Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Anti-Existentialism ❯ Chapter 3: Escape ( Chapter 3 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: BHS 
I would like it to be known that these chapters are all undergoing serious revision, and will soon be different and (hopefully) better. Thank you for your time.
Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Psychological / Drama / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 12.19.2005 | Updated On: 12.19.2005 | Pages: 9 | Words: 10.1K | Visits: 244 | Status: Completed
I would like it to be known that these chapters are all undergoing serious revision, and will soon be different and (hopefully) better. Thank you for your time.
Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Psychological / Drama / Romance | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 12.19.2005 | Updated On: 12.19.2005 | Pages: 9 | Words: 10.1K | Visits: 244 | Status: Completed
Escape
So, we are at chapter three! It will only get weirder from here, I promise.
Warnings: Cursing, violence, and an improbable pause.
Disclaimer: I don't own FMA.
***
Chapter 3: Escape
There was the sort of silence that happens right before all hell tends to break loose, and it was radiating from Roy Mustang. Both the Elrics had already stepped well away from the dark-haired man, and Alphonse was cowering as best as he could—not very well, as it turns out, on account of him being a giant suit of armor—near the bed where Envy slumbered, blissfully unaware of the imminent danger to his personal health.
“Edward?” asked the Flame Alchemist in a low, soft, civil tone of voice that sent shivers up Edward's spine.
“Y-yeah?”
“Who is this?”
“Um, well, that's, er…Could I say that he's not who you think he is?” Roy's glare was the baseball that smashed through the metaphorical neighbor's window of Ed's hope. “He's Envy.”
“He's a murderer, Edward! He's an enemy of the State! He's a Homunculus!!”
“Um, Mister Mustang, sir…” Al's mental throat went dry when Roy turned to him, and the look on the man's face sent the boy into a state of metaphorical cardiac arrest. “He needed help, sir!”
“He's a wanted criminal, Alphonse!! Not a kitten!”
“That's what I said!” interjected Ed.
“'Nii-san, you told me we could help him.”
“Er, well, I didn't feel like leaving him to attack people on the street…” Gulping, Ed hoped fervently that Roy wasn't going to kill him for coming up with such a lame excuse. He remembered Envy's presence when the shape-shifter shifted his position and muttered something containing the words `kill' and `chibi', and decided that having a god to pray to was a good thing, and therefore began praying to any god that would listen that the Sin wouldn't wake up until Roy had left. When the Sin's actual words registered in his mind, he began praying that the Sin wasn't psychotic when he woke up, but was distracted in the middle of naming off all the gods he could think of to pray to by the sound Roy's gloves made when the Flame Alchemist was about to snap his fingers.
“Um, sir…?” The only thing that saved everyone in that room from becoming crispy was the voice of Feury, who choose that moment to stick his head into the room.
“What, Feury?” snapped Roy, turning his malevolent glare on the young man, who quailed under the ferocious gaze. It was, as Al would later remark, like watching a fast-forwarded video of a flower wilting. Feury just sort of sagged, as if every cell in his body had just quietly said `oh, no'.
“Um, sir…Lt. Hawkeye wanted to see you, sir!” When in doubt, say `sir' as much as possible. That was one of the founding philosophies of Feury's existence, and, so far, it had worked, insofar as one can call `keeping him from getting fried into a crackly, crunchy, crisp by certain irate colonels' working.
Neither hell nor high water nor Homunculi could have instilled in Feury the terror that Roy's facial expression did at that moment.
“Feury,” the colonel barked, “there is a Dangerous Criminal in our midst, and I must Take Care Of Him before any Harm Is Done to anyone. Do you understand?” And Feury heard the capitals.
“I, ah…Sir?”
“Look!” Roy swept a hand towards the slumbering Homunculus, who responded by flopping into an interesting position that put his wrists against his shoulder-blades and muttering something about pastries.
“Er, sir? He doesn't seem very threatening, sir. He's just sleeping, sir.” A silence, and then, “He, sir?”
“Yes, he. He is, in fact, male.”
“Oh, sir.”
