FMA: Collared: Chapter 9: Impending Blaze

Ed tossed the POW clothes into a pile for rags. The simple shirt and trousers worn by most everyone here might not have been his preference, but at least it was real, decent clothing. And shoes. It was as if the army thought that if they didn't give their prisoners decent footwear the prisoners wouldn't run. He pulled on his boots—the only part of his old outfit that hadn't gotten chucked as impractical for desert heat—and hopped to his feet, enjoying the feel of having thick rubber soles under his feet again.

Further down the tunnel people were still arguing over what to do with Mustang. Ed thought it might be time for him to put in his own two cenz again—sure, Mustang was military, but he wasn't the bad kind. Holding him accountable for things done by that Hack-row asshole wouldn't be equivalent. That much should be fucking obvious.

Al's gauntlet landed on his shoulder and he jumped. "Brother. Did you even stop to think, or did you just let him seduce you?"

Ed's gulped-in air sounded suspiciously like a squeak.

"He was probably trying to get you to let your guard down, you know," Al went on. "So what was it? Did he promise you something? Or did he just talk nice and—"

"AL!" Ed knocked his hand off and whipped around. "Wh-what are you talking about? There wasn't—it wasn't—I mean—" Shit, he was probably crimson. Damn his capillaries.

"Shh!" Al picked him up and moved down the tunnel, away from the others. "Keep your voice down, idiot.

"Put me down!" Ed kicked at his brother and twisted free. "You're picking up some really bad habits."

"I know he touched you, Brother, so don't even bother trying to tell me nothing happened. I'm just trying to understand why you would let him."

"Fuck, Al!" he hissed. There was nothing quite so embarrassing as having a little brother who was downright psychic when it came to your sex life. "He never hurt me, all right? It wasn't—it wasn't like that!"

"You think I don't know that?" Al snapped back. "Do you think I'd be in here talking to you instead of—of dealing with him if I thought he had? If I thought he'd done even a tenth of—of what—"

"Fuck, Al. . . ." A chill went down his spine.

"I just want to know how much of an idiot you were. Did you even stop to think that—that he might have some agenda? Some reason for trying to get in your pants? Or were you just so flattered that you—"

Ed knocked his helm off.

"Of course I fucking thought of that," he growled. "Of course he had a fucking agenda everything he does has a fucking agenda he's a fucking military commander!" Ed breathed in, unclenched his jaw. "Well, maybe I had an agenda, too. Maybe I was the one trying to get to him. Ever think of that?"

Al picked up the helm and very deliberately set it in place. "You're an idiot."

"Why the hell are you fixating on this when we've got homunculi after us and we don't even fucking know why?"

Ed spun on his heel and stocked away. Stocked past the men and women still arguing at the entrance. Stocked into the ruined basement.

How could he explain it to his brother—that maybe at the beginning they had both had ulterior motives, but by the end it hadn't been like that. Maybe he was just being naïve, but he couldn't shake the feeling that . . . it hadn't been like that for either one of them. Not in that moment. Resting there against Mustang's chest, being held like—like he actually meant something—

Al would tell him he'd been an idiot.

Maybe he had been.

Mustang raised his head from where he was lying back on the stairs. "From the look on your face, I'd say there'd been trouble," he said as Ed got close.

"No. Al's just a moron."

"Ah." He lowered his head and went back to staring up at what was left of the ceiling. It looked like a terribly uncomfortable bed. "You and your brother are quite close, aren't you."

"Yeah, I guess." Ed kicked a bit of rubble out of the way and dropped down on the foot of the stairs. "Yeah," he said with a bit less ire. "We are. It's just me and him, so we look out for each other." Under his breath he added, "Doesn't mean he's not a moron sometimes."

He chuckled. "Indeed. I have no siblings myself, but . . . I can sympathize with the sentiment." Mustang was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I can only imagine what you must have risked to bind his soul like that."

Ed cleared his throat, studying the floor. Despite what Al seemed to think, he wasn't stupid. He knew Mustang was fishing. But he'd already given the soldier enough rope to hang him and then some. At this point, he didn't really see how anything he said could do any more harm. "Cost me an arm."

Mustang raised his head.

He coughed again, fiddling with his automail hand. "When . . . when you do that sort of thing, it . . . kinda rebounds. It eats up a piece of you. I lost my arm binding his soul. I lost my leg right before that, doing the thing that hurt Al to begin with. He lost a lot more."

