heal as well as to keep himself together, he would fail, he had to fail, Ed had to win, this thing could not continue to exist as it did, it was already breaking down and rebuilding…

The thing that had once been father staggered away from him, losing form and function with every passing second, and Ed landed a final blow to the head before sinking down onto his knees, winded. Please let that be enough. Please let it all be over. The sheer, uncontrollable rage that he felt was beginning to ebb. He was so tired, and he was in so much pain, and so bereft at the knowledge that Al was gone now. 

The homunculus gave a final eerie scream, thousands of voices all crying out at the same time, before it began to implode in on itself, hundreds of red souls escaping and vanishing into the atmosphere through the smashed out windows as the physical form shrank down and dwindled until it was just a ball of smoke.

“Hohenheim!” It was such a small voice, like a child almost, begging. “Hohenheim, please!”

Hohenheim shook his head sadly, and then the smoke ball was gone. 

It was all over. 

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (28/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [Twenty-Five] [Twenty-Six] [Twenty-Seven] [AO3]

==

Content Warning: Canon-typical violence

Twenty-Eight

Ed landed heavily on his front as the portal spat him out, completely winded, and it took him a few moments to get his breath back, struggling back onto his knees and taking a look around him. At first glance, he had no idea where he was. He had certainly never been here before, and for a moment he didn’t even think he was in the same country. 

The room was cavernous, sumptuously decorated and furnished with exotic plants everywhere. It looked like it should be in a palace somewhere, and it was only after a moment that Ed realised with a sickening jolt that they must be in the topmost part of Central Command, a place off limits to all except Bradley.

“Where the hell are we?”

Teacher was getting to her feet beside him, and Ed looked over to see Al spread-eagled where the portal had spat him out too. 

“Al!” He scrambled to his feet and rushed over. “Al! Al, wake up, are you ok?”

“Alphonse!” Teacher raced across the room as well, but Al showed no signs of coming into consciousness again; his eyes were blank.

“Ah, I’m so glad you made it all in one piece. We’re almost ready to begin.”

Ed looked up from trying to rouse Al and took in the rest of the room fully. 

He’d been partially right when he’d surmised that this was a room in a palace. There was a throne slap-bang in the middle of it. Father was sitting there, watching the scene with mild amusement, and Ed realised that this must be a replica of the Xerxes throne room from so many centuries ago. His stomach turned again when he saw Hohenheim sprawled on the ground, unmoving. 

“Oh don’t worry, he’s not dead,” Father said. “He wouldn’t be much use to me if he was. I’ll be sure to wake him up when the time comes. But we’re still one short, and it appears that Alphonse has got a little lost along the way. Still, there’s time.”

In his anger, Ed clapped, pressing his hands to the ground and watching the floor of the throne room rupture and bubble into chunks of stone, the fissure line heading straight for Father, but before it could connect, the entire thing flattened down again with a crack, as if he had never touched it. 

Father just raised an eyebrow. “Really? You do know that we’ll be here all day if you get started on this.”

Ed glared, but decided not to waste his energy. Once Al was awake again, they would come up with a plan, and take this Bearded Bastard down by any means necessary.

X

Once the alchemy had died back and half of the Wrath Rejects had vanished, Chastity looked across at Chary and then at Jerso and Zampano, then back to Scar where he was still trying to staunch the bleeding from his shoulders. 

“I think we can discount having any help from Hohenheim now,” Chary said. “And Alphonse won’t be coming back from the tunnels either.”

“We should be able to take the remainder.” Chastity did a quick headcount as the remaining Wrath Rejects came back towards them. “Three of them and the doctor, four of us.” 

Chary, Jerso and Zampano nodded their agreement, and Chastity turned back to Scar. 

“Get ready and don’t die.”

Scar nodded, although Chastity knew that he didn’t really have a lot of choice in the latter part, he hoped that after all this time, Scar would survive on sheer spite alone. He got back to his feet; even though he was exhausted from the previous fight and he knew that the others were weakening as well, they had to do this. They had to break Father’s hold over Alchemy. The others were relying on them. 

X

Although there had been a brief pause whilst the alchemy was lighting up the room and Izumi and Fullmetal had disappeared, as soon as the light faded and the transmutation was over, everything started happening again, and everything happened at the same time. 

Pride’s shadows all turned inwards, no longer attacking, but Olivier could see them spreading out over the floor, forming the shape of a circle. It was a transmutation circle, she knew enough to recognise that much, and considering all the talk that had been going on about human transmutation, she could hazard a guess at what it was for. She pushed Bradley back with her remaining strength, dragging herself back onto her feet, but he was no longer interested in her, rushing across the room with a speed that belied his age and injuries and launching himself through the air to crash tackle Mustang down into the circle, sword blades slicing straight through his palms and pinning him to the ground. 

“Oh no!” Patience, who’d been bouncing around near the ceiling trying to get the drop on Sloth, saw what was going on. “Oh hell no, this is not going to happen! Not on my watch!”

The alchemic lightning flared around the circle as the transmutation started. Olivier dragged herself across the floor towards them. This was her chance. Bradley might be able to foresee all of her attacks and feints and where she would be at any moment, but if he was concentrating on something else, even he wouldn’t be able to see what was coming.

She raised her sword. The lightning was well underway now. 

Bradley jumped back out of the circle before Mustang vanished, at the same time as Patience dropped down from the cornice and landed smack on top of the Flame Alchemist. In a split second and a flash of light, both of them were gone, and Pride was pulling up the shadow circle on the floor. 

Olivier allowed herself a smile of satisfaction as she slowly pulled her blade out of Bradley’s guts. All she’d had to do was get behind him; as he’d jumped back out of the circle he’d jumped straight onto her sword.

He staggered; he didn’t heal like the other homunculi and a sword to the intestines would definitely slow even him down. Olivier stabbed again to make doubly sure, shoving the blade upwards as hard as she could, seeing it punch through his chest before she pulled it out and staggered back, dropping the sword and clutching at her wounded shoulder; finally allowing herself to give in to the dizziness from the blood loss. There was no coming back from that, not with the amount of blood now pouring down his front. He fell to the ground, choking and gurgling. Beyond him, she could see Selim beginning to flake away; performing the transmutation had severely weakened him and the Xing crew had doubled down on their attacks against his physical form rather than his shadows; with nothing to keep the shadows contained, he would soon be gone. Sloth had been on his last legs when he’d been tossed through the ceiling, and Sig Curtis had finished him off with the power of sheer rage at his wife being unceremoniously kidnapped via the power of alchemy. 

Olivier smiled and closed her eyes. The homunculi were down. Only Father remained. She wanted to get up and go after him, but she couldn’t move her injured arm and she would need a minute to get to her feet. 

She would just have to trust that the others would go after him instead.

X

Elsewhere in the building below them, Ed heard another deafening crack of alchemy like the one that had accompanied him and Teacher being sucked into the portal of Truth, and he felt sick to think of what might have happened. Father just smiled benignly. 

“There we are,” he said. “I think that we’re all ready for the fun to begin now.”

There was an ear-splitting screech of stone grinding against stone, and the sudden swoop of gravity showed Ed that they were rising. He chanced to make his way over to one of the huge windows, and he saw that the top most level of Central Command was sheering away from the rest of the building, rising up above; for what purpose Ed did not know - perhaps to prevent everyone else in the building from interfering, perhaps just for the twisted sense of pomp and showmanship that seemed to have gone into everything else in the room. 

All he could do was steel himself for whatever came next. 

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (27/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [Twenty-Five] [Twenty-Six] [AO3]

==

Content Warning: Canon-typical violence

Twenty-Seven

“This is just getting ridiculous.” 

There were six of them against Sloth; Heinkel was out for the count and Darius was dragging him to safety but had promised to come back as long as he didn’t meet anything else along the way. They’d hardly been able to leave a dent in the massive homunculus, he was able to dodge a lot of the hits with his incredible speed and those that did connect, he simply shrugged off. 

Ed had to agree with Mustang’s summation of the situation. They weren’t going to get anywhere if they couldn’t get past Sloth, and if they couldn’t get to Father and try to stop him, then everything that they had done would be for nothing. 

“You two go,” Ling said. “The next time there’s an opening to sneak past him, go for it. We’ll take care of things from here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been less sure of anything -” here Ling jumped to avoid a crushing blow to the head from one of the wildly flailing chains around Sloth’s wrists “- but I’m sure that if you and Mustang don’t save the world then we’re all dead anyway, so get going!”

Ed nodded and braced himself, looking for the next opportunity to get past the juggernaut who was blocking their path, and he looked over to Mustang, who nodded his agreement. He could no longer see Hawkeye, who had sensibly holed up behind a pillar and was taking shots at Sloth’s face with her rifle; although they all knew that there was little hope of her actually killing him with gunfire, shots to the head slowed him down and impaired his vision whilst he healed up, which was at least giving them room to breathe even if not a complete advantage. Fu and Lan Fan seemed to be in agreement with the plan as well if their sustained attack on the homunculus was anything to go by. 

At last there was an opening, and Ed ploughed forward, Mustang hot on his heels. Once past Sloth, they kept running, putting as much distance between them and him as possible and heading for the stairs up to the top levels and Bradley’s office.

The building was disarmingly quiet up here. Considering that this level was where the generals had been holed up with the Fuhrer planning the apocalypse, there was no one around here now, and from the papers and chairs scattered to the four winds as the passed the meeting rooms; Ed could hazard a guess that they had all left in a panic and that General Armstrong had probably caused the panic. 

The quiet made Ed uneasy and he slowed his pace a little. 

“Fullmetal?”

“It’s too quiet,” he said. “I get the feeling that we’re walking straight into a trap.”

“I know what you mean.” He hadn’t been expecting Mustang to agree, but he was glad of it all the same, even if he would never admit that. “But the only thing we can do is keep going forward and walk into the trap if one’s been set.”

“Yeah.” Ed sighed. “We have to reach the Bearded Bastard and the only way out is through.”

They continued along the corridor; although muffled by Central Command’s strong architecture, Ed could still hear the sounds of the fight with Sloth going on below them, and it made his stomach churn to think that they had left the others fending him off and buying them time. 

They reached the Fuhrer’s office, opening the door just a fraction and peering around it. 

“There’s really no need to be so furtive, Mustang.” There was the snikt of a blade being unsheathed, and Ed did not suppress another groan. It would have been far too easy for them not to have met Bradley. 

Mustang opened the door fully. Bradley was there, along with Selim, who could now no longer be mistaken for a normal human boy when there were tendrils of shadows creeping out from under his feet, shadows that had eyes and teeth and seemed to move of their own accord, soaring across the room and chinking against Ed’s blade when he brought his arm up to defend himself, just managing to transmute the carbon in the amalgam into black diamond to stop the automail being sliced clean through. 

This fight was definitely going to hurt.

X

Olivier marched through the corridors of Central Command; everyone was in so much confusion that no one questioned her, although that could also be down to outright terror. She had checked in with Miles and Buccaneer at the gate and everything was going as well as could be expected there, and now she was on a far more pressing mission to find the Fuhrer, and with any luck, run her sword through him. 

She sighed when she rounded the corner and found Sloth there. She knew that it had been too much to hope that she’d seen the last of Sloth when he’d gone back into the tunnel under Briggs, but it was clear that the lump wasn’t going to be defeated that easily, and from the looks of the fight, he wasn’t going down easily even now. Although the defenders were doing an admirable job of keeping him from going anywhere, they were going to need back up, and Olivier could not afford to be drawn into this fight when there was another, potentially more important one going on elsewhere. She noted that for all she could see Hawkeye in her makeshift sniper nest, there was no sign of Mustang, and in circumstances like these, where one went the other would probably go too, meaning that Mustang was likely to be further into Central Command and going after Bradley and Father. Olivier rolled her eyes. The idiot was going to get himself killed, and as tempted as she was to let him, the fate of the entire country was at stake so she should probably do something.

She made her way over to Hawkeye, dodging chunks of falling masonry and a new arrival sprinting onto the scene and skidding to a stop. 

“Well, that certainly wasn’t what I expected to see. Hello Lieutenant Hawkeye!”

“Hi Patience.” Hawkeye acknowledged the new arrival and turned to Olivier. “General Armstrong, it’s good to see you.”

