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Ed sighed, resting his head down on the table with a thunk, hitting a couple books. He’d been at the library for hours, but had barely gotten any closer to finding a lead. There was something there, he was sure of it. There were too many odd notes, too many coincidences. The people with the Ouroboros tattoos were off, somehow, and he was desperate to figure it out.
He knew Hughes had been working on the case, but the moment Ed was discharged from the hospital, he was ready to look around himself. Besides, Elicia wanted to hang out with her father, and it would hurt Edward on a personal level to deny her of that. Especially if he could lessen Hughes’ workload. And sure, he wanted to go back to Dublith to visit Teacher, but… well.
Look, she had put the fear of god in him, okay? Her sandals were terrifying, and her punches were even worse. He’d do anything to put off having to tell her about his and Al’s failed transmutation.
And sure, Winry wanted to visit Rush Valley. Whatever. She could wait! This was more important. Maybe she couldn’t understand that right now, but as soon as he got a trail to follow, he promised himself he’d let her know.
The only person he was worried about disappointing was Al, but even he seemed okay with it. Then again, it probably helped that Ed (begrudgingly) told him that he could go find some cats to hang out with whenever Ed was busy. Would it have been easier with Al helping him? Yeah, probably. But Ed didn’t need Al’s help right now, and besides, Al deserved a break.
Hughes had been investigating this, he knew that. He knew that if it was difficult for someone like Hughes to figure out, Ed probably wouldn’t find anything new. But hey, it wouldn’t hurt to take a crack at it.
Ed huffed, closing his eyes, savoring the solitude, letting the emptiness of the room echo around him. The table Ed decided to sit at was wedged far into a maze of bookshelves, where he’d been certain nobody else would follow. It also probably helped that he was in the restricted section. He sat up again, rubbing his temples, before glancing back down. The surface of the wood was unseen, covered in piles of books, files, and records. Notes were littered around the table, Ed’s hastily scribbled handwriting glaring up at him.
Riots in Liore, people are still furious about being misled, one note read.
Ishvalan conflicts are still ongoing, another screamed.
His teeth grit together at the second note. It was never a civil war attributed to the faults of both sides, it was a massacre, enabled by the Führer. He still couldn’t let himself think about it for too long, because people he trusted tolerated were part of the problem.
Mustang. Armstrong. Hawkeye. Hughes.
No, stop that, he thought, shaking himself slightly.
A yawn fluttered from his throat, and he stretched his arms up, rotating his wrists until he heard the small pop s from his left arm, settling them down again. One positive side of being out of sight was that people didn’t remember you were still there. Ed was pretty sure it was several hours past the library’s closing hours by now.
“So,” He muttered, “The East is a mess. As usual.” He craned his neck, searching the table until he finally found a blank sheet of paper. He scribbled down a rough map of Amestris before pinpointing the locations, making a couple quick jotted words next to each.
Bloodshed in Ishval, fighting in Liore.
It was underselling the true meaning of the conflicts, but if he wanted to actually figure anything out, he’d need to take a step back from emotion. Logic was the only way to find leads.
“Okay,” He mumbled, “Okay, okay, okay. Alright.” He leaned back in his rickety chair, an unnaturally loud creeeak rattling from it. Someone must’ve loosened the screws to spite him, surely.
“So, there’s suffering. Mostly in the East, but…” His eyes met some hasty scrawls on yellowed pages in front of him. He put down the note in his hand and started writing again. “A couple of conflicts in Briggs,” A slash of a pen. “And some unnaturally unruly skirmishes to the West.” A line, circling the dot. He looked over some reports, even though they were concerningly vague, and made note of each location, jotting them down on his small map.
“But what does it mean? What does any of this mean?” He draped his left arm across his head, leaning back and looking up. “There’s the Philosopher's Stones,” He spat, grumbling to himself, “Made with human sacrifices, because nothing that great could ever be so good.”
The Central Alchemical Laboratories, of course, were scattered around. But Ed was curious, so he scraped together some papers, scanning them for the locations. He came up with five- don’t think about the Fifth Laboratory, don’t think about the Fifth Laboratory- and pinpointed each. As he lifted his pen back up, he frowned.
There were shapes on the page. Two pentagons, each facing different directions, overlapping. Hesitantly, he traced the lines together. The Laboratories first, with a red pen, and then locations with either ongoing fighting, rumored fighting, or recent fighting with a blue pen. He scanned the map again, bewildered, because this was so profoundly odd. There was no way that these two unrelated things just happened to form incredibly similar shapes, meeting together the way they did.
His brain lagged behind for a moment, snagging on an idea. It was stupid. Laughable.
He grabbed a purple pen and made wide, arching lines between locations on the larger pentagon. Pendleton to Briggs. Briggs to Liore. Liore to Ishval. Ishval to Fotset. Fotset to Pendleton.
No. No way.
Because, for all intents and purposes, there was no reason that any of these locations should line up perfectly enough to accomplish this.
Undeniably, there was a transmutation circle drawn out on his map of Amestris.
He glanced back up from the map, knuckles pressed tightly against his forehead. He scanned the rest of the words, all the book titles and notes and dogeared pages blending together. He found himself wondering, how has nobody noticed this? And then something clicked.