"That must have been horrific."

"Yeah. . . ." He scuffed his boot against the floor. "'Cept, I didn't care about my arm, 'cause it was for Al. But thinking about it . . . I can't really see some guy on the military's payroll giving up a hunk or two of his body just to make some tin can watchdogs."

"Nor can I." He let his head drop back with a sigh. "I suppose those red stones had to have gone somewhere after the war."

Ed stared down at the array he had scratched into the floor. It burned him that the thing they had spent so much time and energy searching for had been in the hands of the military all along. Maybe if he'd sucked it up and taken the state test to begin with, they wouldn't still be in this mess.

He kicked a piece of rubble and watched it ricochet.

More than likely, he would have been sent here as the military's dog and been ordered to kill the people he was currently helping, and would not have been any closer to his goal.

Ed yanked his hair free of the bit of string and combed his fingers through it. To think that just last night his hair had been clean for the first time in weeks, and now it was full of sand and rock dust and bits of metal and no small amount of blood. He tried to scrape the worst of it off with his fingernails, but soon gave up and pulled the whole mess, dried blood and all, back into a braid. Something he could normally do without thinking, but right now his hand was being uncooperative.

"How long ago did you lose your arm and leg?"

"Wha—ow fuck." His concentration broke and his fingers clenched. He tried to jerk the hand away and found the joints snarled in his hair. "Fuckin—shit."

"Hold on, hold on." Mustang sat up and reached over, steadying the metal hand and working the strands free. "It would be a tragedy to damage such beautiful hair."

Ed snickered, trying not to inadvertently rip out his hair. "Are you just naturally that sappy? Or have you been making a special effort?"

He affected a put-upon sigh. "Romance is so undervalued. There—" He pulled the metal hand away and smoothed down Ed's hair. "Tragedy averted."

Ed made a face as he picked strands of hair out of his automail. "Told you the calibration was off."

"Could you use some help?"

"I, um." Ed stared down at his hands. A large part of him—very large—did want to feel Mustang's fingers in his hair again. But now was not the time. "I got it. Just, um. Don't distract me."

He did his best to ignore the man sitting just a few steps up, did his best to ignore the blush he knew was coloring his cheeks. By staring fixedly at the ground, he managed to get his hair braided without incident.

"I was eleven," he said as he tied off the braid. "For the record."

"Eleven years old. . . ." he mused. "I asked because you're obviously very comfortable with the automail. I wondered how long you'd had it."

"It helps that I have an amazing mechanic who makes some of the best stuff there is."

They fell silent. Ed slid a piece of debris under his boot.

Mustang was frowning at the cave-in. "Shouldn't someone be watching topside to make sure those creatures don't claw their way out?"

Ed slid the debris chunk, making long scratches in the floor. "Scar was heading up there—I think. He didn't say much."

"Hmm."

Ed gouged out another set of scratches.

"Why here?" Mustang muttered. "This area is tactically useless. It poses little threat to the rest of the country, and has no natural resources that could be exploited. What could they hope to gain by starting a war here?"

"Beats me," Ed said bitterly. "For a while it seemed like the whole point was to kill people. They weren't even taking ground or—or anything, they were just killing people."

Something flickered across the soldier's face. At first Ed thought it might be resentment at the accusation, but then he said, "Those were our orders during Ishval."

"What—?"

"Almost verbatim." He sighed. "When the State Alchemists were brought in, it was as part of an all-out genocidal campaign. No matter how many died, our superiors always pushed for more." His mouth was a hard line. "For what we did there, your scarred friend has every right to despise me and everyone else who was on that battlefield."

Ed gaped at him. He'd heard stories about the Ishval war, everyone who lived in the eastern district had, but this—this sounded like a massacre.

"And it all begs the question of why," Mustang continued. "Ishval never needed to escalate that far. And if Parliament hadn't overridden the Fuhrer this time we would most likely be looking at the same thing again. If those monsters are fueling fires such as these—why? What do they hope to gain?"

Ed ground the debris under his foot. "What about your superiors?" he hazarded. "The ones ordering you to kill everyone? What are they in it for? And who's the one giving them the orders? The Fuhrer? What does he hope to gain?"