“Glad to see you alive, Lieutenant. If you can cover me to get past this lump, I’ll call you some back up; I think you’ll need it. I’m going to scrape Mustang off the floor upstairs.”

Hawkeye smiled. “Good luck.” She levelled her rifle and nodded for Olivier to go whilst Sloth was distracted with the two Xingese ninjas clambering all over his head and shoulders. 

Olivier ducked into the radio room just along the corridor and hailed Buccaneer at the main gate. 

“Send the Curtises into the main building, we have a homunculus issue.”

“Yes sir, they’ll be there shortly.”

Now to find Bradley. If he had any sense he’d be in his office, the last bastion of defence before the renegades got to Father himself. Although, from what Olivier had learned about Father over the last few months of her hostage situation here in Central, finding out all about the insanity that had been going on in the military top brass for centuries, she really didn’t think that he needed a last bastion of defence. Still, it would make Bradley feel useful if nothing else. She’d never had all that much respect for him, but knowing that he was just the lapdog of a higher master had lowered him in her esteem even further.

She heard the sounds of the fight before she reached the room, and she wasn’t surprised to find Mustang and Fullmetal completely outmatched, even if not technically outnumbered. Still, at least they gave her an opening to engage Bradley whilst his concentration was focussed on them and not on the door. Olivier unsheathed her sword, swinging at Bradley and landing a deep slash across his shoulder, instantly turning his attention onto her. 

“Hello, Bradley. You didn’t really think I’d sit quietly with the other panicking old men, did you?”

Olivier was a good swordswoman; the weapon she always carried was not just for show and she had used it in combat more times than she could count when Drachma had come snapping at the door. Even she knew, though, that she was no match for Bradley when he had both eyes open and could predict her every move before she made it. It was all she could do to keep parrying and keep him from landing a blow, but she was determined. She would defeat this cockroach, or she would die trying.

X

Although it was much easier now that they didn’t have to worry about Bradley as well as Pride, Ed could tell that he and Mustang were still definitely on the back foot and they were going to have to coordinate if they stood any chance of getting around him. 

“Do you think that if we did something about Selim, it would neutralise the shadows?” Mustang asked, snapping a fireball at the nearest tendril and sending it vanishing into dust, but it only afforded them a very brief respite before the next one was on the inbound, razor sharp and lethal. Ed could only defend; there wasn’t anything that he could really do to hurt the homunculus. 

“Maybe. If he’s anything like his father then he needs a container in order to be able to act and Selim looks to be his container.”

Mustang nodded. “I’m going for him. Cover me.”

Ed rolled his eyes but accepted that Mustang was going to be better on the offensive this time around. Behind him, he could still hear the unrelenting scrape of metal on metal as Armstrong went toe to toe with Bradley, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Pride and the shadows in order to see how she was getting on. As long as she kept him occupied enough to keep him off their backs, that was all they could ask for. 

Before Mustang could make a dent in Selim, however, there was a thunderous roar from below them, and Ed just heard someone yell INCOMING before the floor splintered into thousands of shards and Sloth was propelled through it; Ling, Lan Fan, Fu and Patience were all hanging off the massive homunculus as he hit the ceiling with a crash. Teacher, Sig and Hawkeye followed them up, Teacher transmuting a platform from the floor below and repairing the massive hole before Sloth crashed down from the ceiling. The others hopped off him before he could get to his feet, and Ed and Mustang both just stared at the new additions to their party. Even Pride looked to be rather alarmed by the latest developments; only Bradley and Armstrong were unperturbed, still fighting to the death on the other side of the room. Olivier was bleeding badly, her non-sword arm hanging limp at her side, but her expression was one of sheer determination and she wasn’t going to give up for anyone.

“Swap!” Ling yelled, catching the flash bomb that Fu tossed to him. “We’ll take care of Pride, we can stop his shadows, you pummel Sloth; we’ve already killed him a couple of times!”

“Eyes down!” Lan Fan pulled the pin on a flash bomb and Ed just managed to close his eyes in time before it went off and a blinding flash cleared the room of shadows, making Pride scream in pain and frustration. Ed left the Xing contingent to it, he and Teacher both clapping and smacking their hands down on the ground to send spikes shooting through Sloth’s bulk. With him pinned down and unable to use his speed, hopefully it would not take a lot to finish him off completely. 

There was a crack of alchemic lightning and Ed looked at Mustang and then Teacher, but they were both looking just as perplexed as Ed felt; there was nothing to suggest that either of them were responsible. Then the portal opened up beneath him and Teacher, the glaring Gate of Truth staring up at them. 

“Fullmetal!”

“Ed, what’s happening?”

“Edward!”

“Izumi!”

There was a roar of pure alchemy, and Ed found himself rushing through the portal once more. 

X

The soldiers were getting closer, Al could hear that shots were being exchanged out in the corridors that led into the homunculi’s home. He hoped that Havoc, Fuery and Diligence would be able to hold them off, but he had no idea how many of Central’s forces might have flooded into the catacombs. Beside him, Shao May gave a squeak of alarm, and Al looked down to see May beginning to stir. He looked from her to Pasha and back again. 

Pasha nodded. “I’ve got tons of hiding places, I’ll be ok. And I’m a homunculus. You need to keep May and Shao May safe. Come on, I’ll show you where we can hide her.”

May didn’t protest when Al lifted her inside his chest cavity again, and he followed Pasha out of Diligence’s room and along the corridors deeper into the heart of Hohenheim’s home. 

“Up here.” Pasha sprang up a little ladder built into the wall, but the opening was far too narrow for Al to be able to fit through. 

“May, do you think you can climb?” he began, but before he could interpret her whispered response, he found himself frozen to the spot as bright alchemic lightning flashed around him, and the portal opened up beneath his feet. There was a split second to realise what was happening before he was falling into the stream of Truth once more…

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (26/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [Twenty-Five] [AO3]

==

Content Warning: Canon-typical violence

Twenty-Six

The basement area underneath Central Command was, to put it mildly, creepy. Al suppressed a shudder as he and the others moved through the dark, damp rooms, with Charity and Chastity leading the way. They could hear the sounds of commotion above them as the military dealt with all of the chaos that was going on outside in the city. 

One would have thought that the catacombs underneath the building would be the creepiest part, but whilst the homunculi had managed to make their home look welcoming and like a place that you’d want to stay in despite the lack of natural light, the building’s lower levels had made no such concessions. There was an oppressiveness in the very air, and the shadows lurking around every corner gave Al no small degree of uneasiness, looking for Pride hiding anywhere and everywhere. 

“It’s ok,” Chary said to him, as if she was reading his thoughts. “There are no other homunculi near, just me and Chass. Pride’s not here, I can feel it.”

Considering how fast Pride could move through the shadows if he wished, especially as they were right within his domain, Al wasn’t completely mollified. All he could hope was that Havoc hadn’t been seeing things and that the containment that Hohenheim had fashioned for Pride in the residence would hold fast. Beside him, May was clutching Shao May close, and both of them looked to be completely terrified by their surroundings, but she said nothing, just pressing on with the rest of them. Al really wished that he could have left her behind with Winry in Resembool, as safe and as far away from it all as possible, but even he had to admit that her alkahestry would come in handy, especially if Father turned off normal Amestrian alchemy like he had done to them before. If Scar needed any help in setting up and pushing out his brother’s counter-circle, then May was best positioned to assist him.

The rest of them were really just there to provide cover against whatever might be waiting for them, because distracted as they might be with Mustang’s insurrection, no-one was naive enough to believe that there was any part of Central Command that was entirely undefended. 

The chamber that they ended up in as the exact centre point under Father’s lair, where the exact centre of Amestris itself was, the heart of the very country, was eerily bare and plain, and worryingly large. Al would have felt a lot better about the whole thing if they were in a broom closet somewhere, but the fact that this room was so large and cavernous meant that it must have been designed with some purpose in mind, and since Father would have been the one to design it, Al didn’t want to think what purpose it was supposed to serve. It was one of those situations where everything seemed too obvious. Too easy.

Chastity was walking around the edges of the room, sounding all the walls with a furrowed brow, and Chary was looking similarly perturbed. 

“I don’t like this,” she muttered, readjusting the weight of the frying pan in her hands. “Something’s not right and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Well, this is where we have to be,” Scar said. “The sooner this is done, the sooner we can get out of this place.” He paused. “I agree, though. There’s something unsettling about it all.”

May shivered. “Let’s just do this as quickly as we can.”

She and Scar made their way over to the middle of the room, the rest of them helping to measure out the floor so that they could be sure of being dead centre. 

“Something’s not right.” Chastity shook his head. “Something’s wrong.” He looked over to Chary. “You can feel it too, right? There’s a Stone somewhere nearby and it’s not one of ours.”

“Pride?” Al asked.

“No. It’s an independent Stone, it’s not one in a homunculus, it’s…” Chastity broke off. “We’ve got company, everyone!”

Al only had a split second to react to Chastity’s warning before chaos rained down from above. 

There was something off about the men who attacked them; it was as if they were almost, not-quite human, and almost, not-quite something else. The speed and strength with which they moved rivalled the homunculi, and indeed, Chastity and Chary were both swearing up an absolute storm as they took on the new arrivals; Chary’s frying pan had probably never seen such violent action in its lifetime. Al transmuted himself a blade to try and hold off the man who had come after him; the sabre action reminded him of the Fuhrer and he really didn’t want to think of the implications. As skilled with the swords as his assailant was, though, his expression was blank, eyes dull and lifeless, as if there was no soul at all behind them; like the man was just a puppet on a string. 

Who was pulling the string, though? Was this Father’s doing?

Out of the corner of his eye, between Zampano’s quills and Jerso’s saliva and Scar’s alchemy and May’s kunai and Chary’s wildly flying frying pan, Al saw a figure watching them calmly from the entrance to the chamber, a stocky man in a lab coat with a horrible, rictus grin on his face as he took in the scene in front of him almost with glee. 

“What the hell are these things?” Chastity panted, leaping onto the back of the one who was going after Chary and snapping its neck. He did not regenerate as the homunculi did, so at least they had the small reassurance of knowing that they could be killed; it was just a question of being able to get close enough to land a final blow. Considering the age they looked to be, the men were ridiculously agile. 

“I don’t think I want to know,” Jerso said. “Let’s just try and kill them while we can and get out of here.”

“These are the men who would have been Wrath.”

It was the doctor who spoke, but Al paid him little heed, trying to keep on his toes and keep from getting in the way of the others as they all tried to beat the men back and give Scar the space to draw the counter-circle at the dead centre point where it needed to be. 

“Oh great. The Wrath Rejects Brigade. Just perfect. Just what we need.” Chastity dispatched another and looked around before heading towards the doctor, likely the one controlling the men. Al managed to kick his away and looked over at the others. Scar was bleeding heavily from the shoulder where a blade had caught him; it was clear that they were going after him in the first instance, and Al began to run over to help him - Jerso and Zampano were doing all they could just to stay in the fight, Chary and Chastity were having no luck in taking down the doctor, with the men just converging on them before they could even get close, forcing them to tag team. 

“Hang in there, Scar…”

Al skidded to a stop in his tracks as May was flung across the room in front of him, he and Scar both calling out at the same time. 

“May!”

On instinct, Al ran to her limp form; Scar might be injured but at least he was conscious and could still defend himself. 

“May, are you ok? May!”

“Get her out of here!” Scar yelled to him. “Take her back down into the tunnels!”

Al didn’t need telling twice and he unfastened his chest plate, lifting May inside before getting to his feet.

“Hang in there, May, ok?” Al started running back towards the entrance into the catacombs; he knew that he was probably jolting May and hurting her more, but he figured she’d still be safer inside his chest cavity than in his arms; he was a suit of armour after all, and armour was supposed to protect a vulnerable human body. Although none of their attackers seemed to be following him, he could still hear the fight going on behind him. He felt awful leaving the others to their fate, but May was more important right now, getting her out had to be the priority, and he was the one best placed to keep her safe. 

He made it through the door and slammed it shut behind him, climbing the ladder back down into the homunculi’s home. 

“Mom!” he yelled, instinct kicking in over everything else and the fact that Mom wasn’t really Mom flying out of sight in the wake of everything else that was going on. “Mom, help!”

“Alphonse? What’s the matter, are you hurt?”