The silence actually rang through the room. Now, it is widely accepted that silences do not, in fact, ring, or make any other sort of noise, for that matter, but this was a special sort of silence. It was the sort of silence that happens when everything is about to go terribly wrong, but the gods of Misfortune, Unhappiness, and Misery don't quite know what to do, and so they settle for letting the four less apocalyptical horsemen of Chaos, Confusion, Shouting, and Bewilderment run amuck, and everyone knows that those sorts of silences bring about the mildly disastrous pony-rider, Paperwork (who was the younger brother of Shouting, Chaos, Confusion, and Bewilderment, but not apocalyptical enough or tall enough to warrant being a horseman).
Because they always ended with a gun to his head and a mountain of paperwork in front of him, Roy hated those sorts of silences, and avoided them at all costs. This silence was ringing loudly, and, ignoring the obvious problems inherent in that sentence, the colonel felt that beating a hasty retreat was better than staying around.
So, he turned about and nearly ran from the room, shouting over his shoulder to Ed that he mustn't keep the good lieutenant waiting, and then Feury was left alone with the Elrics and a Homunculus.
“Er, um…Ed, why is he here?” the sergeant-major queried.
“It's Al's fault.”
“'Nii-san, don't be mean!”
“Um…Isn't he the one who tried to kill Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes?” The question hung in the air like a corpse from a beam, and Al had to fake a coughing fit to dispel the tension, which rather didn't work, since it merely woke Envy up and made Ed glare.
For a moment, all that happened as a result of the Homunculus awakening was that everyone stared in horrified fascination as he sat up, looked around, and demanded to know where the hell he was. Comprehension slowly dawned on him, creeping over his face like a thief through a jewelry store, and he made a sort of strangled noise comprised mainly of the words `kill', `fuck', `damn', and `shit'. Then his eyes narrowed and took on an all-too familiar gleam of manic psychosis, and the shape-shifter launched himself at the nearest person, and knelt on their chest with his hands around their throat while he banged their head into the floor.
“Hey, let `nii-san go!” Al darted forwards, clanking, and dragged Envy bodily off of the blonde alchemist; the Homunculus thrashed and struggled and swore furiously.
“Let go of me, you damn trash-can! I'm going to strangle FullMidget!”
“You can't do that!”
“If you'd let me go I could!”
“Um…Excuse me, er, sir, but, um…You're not allowed to kill Edward. He's important.” Feury's voice went from a timid quaver to a terrified squeak as Envy's deranged eyes fell upon him, and he began cowering as the Homunculus broke out of Al's grip. A green, black, and white blur sped across the room, and then Envy was standing in front of Feury, glaring at him.
“Say that again.”
“I, uh, er…”
“Well? Say it again. I didn't hear it.” The Sin's voice was soft and sweet and promised a very painful death to anyone who angered him. Feury, at the moment, couldn't tell whether or not repeating his earlier statement would anger the shape-shifter, and therefore stuck with the mostly-safe tactic of Becoming Very, Very Stupid, In An Obedient Sort Of Way, or the BVVS tactic, as it was known, which was an unofficial military procedure that everyone knew.
“I said, sir, that you can't kill Edward, sir, because he's important, sir.” The Over-usage Of The Word `Sir' was a defensive maneuver that went hand-in-hand with the BVVS tactic, and one that could possibly save lives, or at least make deaths a little less painful.
“What do you need FullMidget for?” Honest confusion spread over Envy's face as he spoke, and Feury had to wonder if it was actually humanly possible to cram that much venom into a three-syllable nickname.
“Dammit, stop calling me that, you palm-tree-headed freak!”
“Call me that again, chibi, and you'll get an up-close-and-personal look at your guts. I guarantee it.”
“Palm-tree, palm-tree, palm-tree! Envy is a palm-tree! Nyah!” Edward leapt to his feet, waggled his hands, stuck out his tongue, and again recited the childish litany. “Palm-tree, palm-tree, palm-tree! Yaaah!” He never got to finish a second time, as Envy launched himself in a furious kamikaze attack at Edward's head, and the blond alchemist responded with the ingenious tactics of Falling Backwards On His Ass and Screaming Like A Little Girl, which, while ignoble, did tend to distract enemies, even if it's only because they laughed.