"Not so long ago, I thought I knew." He sighed again. "Men have such simple desires. They dress it up with pretty words, but it all comes down to the same, simple motivations. That was the world I saw." Mustang leaned against his folded hands, brooding on the cave-in. "And I made the mistake of assuming that was all there was. But I'm dealing with more than mankind now, aren't I? At this point . . . I'm not sure I can assume anything."

* * *

Roy was exhausted, but he slept poorly. Ed had gotten him a couple of blankets and had cleared some space for him on the floor (with his clap-and-slap array-less alchemy—Roy was itching to ask about that), and while it wasn't the most comfortable bed, but he'd slept in worse conditions.

Every time he closed his eyes images from the day would play across his eyelids. Hawkeye impaled by Ed's blade and then melting into Envy. Havoc at the mercy of Lust's lances. A charred homunculi corpse reforming itself. In the rare moments he did fall asleep these images solidified and melded with the Ishvalan desert, faceless generals shouting at him to follow orders, his flames burning out of control as he saw just an instant too late that the youth facing him had gold eyes—

Roy jerked awake, a cry stopped up in his throat and his hands scrabbling for the gloves he always kept under his pillow.

"You're still wearing it."

Roy stilled, conscious thought returning in stages.

The homunculi.

Scar.

The cave-in under the chapel.

Most of the tension drained out of him with a sigh, and he slumped back onto the makeshift bed. A quick tug at his left hand assured him that what Alphonse said was true.

Which brought up the other reason he might be having trouble sleeping: the hulking suit of armor sitting not five feet away.

"Alphonse, do you . . . sleep at all?"

"No." The armor turned a page of his book. "No body to need it, I guess."

"Oh."

It would probably be pushing his luck to ask just what had happened to Alphonse Elric's body. Ed's description had been intriguing but cryptic. What kind of alchemy ate pieces of the alchemist's body?

"Normally I sit with my brother. He's used to me being up all night."

"Mm." Roy didn't bother to ask why he was here playing guard instead, or why Ed was deeper in the tunnels with the Lioreians. But he was missing having the young man across the room. Ed had been his hostage for so brief a time, and yet not having him there seemed wrong somehow. "Just out of curiosity—does Ed know he talks in his sleep?"

The startled sound the armored boy made might have been a laugh. "I've told him, but he won't believe me. He insists I'm making it up."

Roy chuckled.

He turned to the wall. He knew he needed to rest, but after that last dream he had no desire to go back to sleep.

He could feel the armor's eyes on him.

"Sir, what do you . . . what do you plan to do now that you know where the people of this town are?"

Roy sighed. "Of all the revelations I've been faced with lately, that has been least on my mind."

He could guess what the Fuhrer and the Top Brass would order him to do, and the thought turned his stomach. He would not see this become another Ishval. If what he'd learned the day before was even close to true, the military already had more than enough to answer for.

That left him with figuring out just how he would get those answers without landing himself in front of a firing squad—or placing anyone else there.

These thoughts continued to chase through his mind as he drifted in and out of a doze. Fractured images of Ed before a panel of generals took up where conscious thought left off.

Roy woke from the uneasy rest to the sound of excited voices carrying down the tunnel. He sat up and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Issat morning?"

"We don't have clocks down here, Colonel," Alphonse pointed out. "But I think so."

Ed's mismatched footsteps announced him before he came into sight, the clunky black work boots he'd donned the day before echoing off the tunnel walls. He paused in the doorway, one hand in his hair and a shit-eating grin on his face. "Hey, uh—hypothetically—how pissed would you be about suddenly losing every POW?"

Roy stared at him. It was far too early, and he'd gotten far too little sleep for this.

"Just . . . wondering." Ed scratched the back of his head. "Oh, and they're saying some trucks just arrived. Like three of them."

"Archer," Roy groaned into his hands. "This is sooner than Hughes said."

"Archer the pale guy who looks like a snake? 'Cause that's who they said is giving everyone orders."

He snorted. "That sounds right." He shoved his fingers through his hair. "Let me guess: you used the disruption to break into the POW camp."

"It wasn't me, but—" Ed coughed. "More or less."

"Well. . . ." Al offered. "To be fair, Brother, we did help set it up. We've been working on that for a while," he explained for Roy's benefit. "The sticking point was getting into the camp and getting it done without getting caught."