Diligence sprinted along the corridor towards him.

“It’s May.” Al patted his chest as he came off the last rung. “She’s hurt.”

“Ok, bring her along here into my room, we’ll get her lying down and comfortable and see what we can do.” 

Al nodded and followed Diligence through the tunnels, passing Havoc and Fuery who were setting up a barricade near the entranceway that led out onto the streets where he and Ed had first come in earlier. Al could hear the sounds of shouting voices and running footsteps, much closer than he had heard any sounds of the outside down here in the tunnels, and he came to the horrible conclusion that the military must have found the entrance and were making their way through the catacombs in the direction of the homunculi’s home. At least Havoc, Fuery and Diligence had the home advantage, so to speak. 

Diligence waved him into her room and Al unfastened his chest plate, lifting May out and lying her down on the bed; Diligence checked her over.

“Looks like it’s just a concussion,” she said. “She should be fine, but we’ll keep a close eye on her in case anything changes. Shao May can watch out for any changes in her breathing.”

The little panda stationed herself on the pillow next to May’s head, focussing on her intently.

“Dili!” Al heard pattering footsteps from somewhere above them, and then a slide and thud; a moment later, Pasha rushed into the room, looking scared. 

“Are you ok, Pasha?”

He nodded. “I’m fine; Patience sent me back down here once I’d done what I needed to do, but I saw that there are people in the tunnels; they’re getting closer.”

“I know, Pasha. You stay here with Al and May. Havoc, Fuery and I will take care of them.”

Although Al had never associated his mother with violence in any way, and in the limited interactions he’d had with Diligence so far in their acquaintance, he’d always seen her as more of a peaceful person, there was a fierce determination in her face as she left the room, and he recognised it for what it was: sheer maternal outrage. Even if Diligence had all her memories back; even if she fully accepted her identity as Trisha Elric, even if Mom had never died and this was still her original life, Al knew that she would have been wearing exactly the same expression as she had gone to defend her home and her family, and that she would have done it without hesitation. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t remember Al as her son. It didn’t matter that May and Pasha weren’t related to her by blood. It didn’t matter that Pasha was a homunculus and would heal up just as well as she would if he was injured. 

All that mattered was that they were children and they were scared and they were in danger, and Diligence was, above all else, a Mom, and she was going to protect the children in her care.

X

They were on the back foot. Scar was bleeding and if they lost him then the counter-circle would be for nothing. Zampano was running out of quills; Jerso’s mouth was drying up. Al and May were out of the fight. Chastity was beginning to tire, and that was something considering he was a homunculus. He and Chary couldn’t keep this up much longer, the two of them against the entire troop of Wrath Rejects as they tried to protect everyone else. 

They fell back around Scar, Chary standing ready with her frying pan whilst Chastity tried to staunch the wound in his arm. 

The Wrath Rejects fell back then, and over Scar’s shoulder, Chastity saw why. The doctor who was controlling them had drawn a transmutation circle on the floor, and in his pocket, Chastity could just make out the faint red glow of an independent Philosopher’s Stone. That was what he and Chary had felt earlier. The Wrath Rejects were getting into formation around the circle. 

“It’s time.”

White lightning flashed and filled the room.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (25/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [Twenty-Four] [AO3]

==

Twenty-Five

Hold the gate.

That was all they needed to do. Take the gate and hold the gate, stopping anyone from getting out or getting in. All of the forces who were outside dealing with Mustang and Hughes’ distraction would be recalled to defend Central Command soon enough, and Buccaneer and Miles would not let anyone get in and mess up their carefully laid plans. 

They’d taken no casualties in the fight to take the gate itself; they had six wounded but none dead, and the Central forces had surrendered once they realised they were up against the Briggs Bears who would not hold back under any circumstances. 

Buccaneer looked along the line of people on the parapets; Miles was inside supervising the machine gun posts that they had set up to cover the entrance. Out here, Buccaneer’s squad was backed up by the Curtises - who had appeared out of nowhere and casually broken through the perimeter guard and into the fortress a few months ago, to Buccaneer’s monumental astonishment. Once he had seen Sig and Izumi in action, though, the astonishment had quickly vanished to be replaced with a respectful fear almost of the same magnitude that he felt towards the general. 

He still didn’t trust Abrams as far as he could throw him, but he couldn’t deny that he’d been useful in passing messages along whatever weird homunculus grapevine they all used. He’d vanished off earlier but he was back now, bringing with him an extremely determined young woman with a sniper rifle who had introduced herself as Tempe and stationed herself directly above the gate with the other Briggs snipers, calmly looking out for any signs of trouble. 

Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Buccaneer could hear the sounds of Hughes’ distraction going on elsewhere in the city, and he could hear shouting and panicking in Central Command behind him. In this immediate vicinity though, it was too quiet. 

The first shot echoed in his ears, and he watched the Central soldier who had been sent ahead as a scout fall to the ground as one of the snipers calmly reloaded. 

The battle for Central was beginning.

X

Say what he would about Hughes and Mustang, Ed couldn’t deny that they were doing a truly excellent job of distracting the entire city. From the radio reports that he kept overhearing as soldiers ran hither and thither and back again throughout Central’s streets, the two of them seemed to be everywhere at once and had apparently commandeered an ice cream truck from which to base their operations. Perhaps not the most inconspicuous of vehicles to launch a coup out of, but then again, they were attempting to cause as much confusion as possible so inconspicuous wasn’t exactly the name of the game. 

Still, whatever was actually going on throughout the city and whether Hughes really was driving an ice cream truck, they were creating enough mayhem that Ed and the rest of his group were able to sneak right into Central Command without being challenged at all. Now all they needed to do was make their way up to Father’s lair. Thankfully the inside of Central Command seemed to be in as much turmoil as the outside; Ed suspected that he had General Armstrong to thank for that, and he was quite grateful that he’d never met the woman. 

Everyone was ready; Lan Fan and Fu were moving through the shadows, the light occasionally glinting off Lan Fan’s new arm - she had insisted on being part of the group even despite Winry’s protests that her arm was in no way ready for combat yet. Ling’s grip on his sword was steady, but Ed could still see the tension in him. This wasn’t his fight, not really. He and May had come to Amestris in the hope of saving their own country; he really couldn’t ask them to get involved in the saving of his, but they had insisted on helping even as Ed had continued to insist that they should probably stay out of it, and they shouldn’t be risking their lives for a country across the desert from their home. 

“It’s not too late to back out if you want,” he said presently. Ling just looked at him. 

“We’re in the middle of Central Command heading straight into the enemy’s hideout. It’s sort of too late. I know what you mean though. I’m grateful, but we’ve come too far to back down now. And this is our fight, in a way. If the bastard intends to do this to Amestris, I don’t think that he’ll be satisfied in the end. Hohenheim says that he’s been building up to this his entire life, but that he’s also been trying out new things and getting bored of them for his entire life as well. How long is it before he gets bored of this and decides that Amestris isn’t enough, and he sets his sights on Xing instead? Xing’s population is almost twice that of Amestris.”

Ed shuddered at the thought, he guessed that Ling did have a point there. He looked over to his other side; Darius and Heinkel were both in their animal forms pre-emptively, indeed more than one Central officer had rushed out of a room on hearing that there were intruders in Central Command and rushed back in again with a squawk on seeing the lion and the gorilla prowling down the corridors. 

He could hear footsteps running along the corridor behind him and he transmuted his automail into his favoured blade, turning with everyone else ready to put up a fight against whatever resistance might be coming after them now. 

“Good to see you, Fullmetal.”

It was Mustang and Hawkeye, although Ed did not transmute the blade back.

“You took long enough,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“We stopped for ice cream,” Mustang said, deadpan. Hawkeye rolled her eyes.

“We had some trouble with Envy, but that’s all dealt with now. Shall we?”

They continued to make their way through Central Command, heading towards the Fuhrer’s office and the place where Father was no doubt making preparations for the Promised Day. The umbra of the eclipse would already be starting to creep over the edges of Amestris, and they did not have much time to stop him.

“So, Envy’s gone?” Ling asked.

“Yes. According to our calculations that leaves us with just Pride, Wrath and Sloth, although only the Briggs crew have ever had any dealings with Sloth in the past.”

“Yeah, Pride and Wrath are the two I’m worried about,” Ed muttered. “How many floors are there in this building anyway, and did Fuery have to put the elevators out of action?”

“The aim was to cause as much chaos as possible,” Mustang pointed out. Ed just scowled. “At least we’re nearly there.”

The group rounded the next corner and stopped dead, and Ed sighed, turning to Mustang.

“What were you saying about having dealings with Sloth? You just had to go and jinx it, didn’t you.”

There could be no doubt that the monstrosity blocking the way in front of them was Sloth. He had all the appearance hallmarks of Father’s other homunculi, and his sheer size and bulk fitted in with what Abrams had described from when he had turned up under Briggs. It was clear that he had been stationed here as a watchdog, and they were not going to be able to get past him without beating the living daylights out of him first.

Mustang sighed and snapped, sending a stream of fire towards the homunculus, which probably would have caused a hefty amount of damage if the massive slab of muscle hadn’t dodged and then taken a swing at the colonel. Hawkeye only just managed to pull him out of the way in time. 

“How the hell is that thing so fast?” she exclaimed. 

“I don’t want to know.” Ling jumped out of the way as Lan Fan and Fu sprang down from the ceiling, kunai and flash bombs at the ready. There was a sickening crunch as one of Sloth’s fists connected with Heinkel, sending him flying.

Ed groaned. The only thing that they could do was to get stuck in and hope.

X

Wrath picked his way through the wreckage that comprised the interior of the presidential residence, feeling an odd sense of loss. Although he really shouldn’t have had any attachment to the place any more than he had an attachment to any other place that he had lived, it had been his home for years and he felt a certain fondness for it, and now it had been almost completely destroyed. 

He saw the transmutation marks on the floor; well, if they didn’t know where Hohenheim was hiding out before then they certainly did now, not that it would make much difference in the wider scheme of things now that everything was starting to unfold. 

Father did not seem too concerned about the chaos; it was obviously a distraction and he was not one to get distracted, but Pride’s continued absence had perturbed him enough to send Wrath on a reconnaissance trip back to the residence to find out what the hell had gone on. From the looks of things, all out war had gone on. Kimblee was slumped in a corner, bleeding heavily from a head wound and unconscious, but still going up and down in the middle, however shallow his breathing was. Wrath paid him no more attention; a fat lot of use he’d ended up being as a guard dog overnight.

His eyes fell on Marian’s body. He’d always known that she’d end up the victim of Father’s plans just as they all would; he had been allowed to choose her but at the end of the day, he had always known that he would never be allowed to keep her, that Father’s plans would always come first and whatever sacrifices needed to be made to ensure their fruition would be made without hesitation. Homunculi could not afford to form attachments to things. And yet, attachments had indeed been made. He crouched beside her, touching her cold cheek. He wondered if she’d suspected, or if she’d been blissfully ignorant of her adopted son’s true nature until the very end.

Speaking of adopted sons, though… He looked over at the cupboard that appeared to be merged into the wall with alchemy, and listened to the incessant rattling coming from inside it. 

“Wrath? Wrath, is that you out there? Let me out of here!”

Wrath sighed and went over to the cupboard, blades easily slicing through the twisted wood and plaster until Pride was freed, tendril shadows snaking out as Selim stepped out of the cupboard, brushing himself down.

“I take it from the fact that you got yourself shut in a cupboard that our friend Hohenheim decided to put in an appearance?”

“Indeed.” Pride looked around the room. “It’s a good job that you hadn’t just redecorated. Look at this mess.” His eyes alighted on Kimblee in the corner. “Useless human. If you hadn’t decided to blow Hohenheim an entrance right below us then none of this would have happened. Still, we can’t deny that having an alchemist on side would definitely be an advantage later down the line. We still need to do something about Mustang, after all. Father’s a sacrifice short. The ability to perform alchemy would save us a lot of time.”

The tendrils of shadow reached out, almost engulfing the room, and Wrath did not hide his expression of disgust as they consumed Kimblee.

“There, that’s much better.” Pride gave a disarmingly benign smile. “Shall we return to Father? The Promised Day is well underway, and time is of the essence if we want to intercept Mustang.”