Feury, his mind purely on auto-pilot, jumped forward and grabbed Envy in the classic restraining position that various people have tried time and again to explain—such endeavors resulting in things like, `y'know, that one thing where you have your arms under theirs and sort of hooked over, where your fists are like almost against your shoulders, right, over theirs? Like that.'—, and dragging the androgynous man back against him.
The shape-shifter stiffened at the unexpected contact and tried to turn and growl at Feury, but sheer terror, desperation, and a burning desire to keep his innards where they belonged granted the little man strength normally reserved for people like Armstrong, and the Homunculus found himself rendered practically immobile.
“Let me go, you bastard, before I disembowel you!” growled the shape-shifter, trying to turn enough to glare at Feury. That attempt failed, much to Envy's irritation.
“Um, er, maybe you should leave, er, Feury, was it?” Alphonse asked, a little desperately.
The tension in the room was hunted down, shot, and killed when the fifth lesser horseman, Lieutenant-Colonel Maes Hughes, also known as `Suffering And Pictures', burst into the room, grinning idiotically, and shouted, “Feury, I have something to show yoouuuu!” He actually trilled the last bit.
Everyone stared, and the four horsemen slunk off, Chaos casually tossing Paperwork out of the window as he did so, and so the room was actually rather quiet. Envy even quit trying to disembowel Feury.
“Um, Lieutenant-Colonel, now really isn't the—“ Feury tried.
“Nonsense!” Hughes interrupted the boy, beaming.
“But, but sir…”
“You simply must see this! I insist!” And, with that statement, Hughes dragged Feury away from Envy and out of the room, grinning like an idiot all the while. The sound of the door shutting echoed in the terrible silence that followed, and Ed slowly edged towards Al, intending to take cover behind his near-invincible little brother in case the Sin decided to go Barryesque on their asses, which, considering the Homunculus in question, wasn't quite so unlikely as it sounded.
Walking towards the window, the shape-shifter made an irritated shooing motion at the Elrics and commanded, “Chibi, trash-can, move.”
“I'm not short!”
“I'm not a trash-can…”
Despite their protests, the Elrics moved aside, and watched curiously as Envy did nothing more threatening than standing still and looking out the window. They continued to watch, and became more and more perplexed, as the Sin opened the window, leaned out, and appeared to be studying the ground below intensely.
After a little, the effeminate man turned to Ed, and, with his lips quirked into a queer little half-smile, said, “Hey, chibi? D'ya really think I was just looking out this window?”
“Huh?”
Waving, Envy hopped out of the window. “Bye-bye, chibi!” he trilled, grinning rather cheekily.
After a moment of stunned silence, Alphonse managed to choke out, “'Nii-san…Envy just jumped out the window.”
“And now he's running into the city…” murmured the elder Elric. “Shit! We just let Envy loose on the city!”
“Um, but, `nii-san…” Al made a coughing noise that echoed eerily. “He was the one who jumped…So he let himself loose on the city. And what harm could he do?”
The seconds marched past, each one too terrified of Edward to make a sound, until a minute came tip-toeing by, and then another, and then three more, until finally the elder of the two brothers made a strangled squeaking noise that sounded like a gerbil having its tail ripped off. It probably meant something along the broad theme of `What the fuck?' It was, above all else, a sound indicative of a confused chibi.
“Um, forget I said anything…?” Alphonse practically asked. Ed nodded, still gaping.
When Edward managed to get his jaw back in its proper place, the two sat down and began plotting how to get the Homunculus back. About half-way through this, Ed wondered why the hell they wanted him back, and Alphonse replied that he needed help, to which Edward replied on the broad theme of `Fuck him!', drawing an irritated rebuke from his little brother, which caused Ed to yell that he was the older one, dammit, and he said that they should let Envy rot, which upset Al. This all led to a fight between the two, which ended when Alphonse dangled Ed out the window by his ankles until Ed promised that they'd go look for Envy.
