Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Disaster or Destiny? ❯ Edward's Decision ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The man that now stood before me had purple eyes and greenish-black hair. He wore black like the others. Recognizing him as another homunculus, my heart skipped a beat and I silently cursed myself for falling for the trick. He laughed at the terrified expression on my face, which I tried to change to the determined, confident look I had seen Ed wear so many times. I knew that I must have failed miserably, judging by the amused look he gave me.

“You’d follow that little pipsqueak of the edge of a cliff, wouldn’t you? Stupid girl. You’ll pay dearly for your mistake.” He shrugged. “Not that it would have made any difference if you had figured it out, I still would have gotten you here.”

Knowing it was pointless but determined to try anyway, I sprinted for the stairs. Something black, long and sharp shot out at me from the other side of the room and grazed the top of my shoulder. It cut as far as it could into my flesh without actually going through me, and created a deep, bloody gash. I grabbed my shoulder and cried out in pain, falling to my knees on the floor. The homunculus that had disguised itself as Ed turned angrily towards the source of the thing that had injured me.

“Lust! Watch what you’re doing, we need her alive! She‘s all we‘ve got for leverage!”

I slowly turned my head towards whoever he was yelling at, and saw the woman with black hair drawing her fingers back in, which she could apparently extend and sharpen.

“She needs to know who’s boss, Envy, and I seriously doubt that she’ll try running again now.”

“Well if she bleeds to death then there goes our plan.”

“Relax. She won’t bleed to death but she might get lightheaded, and that will just make her easier for us to handle.”

The fat one spoke up. “Why can’t I just eat her?”

“Quiet, Gluttony.” Lust replied without looking at him. His stomach growled in disappointment.

The homunculus I now knew as Envy scowled in annoyance as he grabbed me and dragged me over to the wall to where Lust and Gluttony were standing. I struggled as hard as I could, but the effort wasn’t much because of my shoulder, which was oozing blood through my clutched fingers and trickling down my arm. He forced the arm I was using to hold my wound to let go, and roughly put both of my wrists in shackles, high enough to force my arms above my head and barely allowing me enough leeway to stand.

I was startled when I heard a new voice, and saw that it belonged to the man that had been inspecting the chimeras. He stared at me with wide-eyed eagerness.

“Can I have this one? You’ve taken at least the last ten without giving me one, it’s my turn to have one.”

Envy gave him a dangerous look. “I was thinking about giving her to you when we were done with her, but after letting those chimeras escape I’m having second thoughts, Tucker.“

Tucker. Where had I heard that name before?

“Letting those things run free has caused a lot of suspicion, and we don’t need any more people investigating than there already are. The fact that some of those chimeras look like some of the town’s missing make the situation even worse.”

Tucker sneered at Envy with extreme dislike. “I told you, that was an accident. A deal is a deal, and you promised you’d give me more humans after I gave you the red water.”

My eyes widened in horror when I realized what had become of some of the kidnapped humans. The ones not held behind the iron bars were turned into chimeras, apparently test subjects awarded to this man in return for the red water.

Red water. A string of horrible realizations struck me as I remembered everything I had read about it. It’s used in the process of making a Philosopher’s Stone. Also required was a sizeable human sacrifice, which was why Ed, Al and I had never made one ourselves.

They had all the components they needed right here. I now knew the purpose of the transmutation circle on the floor. All they needed to complete the process of creating a Stone was a skilled alchemist. Edward.

I was leverage. The homunculi had tried this once before, confident that Ed would create the stone because he himself wanted it so badly. They had gathered a group of convicts as the sacrifice. To their surprise, Ed had refused to do it, even though he had the chance to do the one thing he was determined to do and they had threatened to remove Al’s blood seal, the only thing binding him to this world, if he didn’t comply. But he didn’t do it then, and I knew there was no way he would do it now. Not that I thought Ed didn’t care about me, but simply for the same reason he had refused before; one life isn’t worth the lives of many.