They picked their way back through the wreckage and into the Central Command building. They would get Father’s final sacrifice by whatever means possible, and then their grand plan would come into perfect fruition. These slight setbacks would not bring them down.

X

It would have been a waste of time indeed for Hohenheim to have spent so much time perfecting so many secret passages through and around Central Command and not to use any of them. Patience had told him so many times when they had been lamenting his antipathy towards leaving the catacombs. 

Now the time had come for him to finally put them into use. If he could get to Homunculus and confront him alone, then hopefully it would save a great deal of pain and misery for everyone else involved in the plans. He knew that Mustang and Edward were both on their way here, but considering the vastness of what was at stake, and the enormity of Homunculus’s alchemic power, Hohenheim knew that he was the only one who could go toe to toe with his nemesis and stand any chance of getting out alive at the end of it. Even then, he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d be getting out alive; just that he had the best chance of dragging Homunculus down with him if he didn’t survive. 

He entered into the inner sanctum, the very heart of Central Command, of Central City, of the entirety of Amestris. 

“Van Hohenheim.” Homunculus smiled from his seat. “I’ve been waiting for you to show up and try to play the hero.”

“I have no intention of playing the hero,” Hohenheim said levelly. “I simply want to make sure that you do not do to Amestris what you did to my own people, Dwarf in the Flask.”

“Ah, but Hohenheim.” The smile was more of a leer now, and it sent a chill down Hohenheim’s spine. “I am so, so much more than my flask now…”

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (24/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [Twenty-Three] [AO3]

==

Twenty-Four

“Is everyone ready?”

Truth be told, Ed did not really feel very ready. The fate of everyone in the entire country was resting on the shoulders of just a few individuals, and there were so many things that could go wrong. He looked over to Havoc and Fuery. There were already things that had gone wrong, and he didn’t want to think about the possibility of more things going wrong. 

He looked around the gathered people in the corridor. Aside from his own band of misfits who had somehow come together into the weirdest little family over the last few months, Hohenheim and all the homunculi were there, and Ed realised this was probably the first time that he had seen all of them together in the same place. 

Abrams was still in his full Briggs uniform, having slipped back down into the catacombs to spend some time with his homuncular family before the assault on Central Command began. Patience had shed their usual exuberant fashion sense in favour of all black, ready to sneak and infiltrate where needed, Pasha sitting on their shoulders. As loath as everyone had been to involve Pasha, he had pointed out that he was small enough to get into places where no one else could, and his ability to navigate air vents would likely come in handy. Chary and Tempe, two people Ed would never have associated with violence in any way, were grim and ready, the former armed with a frying pan, and the latter, rather alarmingly, with a sniper rifle. Well, presumably Hawkeye must have got the skills from somewhere. Chastity was always ready to damage a few of the opposing homunculi and seemed to be not exactly looking forward to the forthcoming dangers, but perhaps not dreading them quite as much as everyone else.

And Diligence. Ed found himself looking at her longer than all the others, and he thought that he could be forgiven that. Of all the people that he didn’t want to get involved in this, of all the people that he wanted to protect, Mom was right up there at the top of the list. But for all she had started regaining some memory of her previous life, Dili wasn’t Mom, not quite yet, and Dili wanted to play her role in protecting her home and her family, both new and old, just as much as everyone else did.

“Does everyone know what they’re doing?”

There was a chorus of assent, and Ed took a final look around the gathered conspirators. This was it. There was nothing left to say. All they could do now was take advantage of Mustang’s distraction and make it work in their favour. 

He looked over at Al, and he didn’t know what to say. They were about to split up and perform their own different parts of the plan, and he felt that he really ought to say something profound to his brother, but he couldn’t find the words. 

Al just nodded, and the need for words was completely removed. Ed nodded back. Nothing else was required. They didn’t need to tell each other to be careful, or anything like that. It all went without saying.

“All right everyone,” Patience said brightly. “Let’s get this show on the road. Good luck, and don’t die!”

Ed and the rest of his group made their way back out of the catacombs again under Diligence’s guidance, ready to sneak into Central Command’s upper levels. 

There was a light touch on his arm as they were about to head out into daylight again, and Ed turned to see Diligence’s hand on his shoulder.

“Edward?” 

She looked so much like Mom in that moment, but for once, it didn’t cause Ed a twinge of guilt or pain in his gut when he thought so, because there was something in her eyes that was pure Mom. In this moment, she wasn’t Diligence, she was absolutely Trisha Elric.

“Stay safe, ok? Come back to us in one piece.”

Ed nodded. “I will. I promise.”

Diligence smiled, and then she had vanished back into the darkness of the tunnels. Ed watched her go long after she was out of sight.

“Ed?” A sharp finger undoubtedly belonging to Ling poked him in the small of his back. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

X

“I think we need a team name,” Pasha said as he and Patience climbed up through the mess of pipework into the very heart of Central Command’s inner infrastructure. This wasn’t a pathway to the surface that they used very often since it brought them out right in the middle of the enemy, but it was their best concealed exit and Patience couldn’t deny that it was going to bring them out exactly where they needed to be in order to do what they needed to do. 

“Pasha and Patience, the sabotage dream team,” Pasha continued. He quickly moved the floor panel that covered their exit and peeped out, looking left and right to make sure that no one was about before nodding back down to Patience. “It’s clear. There’s a lot of noise in the surrounding corridors but this one is empty at the moment.”

Patience didn’t hold out much hope of it still being empty within the next few minutes, not when they knew what this corridor contained. The two of them made their way out into Central Command and hurried down the corridor until they reached the grille that led into the ventilation system. Patience gave Pasha a leg-up into the vents and he scurried away, crawling almost as quickly as he could walk. Patience sometimes dreaded to think how much of Central Command Pasha might have mapped via vents whilst none of them were looking. They did usually try to make sure that at least one of them was keeping an eye on him at home, but with all the preparations going ahead for the Promised Day in recent months, he’d been left on his own several times, and Pasha was nothing if not inquisitive. 

As expected, the empty corridor did not stay empty for long, and a young soldier raced into it, stopping short on seeing Patience sauntering along quite happily without a care in the world. Considering all of the rest of the confusion that was going on in the city and within Central Command itself, Patience thought that the man could be forgiven for being rather confused by their presence, especially since they did not appear to be military, did not appear to be linked to Mustang’s group, and did not appear to be in any particular hurry. Patience had long since mastered the art of casual nonchalance, and it had served them well over their many, many years. They kept calmly walking towards the soldier, who finally had the presence of mind to pull out their weapon and aim it. 

“Halt! Halt or I’ll shoot!”

“Will you? Oh, that’s nice.” Patience began to put on a burst of speed; it was always easier to spring and dodge if you already had a bit of momentum going, but they braced for the potential impact of a bullet nonetheless; again, much easier with momentum. Just because the bullet wouldn’t kill them didn’t mean that it wouldn’t hurt, and Patience really wanted to avoid getting shot as much as possible. 

The soldier wavered for a second, their eyes meeting as it became clear that neither of them was going to give an inch. He pulled the trigger, and Patience bounced up off the wall to avoid the shot, landing lightly back on their feet. Above them, they heard a small giggle and knew that Pasha was witnessing the entire show from the vents. The soldier fired again; this time the bullet grazed Patience’s arm, tearing an hole in their sweater. They sighed. 

“It’s a good job I didn’t wear one of my good shirts, isn’t it?”

Before the soldier could make any kind of comment about what kind of inhuman thing Patience was to be able to dodge with such speed and agility, there was a loud clang as a ventilation grille dropped out of the ceiling and straight down onto his head, knocking him out cold. Patience looked up into the gap and made out Pasha’s dark eyes staring down. 

“You know, I could have handled him myself.”

Pasha just shrugged. 

“I was saving you some time. Come on, we need to get to these mega-zombies before anyone else does. I can hear that there are people up ahead and they’re probably heading in the same direction as we are.”

Pasha scampered into the darkness and Patience continued to follow him through the corridors. 

“I think they’re called mannequins, not mega-zombies,” they called, although Pasha was probably too far ahead to hear by now, and would only refute the statement with the blithe assertion that mega-zombies was a far better and more descriptive name for them, something which Patience could not disagree with. That was one of the reasons why Patience got on so well with Pasha. Patience was pretty sure that they had grown up rather fast in their first life and they relished the chance to be childish now, and Pasha was, after all, a child. Not that there was really much chance for either of them to be childish at the moment, with the fate of the country and the lives of Amestris on the line, but anything was better than nothing to lighten the mood. 

They reached the chamber where the zombie army was being kept on ice, and sure enough, one of the generals and the scientist were already there, arguing about whether the army was ready for use or not. Patience raised an eyebrow; things must be desperate if they were calling in the mannequins as back-up already, and they were impressed with just how much chaos Mustang had managed to cause in such a short space of time. Still, they couldn’t allow the mannequins to be activated, and they needed to buy Pasha as much time to get into the room and deactivate the mechanisms.

So, Patience did what Patience did best, and decided to take refuge in audacity, strolling up to the bickering men in much the same manner as they had strolled along the corridor, whistling a jaunty little tune as they went. It was always better to cause confusion, Patience had found over their lifetime. It helped to give you the edge when the chips were down, because if your opponent thought that you were stark raving bonkers, then they were always slightly hesitant to attack for fear of what the mad person might do to retaliate. 

The general and the scientist stopped speaking and stared at Patience for a minute.

“You have no authorisation to be in this part of the building,” the scientist began, at the same time as the general pulled out his sidearm and Patience groaned. 

“Seriously? Not this again, I’ve already gone through this once before and this time Pasha isn’t even around to get the drop on you. If you’re activating the zombies then things must be desperate. Still, don’t let me keep you.”

Patience hit the deck as the general fired. Ok, perhaps this was a situation in which discretion would be the better part of valour. 

“Come on, Pasha,” they growled through gritted teeth. “Give me the sign.”

The general was moving closer to investigate the intruder, and Patience sprang back onto their hands, kicking the old man in the face with both feet before getting back the right way up and charging the scientist, who did the sensible thing of screaming and running towards the mannequin chamber. The door would not open, and Patience had to grin. Pasha hadn’t let him down. 

There was a muffled bang behind the heavy doors, and Patience and the scientist both looked at each other, then ducked as another bullet from the general pinged off the metal. 

“Get in there and activate those soldiers!” he barked. 

“The door’s sealed from the inside!”

“How is that possible? Have the mannequins sealed it? No? Then get inside! Get explosives if you have to, we need those soldiers now!”

Patience, watching the scene with mild amusement, knocked lightly on the door. A moment later it opened and Pasha looked out, his eyebrows smoking slightly. Patience sighed.

“What did Hohenheim tell you about playing with electricity?”

“It’s not my fault.”

“I know. You did very well. Now back home with you.” Patience picked up Pasha and ran with him into the dark chamber, visibility impaired even more by the acrid smoke and sparking wires up ahead.

The scientist and the general were hot on their heels, and Patience gave Pasha a leg up back into the vents even as the younger homunculus was complaining about not being part of the action. Another bullet flew, and Patience dodged it, the projectile landing smack in the side of one of the tanks containing the liquid Philosopher’s Stone that would bring the mannequins into hideous and unnatural life. 

Patience shuddered at the thought of how many people had been sacrificed to produce this much Stone, but then the tank began to crack under the changing pressure, and Patience scrambled up the nearest mannequin as slimy, sparking fluid crashed out in a flood, setting off a chain reaction that began destroying the rest of the tanks. The general reached out for the mechanism lever and yanked it hard; even if it was working it would probably have been too late, but as it was, the thing came off in his hand. Pasha had always had a knack with screwdrivers, and perhaps when this was all over, they would all laugh about the fact that so much of the military’s grand plan could be taken out by just removing a few nuts and bolts. As it was, there were far more important things to be done. Edward would be making his way towards Father now, and since the sabotage job was done and Patience had played their distracting role to perfection, it was time to go and join the rest of the team in the rest of the fight. 

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (23/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [Twenty-Two] [AO3]

==

Twenty-Three

Havoc stood up from Mrs Bradley’s body and pushed the night-vision glasses back down onto his nose. A part of him wanted to move her and show some kind of respect to the dead, after all, it wasn’t her fault that her husband and son were homunculi trying to bring about the end of the country as they knew it and it wasn’t her fault that she had got caught up in the crossfire like this, but ultimately, he had bigger things to worry about right now. 