"You better hope you succeeded in that last part," Roy told them. "You do not want Archer to find these tunnels."

"Most people here think you're gonna lead the army down here as soon as you get back up to the surface." The look on Ed's face challenged him to either confirm or deny it.

Roy climbed to his feet, making a half-hearted attempt at straightening out his uniform. "If any general in Central got wind of this, those would be my orders."

He looked down at the two young men who had so thoroughly turned his world on its head in so short a time. Alphonse was as unreadable as ever, but Ed looked like he still thought Roy might have some integrity. Roy wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"However," he continued, eyes locked with his former hostage, "I'm here on the orders of Parliament. They made it clear that my priority should be to suppress the outbreak and keep it from getting out of hand—with a minimal loss of life."

Ed apparently found that satisfactory, because he gave him a lopsided grin and said as he rubbed his nose, "So, then—not too pissed about the POWs? 'Cause I don't think you're getting them back."

He shook his head with a rueful smile. "I should be pissed. It's going to be quite a headache explaining that."

"Well. You did get attacked by monsters. I'm sure you could work that in somehow."

A boy of about eight came tearing down the tunnel toward them. He skidded to a stop behind Ed, grabbing onto his shirt and peering around at Roy with wide eyes.

"Michael?" Ed glanced under his arm at the child. "What is it?"

Michael did an impressive job of staying out of Roy's direct line of sight as Ed turned. He tugged on Ed's shirt and arm until he bent down to the child's level, then whispered something into his ear that made Ed gasp with alarm.

"What? How?"

Michael's face screwed up. "He—he just said—"

Ed pasted on a smile and laid a hand on the child's head. "That's okay. I'll ask him. Thank you for coming to get me."

Al was already on his feet. "Brother? What's going on?"

"Scar's thinking doing something stupid. C'mon—you, too, Colonel."

"Me?" Roy hastened to catch up as the boy led the brothers up the tunnel. "I'm not sure why you think my presence would be any help."

"It's your soldiers he's talking about wiping out."

"What?"

"Just come on." They broke into a run, leaving the older man hard pressed to keep up.

This was way too much to be expected to deal with before breakfast.

"Hey!" Ed called to the group just up the tunnel. "What the hell is going on? Where's Scar?"

"What is he doing here?" One of the men moved to block Roy.

Al stepped between them. "Please! Just tell us what's happening."

"Scar said he'll get the army off our backs," a woman said. "What does it matter?"

"No, he said—" Michael piped up, "—he said they'll be gone gone. I heard him!"

The woman looked away.

"I heard him! And Rosé—Rosé is scared. Because of what Scar said he'd do—" The boy clutched at Ed's arm. "Are more people gonna die? I don't want more people to die!"

Ed stroked his hair. "They won't if I have anything to say about it." He glared down everyone there until one of them finally pointed down a side tunnel. After convincing the child to stay behind, and he led the three of them down that way.

"What could he do?" Roy pressed. "He's dangerous, but he's only one man."

Ed shook his head. "I dunno—but that's what worries me. He's not one for making boasts like that."

Rosé met them partway down the tunnel. She was agitated, and seemed to be trying to say something.

"Rosé?" Ed paused in front of her. "What going on? Where's Scar?"

She gulped in air, clutching at her baby like a shield. Finally, with great effort, she produced a faint, hoarse sound: "S . . . stop. . . ."

Ed and Al both gasped.

"Stop him—!" She screwed her eyes shut and ducked her head to the squirming bundle in her arms. "Stop him—please. He—said—he said before that no more had to die. He said—those who've died already were—were enough. But—now—now—"

"Enough . . . for what?" Al's voice was tiny, as if he was afraid of breaking whatever spell had given the young woman back her voice.

Rosé shook her head. "An array—I don't know—he said no more had to die but now—" She gulped and sobbed. "He says he'll kill everyone! Every soldier in the city—f-f—f-fuel—for the array, he said—please! Please I just want the killing to stop—just make it stop!"

Ed started to reach out to her, but stopped short and pulled his hand back. "Rosé," he said, an eerie calm in his voice. "Where is he?"

Without raising her head she pointed to the end of the tunnel, to a flight of stairs that presumably lead to the surface. "Up there . . . heading—heading east. . . ."

Ed nodded. "All right. We'll take care of it."