The homunculi most likely thought Ed would do it this time if they could threaten me with something worse than death. They could turn me into a test subject to be used in chimera experiments. I realized that was their intention when I heard Envy speaking to Tucker. He wanted to use me for his human-chimera experiments. Even taking all of this into consideration, I knew that Ed still wouldn’t do it. And I was angry with myself for resenting that. I knew he would choose the right thing, he would save the lives of many people just by sacrificing mine. But I still hated the idea.

I suppose you could almost say that I was jealous; I hated the fact that Ed cared more about the lives of these people, who he didn’t even know, than he did me. I was disgusted with myself for thinking all of this, for being so selfish. I forced myself to admit that Ed had no choice, he had to choose them over me. How could I expect him to do otherwise? The only reason I even dared to consider that Ed would save me instead was because I regrettably admitted to myself that that was probably what I would do if he was in my position and I had to make the decision. When it came right down to it, if I was in his position, I don’t know if I could sacrifice him. I was too selfish. I understood that when people make a decision like that, like the one I would most likely make if it were Ed’s life versus the lives of people I didn’t know, it’s not really for the person they’re saving that they do it, but for themselves. People are selfish, and don’t want to live with the grief of losing a loved one. I was selfish. I knew that it was the wrong decision, and was relieved that I didn’t have to make it. Ed wouldn’t do that. He would make the right decision. I told myself that I was glad of that, but deep down I knew it was a lie.

I became a little dizzy from the blood loss, and it was difficult to keep up with what was happening. I noticed Envy leave again, knowing exactly who he was going to return with. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable situation; I was left with Gluttony staring hungrily at me and drooling, Tucker looking at me with insane eagerness, and Lust watching the two of them cautiously, intent on me staying alive long enough to fulfill their goal.

My mind drifted into a haze of horrible thoughts. I wondered how they would kill me when Ed refused to create the stone. Would they let Gluttony eat me? Or Lust stab me? Or maybe just hand me over to Tucker as a test subject? The thoughts were making me sick, and I wished more than ever to be back with Ed and Al.

I had no idea how much time went by, but despite my lightheadedness at the time I will never forget watching Ed descend into the gloomy room and seeing the horrified look on his face when he saw everything, understanding exactly what was going on almost instantly. Envy quickly changed back from the form he had used to deceive Ed - mine. I noticed Al’s absence and figured that Envy used my form to get Ed away quietly, knowing that Al would only complicate things for them. Ed jumped when he saw Envy standing there instead of me. Envy pointed to me and, if possible, Ed looked even more terrified than before. Lust had her fingers once again extend into blades and pushed one up against my throat.

“I can’t believe how easily you humans trust each other. I pulled the same trick on her as I did you and got her here no problem. Anyway I‘m sure, based on past experience, that you know what’s going on and what you need to do in order for the girl to keep her head. We have spared you the trouble of getting the red water or finding a sufficient number of humans to use in the transmutation. We were very disappointed in you last time, Edward Elric, and if the death of the girl isn’t enough to get you to make the stone, we can make her suffer a much worse fate than death.” Envy pointed over to Tucker, Ed briefly tearing his eyes away from me to take a look.

“I believe the name Shou Tucker should ring some bells for you.”

That got Ed’s attention.

“This is a relative of his, who specializes in the same science of creating chimeras. I believe they worked together for a time but this one is far more skilled than Shou, or at least when it comes to using humans instead of just animals.”

“No…” is all that Ed managed to get out, barely audible from where I was.

“Yes, and he would very much like to experiment on the girl. If you don’t do what we tell you, we’ll hand her over to him and he can have all the fun with her he likes.”

Envy leaned casually against the wall and folded his arms. “You know, he’s been talking about trying to combine a human with multiple animals. The only problem is that he thinks the increased pain it would cause, when compared to just transmuting two beings, would tear the creature apart. But you never know until you try, right?”

Ed finally snapped. He let out a bloodcurdling scream as he transmuted his metal arm into a blade.

“YOU BASTARD!!!“ he screamed as he slashed wildly at Envy, cutting through his neck. This would have been a fatal blow to a normal person, but homunculi are not killed that easily.