He picked his way through the residence, trying to ignore the insistent clicking sound that Fuery’s invention was making in his ears. He couldn’t see much, but he could make out the outlines of furniture enough to be able to navigate a path through the rooms. He was surprised by the lack of security staff within the residence but then again, the homunculus Pride could definitely take care of himself, and the security staff would probably have had something to say about the deceased First Lady on the floor. They were likely trying to find the source of the blackout, and Havoc hoped that Fuery had got back to safety after he’d done what he needed to do. 

Now all he had to do was to find Selim. With Pride’s shadows useless in the dark, Selim would hopefully just be a sitting duck until the lights came back on, and Havoc would be able to keep him from causing the rest of them any problems whilst the rest of the plan was unfolding. 

There was a sudden, bright burst of light, as someone was shining a torch directly at him, and he was dazzled, pulling off the glasses which seemed to be making it worse and screwing his eyes up against the sudden flare until it died away.

“Hmm. Interesting.”

It was Selim’s voice, and as Havoc opened his eyes and readjusted, he could just about make out the boy’s shape directly in front of him. He was smiling benignly, and Havoc crept closer until a lantern light came on in his peripheral vision, casting a stark, square beam of light directly between him and Selim. 

Immediately, the shadows began moving across it, and Havoc leapt out of the way of the tendrils towards the source of the light, trying to see who was working with Pride. 

“Fuery, forget the blackout, I need the lights back on now!” he hissed into the radio. More light would mean more shadows for Pride to hide in, but at the same time, at least it would help him see what he was dealing with. 

The lantern light revealed Kimblee’s face in the gloom, and Havoc groaned inwardly. Now he was going to have to deal with two psychopaths. 

“I thought Scar impaled you up at Briggs?” he muttered. 

“He did.” Kimblee threw the lantern to one side and smacked his palms together, alchemic lightning sparking off the tattoos. “I got better.”

“Are you serious?” Havoc looked at the sparks at the same time as the lantern was set to rights on the floor again by unseen shadow hands. “We’re in an enclosed space and you’re going to blow things up?”

“Kimblee!” Pride’s tone was admonishing. “We don’t want to destroy the place!”

Kimblee did not seem to have got the memo, and Havoc dived for cover as the mantelpiece exploded in a shower of sparks and varnished wood. Thankfully at that point the lights came back on, so he could see what was going on. That was a mistake, the mass of shadows bubbling out around Selim was downright disturbing to watch, and he was so caught up in trying to keep tabs on all of the tendrils that he didn’t notice Kimblee was ready to blow again until the chaise longue he’d thrown himself behind became feathers and a shockwave that smacked him back against the wall, knocking all of the air out of his chest and sending him down onto his knees. He was going to have to do something about Kimblee before he could do anything about Pride, because Kimblee was unhinged and had no consideration for his personal safety. He wouldn’t hold back from doing the suicidally stupid. He picked himself up again, aware of a shadow slicing at his face and arms, and took a running jump towards the alchemist as he prepared to go again.

There was a massive bang and Havoc was thrown backwards again, landing heavily on the already bruised ribs and no doubt breaking a few, the pain was blinding and he felt the sickening crunch. As the smoke cleared, he could see that he’d at least managed to get Kimblee to direct his blast downwards, and there was now a smoking crater in the floor. The damage was impressive, he’d say that much, blowing down through the floor and the foundations and the ground itself, into the catacomb tunnels under the city.

“Do you mind not blowing holes in our ceiling? Some of us are trying to live down here, you know.”

Havoc managed to peer over the edge of the hole to see Hohenheim glaring up at them, arms folded as chunks of earth and concrete dripped down on him. He paid no attention to Havoc or Kimblee, instead focussing on Pride as he pulled in his shadows for another attack. 

“Pride. Why am I not surprised?”

The shadows launched at Hohenheim, who simply pulled up barriers out of the floorboards to deflect them as he came up through the hole in the floor and moved closer to Pride. Selim was backing up, angered by the sudden interruption to his plans and Hohenheim’s seeming nonchalance in the face of this most powerful homunculus. 

“Do you really think you can kill me, Hohenheim?”

“Of course not, I know better than that. I was never much of a fighter, after all.”

Another sharp shadow shot through the air and Hohenheim blocked it, the action sending Kimblee flying to smack into the wall, landing with a heavy thud and groan and not getting up. Havoc would have given a sigh of relief if his chest hadn’t been so painful. At least they didn’t have to worry about being blown up at a moment’s notice now.

“But I don’t have to kill you, Pride, I just have to get you out of the way.”

Havoc could hear the very building beginning to creak around him, and the fear of being blown up was replaced by an entirely new fear of being crushed by falling masonry. Pride gave a roar of frustration, shadowy tendrils doubling down on their attack even as Havoc could see the walls beginning to move and snake under Hohenheim’s control, tiny hands of stone and wood heading for Pride just as Pride’s tiny hands of razor sharp darkness were heading for Hohenheim. 

“Even you can’t be everywhere all the time,” Hohenheim remarked. He fought off the tendrils with a final barrier, which then suddenly slammed into Pride, throwing his small body back against the wall and into a cupboard, which Hohenheim proceeded to seal shut with alchemy. The remaining shadows all fell away and dissolved into nothingness as they were severed. 

Havoc just stared in disbelief as Hohenheim surveyed his handiwork.

“Did you just shut a homunculus in a cupboard?”

“Yes, I believe I did.” Hohenheim bent to take Kimblee’s pulse then came over to Havoc, gently helping him to his feet before making his way back down into the catacombs, steps materialising under their feet as they went down into the tunnels, vanishing again behind them as the ceiling closed up, leaving no sign of the damage up above. “What were you going to do with him?”

Now that he thought about it, Havoc had to admit that Hohenheim’s plan was probably better than his and Mustang’s had been.

“Well, I think we can safely say that little excursion definitely wasn’t part of the plan,” Hohenheim said brightly. Havoc could see a few people at the end of the corridor, peering down in curiosity as to what the hell had just happened above them, and he guessed that they were the other homunculi. “Still, we can improvise. We’ve been doing it long enough. Come with me and let me take a look at you, if you haven’t got any broken bones after all that then I’ll be amazed.”

Havoc grimaced, something was definitely broken but he was more concerned about what Hohenheim had done in the residence.

“Are you sure that Pride can’t get out of there?”

“He can’t cast shadows if there’s no light, and I sealed him up nice and airtight. He can hang around in there until we’re ready to deal with him.” Hohenheim paused. “Or forever, I really don’t mind.”

Havoc gave him an alarmed look. “I thought you were supposed to be the good one?”

X

Mustang could see what was happening with Envy far before he reached the interception point on the road: as expected, Envy had blown out into their true, monstrous form. Breda, Armstrong and Hawkeye were doing their best against it, but everything they were throwing at it was either deflected or absorbed, alchemic lightning sparking at the wounds. Getting out of the car and running the final few yards, Mustang’s stomach jolted as he saw the two security staff lying dead on the ground beside the First Lady’s car. 

He pulled on his gloves and snapped, sending a column of flame straight into the creature’s face and forcing it back. 

“Ah, Colonel Mustang, glad you could join us.” Armstrong pummelled a tree trunk into projectiles and sent them at the still regenerating homunculus, but despite his chipper tone, Mustang could see that the fight was taking it out of him. Hawkeye and Breda looked to have sustained minor injuries as well. 

There wasn’t much opportunity for talking, everyone trying to stay alive and stay on their feet whilst trying to inflict as much damage on the homunculus as possible. Envy seemed to be taking it all in their stride, laughing gleefully as the combined efforts did little to beat it back.

Then there was the roar of an overpowered engine and a massive crash, Envy being sent flying as a truck reversed up the hill at full tilt and smacked straight into the green monster. 

“Need a hand there, Roy?” 

Mustang gave a sigh of relief as he saw Hughes lean out of the truck’s cab. 

“Where the hell have you been?”

“And that’s the thanks I get for bringing you all these goodies all the way from Xing. Now, shall we deal with this… thing?” Hughes jumped out of the truck as Rebecca started unloading weaponry; Envy had recovered themselves by this point and swung out with a tree-trunk thick tail. Luckily, it proved to be no match for a rocket launcher. 

Hughes raised an eyebrow. “It does realise that the bigger it is, the better a target it is, right? Or is it just that stupid?”

Envy seemed to take offence at being called stupid, suddenly shrinking down out of its true form as Hughes reloaded the rocket launcher.

“Maybe you’d prefer a different shape then, Hughes?”

“Oh no.” Hughes fired the shell straight into the thing that now looked like Gracia, coldly watching it explode and begin to turn to powder before it reformed from the legs up, sparking with alchemy. “No, I’m not falling for that trick a second time, and the fact you think I would have has just made me very angry.”

Having been run over with a truck and exploded by rockets twice, Envy was definitely on the back foot now, but despite everything, they still kept coming, shifting here, there and everywhere, shooting out snakelike arms to try and suffocate the defenders. Taking it down was going to be the only way out; the homunculus was not going to back down. 

Rebecca loaded up another rocket. “How many times do we have to kill this thing?”

“As many as it takes until it stops trying to kill us.” Mustang sent out a column of fire to intercept the arm that had come towards him, setting the homunculus on fire which seemed to only enrage it further. More rockets went off, more bullets, more alchemy; they were certainly giving the people of Central City a light show if any of them had chanced to look up into the hills in this direction. 

“Colonel!” A bullet whizzed past him and Hawkeye gave him an exasperated look. “Will you stop leaving your back open when this thing has six arms and a tail?”

Another explosion deafened them all, and Envy regenerated once more; Mustang had lost count of how many times the homunculus had died now, but this time, the regeneration was slow and sluggish, and he was almost convinced that it was all finally over. He took a couple of steps closer, poised ready to snap with Hawkeye on one side and Breda on the other, both of them with guns raised. 

“Is that it’s true form?” Breda crouched down, prodding the worm-like creature with the barrel of his pistol. 

“It’s kind of pitiful, really, isn’t it?” Hughes leaned over. “You can’t believe that something so small and pathetic could have caused as much trouble as it did.”

“I am not pathetic!” the Envy-worm squealed. “I am a homunculus! You humans are the pathetic ones!”

“Considering what we managed to do to you, I don’t think we did too badly for some pathetic humans.”

“It took six of you and rockets! You weren’t playing fair!”

The worm picked itself up onto its feet and made a running jump towards Hughes; Mustang caught it before it could latch on with its needle-like teeth.

“Yeah, because shapeshifting into people’s loved ones to try and get out of being killed is really playing fair, isn’t it?” Hughes raised an eyebrow. “And there’s nothing wrong with having friends to have your back when you’re getting beaten down.” He paused. “Where are your friends, Envy? Where are all your fellow homunculi who appear to have just left you alone out here to die?”

“I don’t have friends! I don’t need friends! You’re weak! You’re all weak! Why would I ever want to be like you?”

It really was a pitiful creature, beginning to sob as it continued to protest its superiority. 

“Are you sure that isn’t the thing you envy, Envy?”

“Stop it! Stop talking! Stop saying these things! I hate you! I hate all of you! I hate humanity! I’d rather die than be like you!”

Hughes shrugged. “Well, I don’t think any of us would stop you.”

“Pathetic,” the homunculus continued to squeak, even as it grabbed its own Philosopher’s Stone, the flickering ruby red disintegrating as the rest of the homunculus did, until Mustang’s fist was empty. He looked over at Hughes.

“Hughes, I know I’ve made several comments about you being able to talk someone’s ear off before now, but considering you just literally talked a homunculus to death, I am considering reclassifying it as a superpower.”

Hughes nodded as they all got to their feet again. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time you complain. Which reminds me that I have over eight months of stories and pictures to share with you. It’ll be just like old times.”

Mustang groaned. “Please don’t start, or we’ll miss the Promised Day entirely.”

“You’re right. It can be something to look forward to when it’s all over.” He went over to the truck, beginning to help Rebecca reload things and generally taking charge. Mustang sighed.

“Hughes, stop giving orders! I outrank you!”

“Like hell you do. They made me a Brigadier General when I died!”

Mustang rolled his eyes. “You’re going to keep milking that for as long as you can, aren’t you?”.