The cold lump of dread that had lodged itself in Roy's stomach was steadily growing. He sprinted to catch up. "What array—what is this?"

"Scar's brother left him a lot of notebooks full of research, of both our kind of alchemy and eastern alchemy," Al explained. "He must have found something in there—but I don't know! We've never seen them!"

"Eastern—you mean Xingese?"

"Yeah." Ed was wrestling with a door at the top of the stairs. "That's why his arm—fuck!" He threw his weight against the door, then stepped back and clapped. "He's fucking blocked it somehow—"

"Brother, be careful—"

"We don't have time for careful!" He slammed his palms against the door and it exploded outward.

"Brother!"

"I'll fix it I'll fix it come on—"

They piled into what must have once been a café, but was now strewn with broken furniture and debris. It was hard to tell what damage Ed's hasty exit might have caused among all the other wreckage.

Once they were through, Ed turned and slapped a hand against what remained of the door, reforming it into a wall. It stood out against the destruction like a beacon, but it would have to do.

"If Archer's already here, it won't be long before he sends in a unit to do a sweep of the city," Roy said. "If they find the two of you—"

"If we don't get to Scar soon," Ed interrupted, "I have a feeling none of that will matter."

Something caught Roy's eye as they left the café: a deep, wide scratch gouged into the ground. It was partially obscured by sand and debris, but looked like it had been recently cleared off. "Ed!"

Ed skidded to a stop and turned back with a scowl, but when he caught sight of the gouge his face filled with alarm. "Shit—oh shit, oh shit—this can't be good—" He took off, leaving Roy once again sprinting to catch up.

Roy was in decent shape, but he soon fell behind. For someone with such short legs Ed was incredibly fast, and Alphonse was literally tireless. He almost lost them more than once in the city's twists and turns, and did lose them when he inevitably had to stop to catch his breath.

Ed's shout echoed through the deserted streets, jolting Roy back into motion. He honed in on the voice easily, and in a moment they were in view: Ed yelling, Al pleading, both of them demanding Scar stop whatever it was he was planning.

The Ishvalan stared them down, sweeping them aside like children. "Did you truly think the military would give up? Your way was only ever a stop-gap."

"And you think killing everyone is the answer?" Ed grabbed his arm. "That really is all you are, isn't it? This isn't about protecting anyone—"

Scar shoved him away. "All they understand is death!"

Roy ran forward and put out a hand to keep Ed back. "You're right!" he said to the scarred man. "Death is all they understand. And if you kill every man and woman here, what they will understand is that they need to send in twice as many!"

Scar grabbed his throat. Roy's fingers primed to snap but he forced himself not to react. He heard both boys cry out, saw Alphonse grab Scar's arm, but he had to remain focused.

"Go ahead and kill me," he told him, his voice calm despite his racing heart and growing panic. "You'd be doing the generals a favor. Do you think there's not ten more waiting to take my place? And ten more after each of them? Our lives mean little more to them than yours. They'll use your actions here as an excuse to hunt down you and every man, woman, and child from Liore no matter how many get killed along the way."

Scar's hand shook, his fingers twitching as if they wanted nothing more than to crush his windpipe, or to blast him apart like he had so many other state alchemists.

"You won't be stopping anything," Roy pressed. "You'll only hasten this to an end worse than Ishval."

With snarl, Scar tossed him aside like a rag.

Ed caught him just before he hit the ground, cushioning his fall. Roy shook off his disorientation and pushed himself to his feet.

"It won't matter," Scar was saying. "The blood spilled here has already stained this land. I mean to turn that stain to my own use and pull it out of the military's grasp."

"Scar, what are you talking about?" Al pleaded. "What are you planning to do?"

"Nothing your military wasn't planning already." This was to Roy. "Anyone within the city will be used." He paused, glaring at the soldier as he fought an internal battle. "But not the military base," he ground out. "I was not able to extend the array that far."

"You mean if everyone stays on the base they'll be safe?" Ed said.

Roy grabbed Ed's shoulder before he could run off. "Get back underground. Both of you."

"But we need to—"

"Now!"

He shoved Ed away and turned to run back to the base himself. He couldn't be worrying about the young man right now, which meant he needed him as far away from the military as possible, and had to trust that the two of them would get out of range of whatever Scar was planning. As much as he wanted to make sure Ed was safe, he had a few hundred men and women who didn't even know they were in danger.