Of course, neither Elric was stupid enough to wander off in the city in search of a dangerous murderer without an escort (well, Alphonse wasn't, and, as the brains of the whole operation, he got a majority vote), so they decided to enlist the help of their military friends.
The result was that Edward and Alphonse were walking through the streets, looking less than inconspicuous in the company of Major Armstrong and Lieutenant Maria Ross.
“Um, Edward, sir…” Maria cleared her throat and tried again. “What is it we're looking for, again?”
“A Homunculus. His name is `Envy'. He's a bastard.” The FullMetal Alchemist's answer was short and curt.
“Oh.” Maria Ross would never even consider calling a fellow member of the military—much less one of her superiors—a total lunatic, but she was starting to wonder if Edward really counted. Surely Colonel Mustang would have responded by chortling, clapping Ed on the back, and calling him a pint-sized loony, so why couldn't she? Instead of teasing the boy, though, she decided to humor him. “What does he look like?”
“Any way he wants to. The bastard's a shape-shifter.”
“….So you're telling me that we're looking for a shape-shifter in a crowded city?”
“Yeah.”
Maria's patience was wearing thin. She very badly wanted to hit Ed, but she—quite accurately—judged this to be a very bad career move, and instead satisfied herself with visiting terrible atrocities on a mental image of the young alchemist.
Meanwhile, Edward and Alphonse peered closely into every dark corner and shadow, trying nearly frantically to find the Homunculus before his hands found any innocent bystander's throat.
***
They said that the killers weren't human…They said that they were ghostly, phantom-like creatures that didn't bleed or feel pain or have any feelings at all. They said it was the fault of monsters.
The killings were brutal, that was true enough. And they were the work of monsters, but the monsters could bleed well enough. They felt, too, although none of them ever felt particularly merciful.
There were some people who knew this. They knew who was behind the grotesque murders, and they were the ones who didn't lock their doors at night but merely stayed away from the gossipers, made covert calls to the military asking for various officers to `randomly' pass by their houses late at night, and prayed that they weren't next. They were the ones who lay awake at night, sweating and shivering and hoping and praying, and, although many of them were visited by the creatures, they were never harmed.
And then there were the ones who knew the monsters, even if they didn't quite know them personally. They said they knew them personally, regardless, and the creatures laughed and laughed about that, and a couple of the bolder ones met with unfortunate ends, and the bragging stopped, and soon humility took its place…
The rumors flew, thick and fast.
“They're not real! It's just a story!”
“Stories don't kill people!”
“There was another one, just last night…He was an old man, and he used to work for the military. His throat was ripped out…”
“I heard that a transmution circle was drawn with his blood…”
“It's those damn alchemists, I bet. They're doing the killings for practice with their devil-arts.”
“The military would never allow that! Right?”
A derisive snort. “The military couldn't find its own arse with a map. They can't do anything.”
Everywhere, there was hatred and fear and, more importantly, gossip. The pen was mightier than the sword, but a rumor could beat both of them out. Nothing spread panic like a rumor. And the monsters knew that, and they relished the terror that they had caused.
No one had been commanding them. They'd done it for fun, because they were bored. Human lives were nothing more than bright, sparkling toys to them, and they loved to break their toys. And if the murders happened to incense and terrify the populace, and if perhaps a war or even just a few riots broke out, well, not a one of them could say that they would be unhappy about it. Murder was their plaything, their spouse and parent and lover and child, a pretty toy, a gleaming jewel. They lived it, breathed it, and wrapped it around and about them until it became the base reason for their existence, until finally that dark hole in them was filled with the bright crimson of new blood, with the gasps and screams of the dying and the stench of rotting corpses, and finally, finally they were complete…
And as the murders continued and the body-count mounted, as the cemeteries filled up, the big cities began to get scared…
At first, it wasn't noticed much. Central wasn't exactly noted for its caring, sympathetic populace, mostly because everyone had themselves to look after, and couldn't be worrying about strangers. But the killings didn't stop, and the killers didn't leave any traces…The police-force was baffled, and people were beginning to panic.