Hughes just grinned in response, joining him on the crest of the hill as the others packed everything back up into the truck. The sun was beginning to rise over the city. 

The Promised Day had begun. It was time to cause chaos.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (22/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [Twenty-One] [AO3]

==

Twenty-Two

“Are you ok, brother?”

Ed glanced over at Al as his brother came up beside him, looking out over the lights of Central City as the sun began to go down. Tomorrow was the moment of truth. Everything that they had done over the last few months, all of the hardships that they had endured, all of the teeth-gritted teamwork as their group had learned to put aside their differences, break the chain of hatred and vengeance and work towards a greater good - it all came down to this. The Promised Day was almost upon them, and soon they would know if all of their efforts had been in vain. 

“I don’t know,” Ed admitted. “I want to think that we’re ready for whatever might happen tomorrow, but there’s so much we haven’t taken into account. What if something goes wrong and we don’t know about it? There are so many people relying on us, not just the other people who are in on this plan, like Mustang and Hohenheim. This is the entire country that we’re talking about.”

“Yeah. It’s a pretty big weight to be carrying around. But don’t think about all the things that could go wrong, or you’ll never get anywhere. We have to put our trust in everyone else. We’ve all gone over the plan a hundred times. We all know what we have to do, and we have to trust that everyone else does as well.”

Ed nodded, and gave one final look towards the city before turning back towards their campsite with Al. The last few months of lying low and living on the road below the military’s radar had taken their toll on everyone, but now, with the culmination of their plan so close, there was a renewed energy among the group, and Ed tried to take heart from May and Ling’s cautious optimism. Well, it was optimism in the sense of ‘why worry about failing, because if we fail we’re all dead anyway’, but it was at least better than doom-mongering, which Heinkel was extremely good at. Luckily Darius was usually on hand to shut him up. 

They had said their goodbyes to Winry and Marcoh the previous day, leaving them in Resembool with Pinako for their own safety. There was no doubt that the Promised Day would be dangerous for all involved, and Ed wanted to keep Winry as far away from the action as possible, despite her protests. Although Marcoh was a powerful alchemist in his own right and could definitely hold his own against a homunculus, the knowledge that he was a potential sacrifice had made everyone wary enough to insist that he stay away as well. 

Ed shivered at the thought. The fact that Father only had four potential sacrifices when he needed at least five was the one thing that had kept Hohenheim believing that they could win, and as far as he knew from Abrams’ reports, the gate had not been opened in the intervening time; no one else had performed a fresh transmutation and seen the truth that they needed to see in order for them to be useful to Father. If he still only had four sacrifices then perhaps he could be stopped in his tracks, or perhaps, as was far more likely, he would resort to more drastic measures to get his fifth. Ed thought of Mustang, another potential candidate but one whom they could not as easily squirrel away in the middle of the countryside somewhere, not when he was masterminding half of their plan.

Ed remembered the aftermath of Lust’s attack on Hawkeye: things had been touch and go as they were but an inch to the left and her femoral artery would have been severed and then it would have been curtains. He absolutely did not like the idea of Father using Hawkeye to get to Mustang anymore than he accepted the knowledge that he had used their mother to get to him and Al. 

Everything was set up; they were as ready as they could be. All they could do now was hope that Mustang’s part of the plan went off without a hitch. 

X

“What the hell is Mustang up to? Half his old squad have deserted, Hawkeye’s vanished and Mustang was last seen entering a building that subsequently demolished itself!”

“He’s covering his tracks.” Olivier’s voice was completely matter-of-fact as she spoke. “He’s probably going to try something stupid like kidnapping Lady Bradley on her way home from the east and using the ensuing chaos to start a coup.”

“We need him alive, damn him!”

“Do not fear.” Father sounded serene, amused even. “We have anticipated Colonel Mustang’s actions.” He turned to Bradley, who had given the barest perceptible twitch on hearing Armstrong’s prediction. “Rest assured that Lady Bradley has not left the residence.”

Olivier felt a chill run down her spine, although she was careful not to let her unease show on her face. That had definitely not been a part of the plan, and now it was too late to warn the others.

X

It was a simple enough plan, really. Get into the Presidential Residence, neutralise Pride, and get out again. With Bradley holed up in the middle of Central Command with Father and the rest of the generals, making their last minute preparations for the Promised Day, and with Lady Bradley on her way back from an engagement in the east that she was undertaking on her husband’s behalf, Selim would be alone in the place apart from security staff. 

Mustang and Havoc were hovering at the edge of the complex, waiting for their cue. Somewhere in the middle of Central Command, Fuery was secreted away beneath a floor panel rewiring the circuits. As soon as the lights went out, it was show time. 

Havoc adjusted his goggles. “I hope Fuery knows what he’s doing, because I can’t see a thing in these.”

“They’re meant to be used in low to no light,” Mustang pointed out. “Of course they’re not going to work now.”

“If I fall down a hole in the middle of the floor, I’m still blaming Fuery.”

“There shouldn’t be any holes in the middle of the floor in the Presidential Residence. Besides, he did warn you that they weren’t perfect.”

Havoc sighed. “I guess anything’s better than going in there completely blind.”

Mustang checked his watch. If everything was going according to their plan and Lady Bradley’s itinerary, then Armstrong, Breda and Hawkeye should be intercepting her on the outskirts in just a few minutes. Once they had her as leverage, then the public relations battle could begin whilst they fought for control of Central Command and caused chaos in the city. It was a risky move, with Bradley and Selim both still in the picture, but when it came down to it, Mustang knew that he himself was the only person whom the enemy would take care to capture alive. 

Human sacrifices; the pillars of Father’s plan to destroy the world and become God. Mustang thought of the Elric brothers, hopefully hiding out somewhere in the vicinity of Central ready for the part that they would play in the morning. He wasn’t sure if anyone truly knew the full extent of what was going on; it had been difficult to communicate over the last few months whilst Fullmetal had been on the run and Hohenheim had been keeping his cards close to his chest as Father’s homunculi came just a little too close to his home for comfort. 

The lights in the presidential residence suddenly died, and Havoc climbed up and over the fence, sprinting towards the house. There was a bright full moon shining out here in the open, and Mustang hoped that Fuery’s cobbled-together goggles would serve their purpose and at least allow Havoc not to trip over any furniture in his quest to get Pride safely out of the way so that the rest of them could continue on their mission. He felt indescribably useless at the moment. Havoc had always been their covert operations specialist so it made sense that he was the one to go in first, but Mustang’s main ability was something that created light in its very nature and therefore wasn’t much good against an entity that dwelled in shadows and took every advantage of light that it could.

There was a short burst of static that preceded Havoc’s voice on the radio, and Mustang, already on edge, jumped to the receiver, now even more alert than before.

“Colonel, we have a major problem.”

“What is it, Havoc?”

“Lady Bradley’s dead.”

For a moment, Mustang couldn’t comprehend the sentence, the three words could have been Auregonian for all they made sense to him. 

“What?”

“Lady Bradley is dead, Colonel, I’ve literally just tripped over her body.”

Mustang’s blood ran cold. If Lady Bradley was dead, then who the hell had Hawkeye and the others gone to intercept on her way back into the city?. 

“Colonel?”

“Fuck. Envy!.”

Mustang flung himself into the car, gunning the engine and racing through the streets, the squealing tires and brakes alarming the few people who were still out at this hour. How could it have come to this? How could the generals have foreseen what he would try to do? That didn’t matter now. What mattered was that Armstrong, Breda and Hawkeye had been expecting a couple of security guards and an unarmed woman with no combat training and instead they were getting a couple of security guards and a hulking great homunculus that had wiped the floor with Fullmetal when it had gone all out. Somehow, he didn’t think that Envy would have any compunctions about choosing their full-sized form for the confrontation; with everything on the line as it was, it was hardly as if secrecy was of the essence anymore.

He just prayed he would not be too late.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (21/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [Twenty] [AO3]

==

Twenty-One

It had been a strange month. If anyone had asked Ed, four weeks ago, where he thought he would be right now, hanging out in a house in the Ishvalan slum village outside North City, within sight of the Briggs Fortress (not that it could really be seen between the mountains), with his former enemy among his company would not have been his answer. 

May and Scar had made huge swathes of progress with deciphering all of Scar’s brother’s notes, and thanks to a complete fluke, they also knew what they had to do to break Father’s control over alchemy. Now it was just a question of getting all of the pieces to where they needed to be in good time. Marcoh and Scar would be heading out as soon as Scar had fully recovered from the injuries he had received whilst fighting Kimblee. They had not told anyone exactly where they were going; with everything hanging on a knife edge, there was still so much that could go wrong, and even though trust was a precious commodity and no one was fully at ease, everyone had accepted the need for continued secrecy in case any of the group ended up compromised in some way.

Although everyone was getting along for the most part, there was still a great deal of tension in the air; understandable considering the vast history that existed between all of the players involved. Not only were there the tensions between Scar and the others, there was now the added tension between May and Ling. Ed was glad to get away from it to make the daily trip into the forest to the cabin they had stayed in when they had first come north, to pick up any messages that Abrams might have left them. 

He still couldn’t get used to calling the guy Humility; Abrams was the first guise that they’d known him in and he maintained his cover so well that he pretty much was Abrams. Ed wondered if he’d actually enlisted in the military and gone through the training like any normal person or if he’d somehow managed to sneak his way in. The depth of his cover seemed to suggest the former. Ed would have to remember to ask him the next time that they met. 

Considering the military had eyes and ears everywhere, they were taking as many precautions as possible to try and keep things out of Father’s knowledge, and even though the rigmarole of hiding out and the slowness of communicating through coded messages at their makeshift post office could grate at times, Ed was all for secrecy and getting the upper hand on the homunculi as much as possible. 

“How do you think Abrams is getting on?” Al asked. “From what I’ve heard of Major General Armstrong, she doesn’t sound like someone who would take too kindly to finding out that someone managed to get themselves posted to the fortress under false pretences.”

“Yeah.” Ed had never really paid much attention to the gossip that ran around Central or Eastern Command whilst he had been there, but he knew that Al listened a lot more and he was not completely ignorant of Armstrong’s reputation himself. “With any luck she’ll forgive him on account of it all being in the name of saving the country.”

They were in luck, there was a note waiting for them, and they settled down in the cabin to read it. Ed flexed his right hand a few times; even though Winry had brought him a brand new arm and leg to deal with the cold, he was still having trouble getting used to the new weight, or lack thereof. He was grateful not to have the steel hanging off his shoulder and giving him frostbite, but the grip pressure was different and would take a while to acclimatise. He wondered whether he’d keep the carbon-fibre automail after they came down from the north. He certainly couldn’t deny it was lighter, but the fee that Winry had charged him for parts and materials was eye-watering even on a State Alchemist’s salary.

“What does he say?”

Ed passed the note over to Al. “He’s got a lot of news and some new allies; he wants to meet us here tomorrow evening.”

“New allies? Do you think he managed to convince General Armstrong and the Briggs Bears to help us?”

“Something makes me doubt it, but you never know.”

“Maybe Abrams has some news from Hohenheim and the other homunculi back in Central,” Al mused. “It’s a shame that we didn’t really get to say goodbye to them all, but I can understand why Hohenheim sealed up the catacombs. There were getting to be a lot of people who knew how to get in and out of them and I don’t know what would happen if Father’s homunculi found Hohenheim’s homunculi.”

“Yeah.” Ed didn’t like to think about it either. “I hope they’re ok. We should let them know about Scar’s counter-circle if nothing else. I know that Abrams said Hohenheim was heading out to put a failsafe in place for the Promised Day, but I think he’d want to know that there’s a way to counter Father’s hold on alchemy. That way he can know that when it comes down to it, he’s not alone. Once we can get rid of that null field and the Philosopher's Stones under the ground, all of the rest of the alchemists would be able to help him.”

“He must be so lonely.” Al sighed. “I know he has the homunculi but the thought of having to do all that on your own…”

Ed nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“I think he’s sweet on Diligence.”

“What?” Ed looked at Al in alarm. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“Just trying to lighten the mood. And surely you saw it too, when he was talking to her and about her. I think he likes her.”

“Al, that’s our mom! Well, she’s sort of our mom. And he’s kind of our uncle! That’s just… That’s just weird! I don’t want to think about it.”