My heart sank as I remembered the only way to defeat a homunculi - corpse remains. Homunculi were created by failed attempts at human transmutations, and in order to be destroyed they have to be presented with the bones, or some form of the remains, of the person that was meant to be brought back, the failure of which resulted in their creation. The only advantage we had was that homunculi were unable to use alchemy.

It was impossible. We had no idea who they were created from and even if we did there was no way of getting what we needed now. Envy laughed, the wound healing as fast as it was made.

“You fool. You know better than that.” Envy lunged at Ed and swiftly appeared at his back side, kicking him into the wall. I screamed in horror as the wall cracked with the impact and Ed slid to the ground in a heap. He laboriously got back on his feet, swaying slightly as blood trickled from his mouth.

“I wouldn’t try anything like that again if I were you,” Lust sneered. Ed looked over at me as Lust slowly slid her sharpened finger across my throat, with just enough pressure to draw blood and cause me to whimper in pain, but not enough to kill. The murderous look he had given Envy disappeared to be replaced once again by a look of utter despair and fear. “Stop! Stop hurting her! She has nothing to do with any of this! Leave her alone!”

Lust licked the blood from her finger.

“Oh but you’re wrong. She has everything to do with this. And if you don’t want her hurt, you need to cooperate. Gluttony, go open the gate.”

Gluttony made his way to the iron bars that imprisoned the humans and bit off the lock on the door. It swung open and he herded the people into the center of the transmutation circle, threatening to eat anyone who didn’t comply.

Edward watched the entire scene with a hopeless look on his face that broke my heart. As horrible as I felt, I couldn’t imagine the misery he was going through.

When the humans were all in the circle and Envy had pushed Ed forward, he stood frozen at the edge of the circle, looking from me, to Tucker, to the people in the circle, and then back to me. By now tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry,’ because the pressure of the blade against my throat made it nearly impossible to talk and enormously painful to try. Ed replied with a look that told me he wished more than anything that he didn’t have to make the decision he was about to make. I have to say though, for a minute it really looked like he hesitated. To my extreme disliking, that made me happy. He wanted to save me instead, but couldn’t. If it were up to him, he would choose me. But it wasn’t, because he had no right to take the lives of these people for his own selfish reasons. My moment of happiness ended briefly, however, when I thought it out and changed my mind. Stupid selfish me. His hesitation had probably not been from a desire to save me, but to create the Stone so he could help Al. This time, my jealousy was not of the people in the circle, but of Al. Once again I hated myself for the thoughts going through my head.

“You had better get a move on if you don’t want the girl to be a chimera by tomorrow.” Lust’s impatience was growing every second, and the pressure on my throat was increasing along with it.

Ed put his hands together at the edge of the circle, and for a minute I though he was actually going to do it. Instead he turned towards Lust, a desperate, almost crazy look in his eyes, and slammed his hands to the ground, causing three stone spikes to shoot out of the wall, running through all three homunculi and extending until they reached the opposite wall. Now that I was out of Lust’s reach for the moment he ran to the far wall and used alchemy once again to form an opening up through the ground and outside. He ushered the people who stood terrified inside the circle to run out.

By now Gluttony had eaten his way out of his binds and was just finishing freeing Lust. Once again, she transformed all ten fingers into daggers and extended them towards Ed and the escaping people, every one hitting its target. Nine of the unsuspecting people were now dead, but Ed, who had managed to escape a blow to the heart, was instead pinned to the wall by his shoulder.

We both cried out in agony, he from the wound and I from the sight of my friend in so much pain. Surprisingly, he quickly regained his composure and placed his hands on the wall behind him, causing a guillotine-like blade to fall from the ceiling and slice the dagger that connected him to Lust. He quickly came out from behind the blade and, after prying the dagger from his shoulder, formed wall after wall around the two homunculi, each thicker than the last. It amazed me how he managed to think and act so quickly in a situation like this.

He quickly made his way towards me, both of us unsure as to how much time we had until Gluttony ate his way out.

With Envy far from dead but still bound by the stone spear Ed had created, he raised his hands in preparation to remove my shackles with alchemy, but never finished the process as something lunged at him from behind.