The whole city was like a cauldron of oil. At first, it was sluggish, but the murders lit a fire under it, and now it was nearly boiling, and soon, very soon, it would be upended and poured over the country, and thousands of people would die…
***
A new voice joined the whispered conversation.
“I heard that they're just doing it for fun, too,” the newcomer said. She was a woman, with short black hair and sparkling blue eyes, and though her tone of voice was suitably grim and low and her face drawn and worried, as was appropriate, she seemed to exude an aura of happiness, as if life were all one great fantastic adventure and she played a wonderful part.
“What?” The question was snapped by a chubby middle-aged woman who knew enough to be wary of pretty young girls and anyone who talked so casually of murder.
“I said that I heard they're just doing it for fun.” A small smile tugged at her lips, but her expression didn't actually change. “The killers, I mean.”
None of the huddled group could really tell what it was, but they all knew that there was something off about the girl. One man in particular noticed that she kept scratching at her arms, as if they itched. Another, who was looking her up and down, elbowed that man and whispered to him that the girl wasn't wearing any shoes, and they all noted that, although she was pretty, she was scruffy and a little worn at the seams. But that in itself wasn't cause for alarm; there were plenty of poor, pretty girls in the city. There just seemed to be something fundamentally wrong about her.
“Where did you hear that, young missy?” the speaker was a gaunt blonde man with a soft, almost feminine voice. The girl looked curiously at him, noting in particular his blood-stained butcher's apron.
“Oh, it's just a rumor…Y'know, like everything else.” She waved a hand absently as she spoke, as if in dismissal of her own words. “Haven't you heard it?”
“No, young missy, I can't say I have.”
“Really? Everyone I know knows it.” The girl twisted the material of her shirt nervously into a bunch, and then dropped her hands to her side when she realized what she was doing. “Um…”
There was a long silence as everyone waited to see what the pretty stranger would say next, or if she would say anything at all.
“Um, um…” She swallowed, her blue eyes darting nervously about. “I heard that one of them is, er, um, that he can change shape….Like, he could be anyone. Y'know, I mean, he could be one of you. He could be you…” She pointed towards the blonde butcher. “Or you…” The middle-aged woman was singled out. “Or you…” A tall, dark-haired man with thick glasses was her third target. “Or even me.” She giggled slightly and gave a nervous smile, as if to say, `All is well, I didn't mean that, don't worry.'
“And where did you hear that, young missy?” While all the others looked away and began wondering how they could politely leave the group, the butcher seemed even more fascinated with the girl.
“Um, just someone told me…I'm not really sure where I heard it,” she answered, shrugging apologetically. Her eyes roamed over the faces of the others in the group, focusing especially on those she had pointed out earlier, and, when she knew the whole group was looking at her, she dropped the illusion.
White light crackled, and the pretty, innocent girl twisted into something wicked and malignant, a creature built to hunt and kill. The wide, sparkling blue eyes became violet-grey lasers that were narrowed in sadistic delight, eyes that weren't even eyes but merely a window into a hellish inner inferno of blood and corpses, and each member of the group was subjected to their twisted, demonic gaze.
Gasping and sobbing in fright, the members of the little group quickly dispersed, all except the butcher, who regarded Envy with a morbid sort of curiosity for a moment, and then left at an unconcerned pace, and Envy knew the man was smiling.
The crazed look in the Homunculus's eyes wavered as Envy struggled to bring the Monster under control, and then finally subsided as he succeeded.
“Idiot humans,” he growled to himself, trotting through the city streets. “They can't see a hint when it bites them in the ass…”
You should have killed them... a voice in his head murmured a tad angrily.
Just revealing yourself to them was bad enough! another voice interjected. Now they know about you, and they'll probably tell the police, who'll turn it over to the military, because that's what they always do with the stuff they can't handle.
If we killed them, the first voice asked, could they tell anyone?Does a corpse tell any tales?
Oh, shut up, a third voice sighed. To Envy, it said, You shouldn't have done that. It was stupid.
“Shut up, shut up,” Envy muttered to himself.