“I think it’s cute. It’s like you and Winry.”

Ed resisted the urge to kick his brother.

“Al, just stop talking, please.”

Al dutifully stopped talking and they made their way back towards their camp in relatively companionable silence. Even though Al’s face didn’t change, though, Ed knew that he was smirking.

“Stop it,” he muttered. “Stop thinking about it or I’ll start teasing you mercilessly about May.”

“I’ll be good.”

They reached the camp and everyone gathered to hear the news, such as it was. In the end, it was decided that just Ed, Al, Scar and Marcoh would go to the meeting with Abrams, just in case something untoward happened, the rest of the group staying safe in their camp - although Ed was not naive enough to think that Fu wouldn’t be following them and staying unseen in the surrounding area ready to jump in if he was needed. 

They had been waiting at the cabin for about ten minutes when the top of a military issue snow cap appeared, and Ed set himself in readiness to deal with anything from friend to foe.

“Hey Elrics!” Abrams waved as he crested the hill. “Mr Scar, Dr Marcoh. It’s good to see you. How’ve you been keeping?”

“We’re doing ok. Kind of frustrating just being stuck here in a holding pattern though.” Ed looked Abrams up and down. “You said you had a lot of news and some new allies.”

“Yeah. It’s been a busy couple of weeks. You really have to have seen it to believe it. We’ve had everything from drowning generals in concrete to freezing homunculi with tank fuel. You name it, it’s probably happened in Briggs Fortress. Not to mention playing nice with psychopathic mass murderers and, you know, dodging bears.”

Ed raised an eyebrow. “Right… I think you’d better come in and tell us all about it.”

“Sloth turned up,” Abrams explained once they were all seated in the cabin around the lamps. “I’ve never met him before, none of us have, but his identity was obvious from the moment he broke through the floor in the fortress. He’s been digging a tunnel around the perimeter of the country to create Father’s transmutation circle. Hohenheim always thought that it would have to be underground and would have to pass under Briggs, but he couldn’t be sure. At least now we’re sure and we know how it was done. Armstrong had him shoved outside and frozen solid which obviously slowed him down for a while, but that was when Kimblee and Raven turned up and the proverbial really hit the fan. Armstrong’s been recalled to Central - they’re calling it a structural reorganisation but in reality it’s a very polite kidnapping. Kimblee got away from us and Raven’s now part of the floor. You really don’t want to know. Luckily Briggs can keep going without Armstrong, they’re completely self-sufficient in there, they’ll be fine. And that brings me to the subject of new allies.”

Ed nodded. 

“I’m going to stay up here with the Briggs troops,” Abrams continued. “I’m already on thin ice for knowing way too much about Sloth and his brethren as it is and I’m pretty sure that me disappearing now would cause a lot of trouble. Besides, I think I like it here. It’s different. But over the last few days, let’s just say a lot’s happened and I’ve found some new friends who’ve decided to jump ship.”

Ed thought back to the plumes of smoke they’d seen coming from the abandoned mining town a few days ago. 

“When you treat people as expendable, they tend not to like that.” Abrams’ smile was disarmingly mild and at odds with the scheming expression in his eyes. “Kimblee brought a squad of the military’s chimeras with him when he came north. Just muscle to have around in the event of an emergency, I guess, especially since I think he’s on the lookout for you two as well. I get the impression that Father’s getting just a tad bit nervous about not knowing where you are. For all he might have given you his blessing to continue your quest to get your bodies back, I don’t think he was prepared to lose sight of you completely when you’re so essential to his plans. At any rate - leaving a bunch of chimeras to die in an explosion that you yourself caused is not really a great way to keep their loyalty. So I’ve got four chimeras ready to join the cause. They’re waiting about half a mile away; I don’t entirely fully trust them yet and vice versa, but we honestly need all the help we can get.”

Ed gave a huff of laughter. “Yeah, when you’re right, you’re right. I guess that it wouldn’t hurt for us to meet them on neutral ground here. By the way, have you heard anything from Hohenheim and the others in Central?”

“Yeah.” Abrams’ brow furrowed and Ed immediately wondered what could have gone wrong. 

“What’s up?”

“Nothing bad,” Abrams said quickly. “Nothing like that, they’re just keeping themselves to themselves and helping Hohenheim get ready for the Promised Day. Hohenheim has met up with Mustang, and Mustang thinks that he’s got a plan. As soon as I know more I’ll let you know.”

“OK… Why the frown?”

“Tempe’s found out who she was in her first life. It was pure chance, and it knocked us all sideways.”

“Oh.” Of all the things Abrams could have said, that definitely wasn’t something that Ed had been expecting, but he could see how it could cause consternation. “How did that happen?”

“She’s Lieutenant Hawkeye’s mom.”

“What?”

“Apparently it was just after we all left to come up north. They just met in passing. So yeah… Things in Central have been a bit strange.”

“Huh, I can imagine.” Of all the people who could have ended up being connected to the homunculi, Ed would never have put Hawkeye down as one of them. He’d heard in passing that Mustang had learned alchemy from her father, but he’d never thought much about it - everyone had a teacher, after all. He remembered what Hohenheim had said when they had spoken to him about Diligence and asked about how much was known of the others lives - Temperance’s husband had brought her back, so they thought, and she’d had at least one child. On the face of it, Tempe didn’t look old enough for Hawkeye to be her daughter, but then again, she would not have aged past the age at which she had died, and that could have been any number of years ago. Coming to think of it, Diligence probably didn’t look old enough to be their mother. Mom had been twenty-six when she’d died, and Ed was about to turn sixteen, after all.

It was strange to think that they now had something in common with Hawkeye, knowing that they had mothers who were now homunculi. Ed pushed the thought aside. They had to survive everything and get back to Central and get through the Promised Day before they could start comparing notes.

“Are Lieutenant Hawkeye and Tempe ok?” Al asked. 

“I think they’re both in shock a bit. Tempe’s a lot calmer about the whole thing than Dili was when she met you; maybe because Hawkeye wasn’t the one to bring her back, and the one who did bring her back is now long gone and that’s something that can be put in the past and forgotten about. She’s frustrated at her lack of memories though.”

“Yeah, Diligence said that it wasn’t so much that she couldn’t remember as that she suddenly knew how much she couldn’t remember.”

Abrams nodded. “That’s about the shape of it.”

There was a pause for a while before Al asked the question that Ed knew he wanted to ask. “How are all the others? How is Dili?”

Abrams smiled. “They’re all fine. It’s all Hohenheim and Chass can do to stop Patience coming up here to say hello. Hohenheim keeps telling them they’d never survive the cold and that seems to be working.”

Ed laughed. Although they had not known each other for long, Patience had certainly become a friend, and he hoped that they’d meet again. Knowing Patience, they’d turn up out of the blue on the roof. 

“Anyway, enough about my family. Shall I introduce you to the potential reinforcements? I need to get back to the fortress before I’m missed. Not that they’d miss me, if you know what I mean, but I need to at least try and stay out of trouble. I’m supposed to be the oldest and most responsible sibling in the family and Patience would never let me live it down if I got myself killed.”

Ed and Al followed Abrams down to the tree line. It felt like things were definitely moving along now, for better and for worse. Mustang and Hohenheim were planning for the Promised Day in Central, and it looked like Father’s plan was nearing completion too. 

Soon, everything would come to a head. Whatever happened, only one thing was certain. Very soon, it would all be over, no matter how it ended.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (20/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen] [Nineteen] [AO3]

==

Twenty

Riza never thought that she would ever be afraid in her own home. In fact, after her father had died and she had finally sold the decrepit old pile of crumbling rock that had been her childhood home, she had made the firm decision that she would never be afraid in her own home again, having been afraid for most of her life. 

Now though… She leaned back against the wall, welcoming Hayate’s rough pink tongue against her cheeks, trying his hardest to lift her spirits without knowing what was wrong. The shadows danced in the corners; even with all the lights in the apartment on at full strength, there were still shadows everywhere, and the knowledge that Pride might be watching, and might always have been watching, was chilling.

Her home no longer felt safe; it was no longer the sanctuary that it had always been, and suddenly she was crippled not only by fear but by a horrific sense of something akin to violation. Her personal space had been invaded and the invader was refusing to leave, taking up residence in her head even if he was not actually here in the shadows with her in this moment. 

She needed to tell Roy. Why hadn’t the other homunculi warned them about Pride and his ability to move through the shadows? Then again, Tempe and the other homunculi weren’t beholden to the military, or to anyone. They’d been having this fight for longer than Riza had been alive, far longer than most of Riza’s family had been alive. They were working towards the same goal, but that did not automatically make them allies. 

And if they knew that Pride haunted every shadow and could see and hear everything that they did, the only defence against him knowing what they were up to was simply not to talk about it. The need for secrecy was paramount and yet it completely hobbled their attempts to get anything done. Maybe this was why it had taken so long for them to be able to do anything and move against the military. Maybe now that they knew they had allies outside of the shady world that they inhabited, more would get done. 

As unnerving as their first meeting had been, Riza found herself wanting to talk to Tempe again. She might not be able to get a message to Roy herself, but she could organise a go-between. Their code had always worked well for them in the past, but it could not be used to communicate long messages, and it always worked better if they were in the same room, something that could not be guaranteed at all right now. 

The fact that she had not seen Tempe again after that first encounter had built up a point in favour of trusting her; Riza was certain that if there was something duplicitous about her, then she would have made sure that their paths had continued to cross so that she could build up Riza’s trust in her by stages. As it was, she’d avoided her entirely, although she knew where Riza lived, and Riza always took the same routes to and from the building. Contriving meetings would have been easy. 

Unfortunately, it now meant that she had no idea how to go about finding Tempe again. Waiting for a chance meeting in passing wasn’t going to be an option. Unless… 

Tempe had said that they had an inside man in the military, and that she was taking care of things in Central for him whilst he was up in Briggs. Maybe that was her way in. 

She did not have chance to act on her hunch until late into the next evening; being at Bradley’s beck and call for the entire day did not leave much room for sneaking around in record rooms, and as she leafed through personnel files and transfer documents, she could not help thinking of Hughes and what had happened the last time he had been here in these rooms. She wished that she had some way of contacting him, wherever he might be right now. He was just the person that she needed to help her with this. 

She finally found what she was looking for after an hour of cross-referencing. Lieutenant Abrams. She was sure that he was her man. He had recently requested a transfer to Briggs for no earthly reason, and he had been the one to take care of Hughes after he had been shot, spiriting him away and helping to fake his death. It had to be him. Riza found his address on file and made a mental note of it before putting all the files back where she had found them and slipping out of the room. The shadows still unnerved her, but she put her chin up, limping along with as much confidence as she could muster. Let Pride see her. Let him try to stop her. She was on a mission, after weeks in the hospital and weeks of playing tea-lady for Bradley, she finally felt that she had purpose again, and she was not going to let anything get in her way.

She made her way through the streets to Abrams’ address and pushed a note under the door. It was just a business card for the florist in the shop opposite her building, nothing that could give away anything, but it would hopefully be enough, if Tempe was taking care of the place as she had said. 

Riza retreated back to her own apartment, sitting in the window and waiting. 

X

The two days that passed before she saw Tempe were agonising, and even after she saw Tempe, there was still something strange about the sight that prevented her from going out and crossing the street to meet her straight away. She was so much like her mother, down to her gait and stance, it was unnerving. Still, she was the best hope that Riza had right now, and she was going to take the chance whilst she had it. 

Presently, Tempe’s hooded face turned up towards the window, and their eyes met across the road. Tempe gave an imperceptible little nod and stepped into the florist, and Riza grabbed her coat and Hayate’s lead, making her way towards the rendezvous. 

It was calm inside the shop; she and Tempe were the only customers at this time of an evening, so close to closing time. Riza knew that this was where Roy had ordered all the flowers that he had sent to her whilst she had been in the hospital, and she had to wonder if the proprietor suspected anything. 

“How are you, Lieutenant?” Tempe asked, not exactly looking at her but instead studying the roses on offer, their conversation to the outside observer looking like they were merely discussing the weather and the colour of the flowers. 

“I’m healing, thank you.” She paused. “I met Pride.”