Stop doing things like that, and I will! the voice shot back. You're the eldest, aren't you? So why aren't you smart?
“Shut up, shut up, I am, I am!” The Sin growled this loudly, attracting stares from several passersby,
I still say we should have killed them…
You shut up too! the third voice yelled irritably. This doesn't concern you.
The hell it doesn't!
You two, quit it! the second voice sighed wearily.
No! both the other voices shouted in unison. Envy winced and clutched at his head.
“Shut up, shut up!” he yelled. “Just shut the fuck up, okay?”
You shut up! the third voice snapped.
Why not you? No one likes you! the first voice snapped back.
You just don't like me because you're a violent idiot who thinks with his fists.
Say that to my face, bitch!
I will!
Both of youquit it! the second voice yelled. Soon a three-way screaming-fight had broken out, and Envy was reduced to crouching against a nearby wall, clutching his head in his hands, and whimpering while it went on.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he cried, each `shut up' nothing more than a hardly understandable yelp. “Stop it!”
The voices didn't quit, didn't even pay attention to him. He dug his fingers into his temples, his fingernails digging in hard enough to draw blood, and whimpered and yelped for the voices to stop, but they couldn't hear him. He couldn't even hear himself. The racket in his head bounced off the inside of his skull and the echoes hurt, and he couldn't hear anything. The pain clouded his vision and choked his thoughts and he couldn't move or think or see or hear but he hurt, and he begged and cried for the pain to end.
Had he been capable of higher standards of thought, it would probably have crossed his mind that even staying with the Elrics was preferable to this. Of course, he wasn't, and no doubt it was the workings of Fate that Edward happened to again cross Envy's path, and what a lucky turn it was, for both the Sin and the alchemist.
***
It took three days of searching for them to find Envy. By that time, his mental state had deteriorated so badly that he was reduced to huddling against the brick wall near an alley and muttering to himself, while passersby dropped coins at his feet.
Not all the citizens were kind, as the Elrics and their escorts soon found. One man, upon seeing the stricken Homunculus, began mocking his plight and throwing a barrage of verbal abuse at the effeminate man. When Envy failed to respond, the man's abuse turned physical, and Alphonse ended up dragging the man away from the Sin and `accidentally' hitting him over the head.
Everyone watched in silence as the man crumpled to the ground, and then turned their attention to Envy.
“What's he saying, `nii-san?” Al asked, gazing in what was probably sympathy mixed with horror at the huddled shadow that was Envy.
“I don't know, Al. I can't understand it. Anyway, let's get him back to headquarters.” Ed brought his auto-mail down hard on Envy's head, ignoring Alphonse's squawked protests, and shoved the limp, unresisting body towards Armstrong.
As they were walking back to the base, Alphonse noted how pathetic and small Envy looked, cradled in the enormous blonde man's arms, and quietly chastised Ed for being cruel.
“He's a monster, Al!” protested Ed.
“He's still a person, `nii-san, and he wasn't even doing anything!”
“Why do you care so much about Envy, Al?”
The rest of the trip was spent in silence, since Al never answered, until they arrived at the military base. At that point, Edward marched into Colonel Mustang's office, explained the situation, and then stated that he was of the opinion that Envy should be put into the labs and experimented on, so the military would have a better understanding of what made the Homunculi tick.
“And if he dies?” Roy asked in an even, calm tone.
“Does anyone care?” Ed answered in the very same tone.
Roy allowed his lips to turn up in a small grin, and granted his consent for the Homunculus to be taken to the labs and experimented on, much to Alphonse's horror.
In due time, Envy was secured quite…securely to a table (it was too hard and uncomfortable to be called a bed, and it was a good three and a half feet off the ground to boot), surrounded by various medically-inclined personnel.
Everyone tensed as his eyes flickered open, but all he did was groan.
It wasn't until he tried to sit up that the androgynous man realized that he was tied down, and at that point the look on his face promised a very painful death to the nearest organic creature.
~I really have nothing much to say…This really was very long, wasn't it?
~Servant of the Unseen
***
So…Yeah. Constructive criticism, everyone!