“Ah.” Tempe did not speak for a long time. “Perhaps we should have warned you about him sooner, but to be honest, we didn’t know his identity for a long time ourselves. We’ve only really known him in his true form. We’ve always known that he had to have a container, a vessel for his true self, but Hohenheim never suspected that he would take the form of a child, not when he’s so unchanging. I suppose…” She shook her head. “Never mind all that. We’ve always been aware of the danger in the shadows, which is why we don’t get out much. But still, you wanted to meet me and I know that it wasn’t just to talk about Pride. You have a plan, don’t you?”

“I think so. We’ve been working in parallel for a long time, but we haven’t really been working together. Your group and my group have been working towards the same goals, but I think we might be more successful if we met each other halfway.”

Tempe smiled, her nose buried in a sunflower to mask the action. 

“Yes,” she agreed. “I think you have the right idea, Lieutenant Hawkeye. I think it’s high time that Colonel Mustang and Hohenheim met.”

X

Having met the man responsible for everything that was going on in Amestris, the one whom the homunculi called Father and the one whom the Elric brothers would avoid calling father by any means necessary (and that had certainly been a revelation that had knocked him for six), Mustang found it extremely unnerving to be meeting his doppelgänger. 

He didn’t know whether the fact they were meeting in an abandoned warehouse added to the unease or not, but he was certainly looking over his shoulder at every chance he got. He would have given anything to have Hawkeye come along to the meeting as well, but it was more than either of their lives were worth to risk being seen consorting with the homunculi’s enemy. Or their benefactor, depending on which set of homunculi you asked.

He reached the warehouse where he had gone to get the Elric brothers out when they had been supposedly kidnapped and had turned up of their own accord just as he was about to storm the catacombs, and he looked inside. If it weren’t for the extensive planting, it would have been any ordinary abandoned warehouse, but this was obviously a part of someone’s home, tended lovingly. As tense as he was, he smiled at the patch of green in the middle of this rundown part of the city. 

There was a man crouched in the middle of the garden, examining the plants, seemingly completely oblivious to his visitor, and Roy cleared his throat.

“Mr Hohenheim?”

The man startled and stood up, brushing the earth from his trousers before turning to Roy. On the face of it, he certainly looked the spitting image of his nemesis, but at the same time, he seemed to give off the impression of a harmlessly absent-minded professor rather than an insane, inhuman megalomaniac intent on destroying the entire country out of a desire to achieve godhood.

“Colonel Mustang. Thank you for meeting me here. I try to avoid being out in the open as much as possible. I think we might have a mouse problem. Some of the strawberries look distinctly nibbled.”

“I see.” Mustang did not see at all, and he was beginning to wonder if something had gone terribly wrong somewhere along the line, because he really could not see this man having a plan to save the world.

“It’s good to meet you in person at last, Colonel. I believe you’ve already met my friends Patience and Tempe, and unfortunately you have probably met my counterpart.”

Mustang nodded. “Yes, that’s certainly one way of putting it.”

“I’ve spent many, many years trying to foil his plans, but I’m just one man against the entire infrastructure of Amestris. Now that I know I have allies, I have a little more faith that perhaps he can be struck down once and for all. Step into my office.” Hohenheim gestured towards the blank wall at the back of the warehouse, and Mustang watched as red alchemic lightning flickered and a door transmuted itself into the wall with barely a gesture of effort on Hohenheim’s part. “I’ll show you what I have so far.”

With that impressive show of arrayless alchemy, more than equal to his doppelgänger, Mustang’s faith in Hohenheim’s ability to aid them all gradually returned.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Diverging Paths (19/31)

Summary: Xerxes falls and the only two survivors walk away from the dead city.

Homunculus is keen to make the most of the new human body he now wears, and he goes out into the world, still planning his ascension to godhood as he strips away his vices and turns them into homunculi.

Van Hohenheim believes he has become a monster, and he hides himself away, befriending the other abominations of the world, failed human transmutations doomed to agonising half-life without the intervention of a Philosopher’s Stone.

Years later, Homunculus meets Trisha Elric and sires two sons with her before vanishing into the night, whilst Hohenheim tries to foil his doppelgänger’s schemes.

Years after that, Edward and Alphonse Elric are caught up in the middle of it all…

A Father-Hohenheim role reversal switcheroo, following Mangahood’s main plot with elements of ‘03, based on the premise ‘what if Father was Ed and Al’s father and Hohenheim was the one hiding under Central?’

Rated: Teen

==

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [Sixteen] [Seventeen] [Eighteen][AO3]

==

Nineteen

As she stepped off the train at North City, Winry could not help feeling like she had just left a huge part of her life behind. Once she left the confines of the station, that was it; she’d be a fugitive like Ed and Al and the rest of their group.

She had known that this would happen when she had made the decision to come north to assist with Ed’s automail, and she did not regret it, but at the same time, it was hard not to feel bereft at the thought of leaving Rush Valley and Granny and everyone in the south. 

At least she knew that she would be among friends for the next few months whilst she hid out with the rest of them, and despite their precarious position, she felt far safer with Ed and Al than she had done in Rush Valley, knowing that she was in a very strange and open-ended hostage situation. 

She could not see Ling and Fu, but she knew that they were around, and she was grateful for their protection. They had insisted on coming with her, even though she had kept protesting that Lan Fan needed them down in Rush Valley whilst she was still recovering from her surgery.

She looked down at the map that she’d pieced together from the instructions she’d been given. Everything was deliberately vague and half-encoded to try and keep the military off their backs, and whilst Winry had some experience of Ed and Al’s alchemic code, it was by no means her specialist subject. Trekking out into the middle of nowhere in the middle of the snow was not something that she wanted to do without precise directions of where to go to reach them. If she died in a snowdrift, then it would all be their fault. 

She re-balanced her box on her hip and her rucksack over her shoulders, and she made her way out of the station and onto the track that led out of the city and into the wilderness. No one paid her any mind; she’d dressed appropriately for hiking through the snow and she was lugging a heavy backpack with her. Hopefully they’d think that she just lived in one of the remote cabins, which was indeed where she was going to. 

Unless she’d got her directions wrong and she was about to climb Mount Briggs and fall onto the fortress by accident. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. They could probably give her better directions. Or they could kill her, which was more likely. 

Speaking of being killed, though, Winry knew that there were definitely wild bears in the woods in the north, and she really didn’t want to end up being dinner for one of them. True, it was coming up for winter and they should all be hibernating, but nothing was a guarantee out in the wild. She shivered, hugging her box tighter. 

“Hey.” 

She wasn’t sure why she was so startled, since bears definitely couldn’t talk, but she jumped out of her skin as she heard Ling’s voice beside her. 

“Oh, it’s just you. Hi Ling. Where’s Fu?”

“He went ahead to scout out the route and check we’re going in the right direction. And watch out for military patrols, bears, serial killers, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks. Now I have to worry about serial killers as well as everything I was already worried about.”

They were well out of the town now, and Ling walked along with her, both of them sharing box-toting duties as they headed up towards the forest where Ed and Al and their allies could hopefully be found. Presently, Ling stopped, crouching down and looking intently at the snow. 

“Ling? What’s up?”

“That doesn’t look good.” He pointed to a patch of red droplets on the stark white; Winry could see immediately that it was blood. 

“Fu!”

“I’m here, my lord.” Fu dropped down from the tree line and bowed, obviously unharmed. “The blood tracks into the forest and it seems fresh, whoever or whatever is bleeding is likely not too far from here.” He looked at Winry steadily, waiting for her judgement. 

On the one hand, it might just be an injured animal, and Winry didn’t really want to go wandering off the path. On the other hand, it might be an injured human, and it would be terrible to leave them when they had the means of helping and providing first aid. On another hand, the injured human might have been injured by a bear, and the bear might still be around and coming back for another go at any moment. 

She sighed. “We’d probably better check it out to be on the safe side. If it’s someone injured then we might be able to help them.”

“It might be a bear,” Ling mused as Fu darted off into the forest again to scout the path ahead and see what they were heading towards. “That would be interesting.”

“Ling, if you decide to fight a bear, I am not making you whatever limbs you lose for free.”

“It’s not a bear.” Fu came back towards them. “It’s a man. He’s still alive, bleeding badly but apart from the blood loss it doesn’t look too serious.”

“OK, let’s see what we can do then.” The two of them put on a burst of speed, following Fu through the trees to where he had found the bleeding man. Winry stopped in her tracks, and Ling turned back on suddenly finding her no longer beside him. 

“Winry? You ok?” He looked from Fu to her and back again. “Winry? Do you know this guy?”

Winry nodded slowly as Scar spoke. 

“I murdered her parents.”

Winry was back in Central again, a gun unfamiliar in her shaking hands, so ready to pull the trigger even though she’d never done it before and the thought of taking a life had always been utterly abhorrent to her. It was not anger that she had felt back then, not really, more complete, overarching despair, the kind that bloody vengeance would be the only thing to lift, even if she knew deep down that it would not do anything in the long run, it would not bring them back. 

Her hands weren’t for killing, Ed had said. Her hands were for helping people live, just as her parents had done before her. 

She was better than this. She could and would be better. She would make them proud. 

“Ling, there are bandages and dressing pads under the apples, can you bring them over please?” She’d had to hide all of her equipment under the groceries as a precaution, trying not to look like she was coming north on an automail rescue mission. She went over to Scar as Ling started to root around, examining the makeshift dressing he’d put on his leg.

“This does not mean I forgive you,” she said, without looking at him. “I don’t think I ever can. But this is what they would have done. They would have helped you, no matter what. They didn’t care what anyone had done, they just saw people that needed help, so they helped them, whoever they were, whichever side they were on. They did so much good, so I am going to honour them now by treating your wounds, and in return, you are going to tell me why you killed them.”

“I don’t think that anything I can say will make it any better, or sound like anything more than a bad excuse.”

“That’s not what I asked for. I asked you to tell me why you killed them.” Ling had brought over the bandages and dressing pads, and Winry got to work. “You don’t get to tell me what will and won’t make me feel better.”

“All right.” He began the tale, voice low and measured, and Winry kept working as she listened. It was easier with the task at hand to concentrate on, it detached her from the story a little more. By the time she was done and he was no longer in danger of bleeding to death, everyone had fallen silent. 

Winry sat back on her heels.

“I don’t forgive you,” she said again. “I don’t forgive you for that, or for nearly killing Ed and Al, who you knew full well were children who had nothing to do with what happened to your people. But sometimes, we have to be better, and I choose to be better.”

You have to be better too, she added mentally. Their eyes met then, a cold, hard gaze passing between them. 

Scar nodded. “Thank you, Miss Rockbell.”

“What are you doing up here anyway?” Ling asked as he helped Scar to his feet. “And dare we ask what happened? Was it a bear?”

“No, it was an insane State Alchemist. He’s not dead,” Scar added quickly. “I think I put him in the hospital though.” He went on to explain succinctly what had happened as they made their way out of the forest and back to the trail, Ling helping Scar and Fu carrying the box, Winry bringing up the rear. The pieces were all coming together in her mind now, and she was fairly sure that she would find Ed and Al in the place where Scar was directing them to. Such was the irony that they’d all end up here together on the run from the military, all for different reasons but all with the same purpose. Winry had no idea what Ed and Al were hoping to achieve up here in the north; she just knew that they were here and they couldn’t be found here, and that Ed needed help, so she had come to give it to him. 

She was a Rockbell after all, and that was what her parents had done before her. 

They entered into a thicker part of the forest and soon came upon a small cabin.

“Winry! Ling? Fu? Scar?”

Al came rushing out and down the track towards them, stopping short at seeing that Winry was not alone. 

“It’s a long story.” Winry sighed. “Can we tell it inside where it’s warm and there’s food please? Hi Al. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Winry.”

She couldn’t help it, she had to throw her arms around him even though his metal armour was horribly cold in the snow. 

“I’m just so glad you’re ok.”

“Yeah, us too. Come on in. Dr Marcoh and May are brewing tea. Ed’ll be really happy to see you. He’s trying not to let on but his arm’s really playing up.”

“That’s ok. You can tell him I have a brand new one for him. It’s under the chocolate biscuits.”

“What? Actually, never mind. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few days, it’s not to question anything.”

In spite of everything, Winry had to laugh. As long as Ed and Al were ok, she would get through this. She would endure. They would see her through.