There were uprisings. There were mobs, fake prophets, conflicts, and riots. Conspiracy was sewn into almost every single location Ed had marked down, and yet the military didn’t seem concerned. Hell, Ed only brought attention to Liore because the Colonel, who was told military secrets, had heard a whisper about it that he’d looked into. “The military…” He gasped, softly, “The military knows something about this. They’re- they’re covering up a national transmutation.”
He stood up abruptly.
“This… this is too big for just me,” He gasped. “I- I gotta tell someone.” He was hit with the realization that his breaths were picking up, and so he gripped the table. He couldn’t be panicking in a time like this-!
“My, what an interesting little thing you are.” A voice crooned from behind him.
Edward spun around, knocking notes to the floor as he did. He didn’t think he cared about those pages anymore, not now.
See, the downside of tucking yourself into a small nook in the corner of a locked-off section, he supposed, was the fact that there was only one exit. And his one exit was being obstructed by a person. A lady, with long, black hair, set in curls. She wore a black dress that was tight enough to hug her hips, and black heels that looked sharp enough to cut his throat. Her lipstick matched her eyes perfectly, scarlet red, almost like blood.
She bore an Ouroboros tattoo on her chest.
He felt his face pale, blood draining. “You,” He choked. “You’re from the Fifth Laboratory!”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She shrugged, smirking coyly. Her smile fell quickly, eyes settling on him, like a fox closing in on a rabbit. “You had such great potential,” She sighed. “I suppose we now have two open positions instead of just one. You really shouldn’t have stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, child.”
“Where it didn’t belong?” He seethed, “Lady, this is my home! There are people here that I care about! I’d say that the details belong to me, fair and square!”
The lady tutted. “Lady? Oh, no, that just won’t do.” She brought up her nails, hands flexing as her fingers sharpened into blades. “If you’re going to die, you’d better die knowing who killed you! The name’s Lust.” Now, she smiled, a glint in her dead eyes, all-too-perfect teeth shining with bloodlust.
Despite it all, Ed swallowed, and then returned her grin. “Nice tattoo,” He snarked, “Where’d you get it?”
He saw her legs tense, his hands flinching into a clap. The crackle of electricity spread through his fingertips, spreading until it honed in on his automail arm. It sharpened, and within the same moment, he parried her lunge, falling back.
He hit the floor, barely catching himself, and glared up at her.
This time, he lunged, aiming his arm’s blade at her shoulder, just to take her off-guard for a moment. After all, her hand was still by her side, and-
The sickening noise of flesh being cut through echoed through the small area, vibrating through the books, then the wooden shelves, and then fading into silence.
He glanced down. Oh. Yup. There were claws penetrating through his right shoulder. But as he looked back, his slash had hit, too.
His automail’s blade pierced through her chest, straight through the snake tattoo. For a moment, he was horrified, knowing that it would kill her.
But then the lady- Lust- smiled, her nails retracting, leaving holes in his shoulder as he staggered backwards. He crashed into the table, hearing his arm drop out from her chest. He glanced up just in time to see something he wished he didn’t. The wound, blood flowing (the same color as her eyes-) out, splattering on the floor, began to bubble. The flesh around it began to close in on itself, tendons and nerves and muscles beneath the skin reaching out, welding together.
Ed wanted so desperately to look away, but he couldn’t.
“Well. I hope you have fun bleeding out. Au revoir, Edward Elric.” She seemed to glide away, fading into the shadows, her deadened gaze meeting his eyes, a smile gracing her red lips.
His breaths stuttered, he was left in stunned silence. Then his attention snapped back to the problem at hand. Right. Deadly Ouroboros people who can apparently heal themselves. Military secrets and conspiracies. Call Mustang. He’s bleeding out.
Oh shit, right!
Right, right, okay. You’re fine, Ed, he cheered himself on, silently. Just remember the first aid classes!
Back when he’d first gotten his State Alchemist certification, there were several classes and lessons he’d needed to learn, some of them required by the military, others forced onto him only by the Colonel. First aid had been required for the certification. Unfortunately, he didn’t pay attention, so he was stuck with general knowledge.
If you’re stabbed with something, no matter what you do, don’t remove the weapon from the wound.
He glanced down at his shoulder and then snorted. Yeah, a bit too late for that.
Apply pressure to stop the bleeding.
Ed could do that! He tried to lift his right arm, but there was a moment of blaring, hot pain that shot through his nerves. His vision went white for a moment, and he forced himself to blink through the blurriness. Shit ! Something important in his shoulder must have gotten messed up from one of the stab wounds. His automail was worse than useless now.
Well then, he supposed he was on his own.
He gingerly reached to his left and grabbed his coat from a chair, having taken it off earlier. He mentally gave condolences to his favorite jacket, and then tore a sleeve off, wincing at the harsh rip of the seams tearing. He carefully wrapped it around the injury, just how he’d been taught to do with the bandages.
He leaned forwards, standing up from the table. Something in his brain screamed, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, but he kept going until he was all the way up.
“Alright,” He grunted, “Now, where the hell can I find a phone booth?”
–---
Turns out, the nearest phone booth was a fifteen minute walk from the library. In any normal scenario, he wouldn’t have cared. The night was pleasantly cool, the rain that picked up at noon was finally gone, and there weren’t people wandering around the streets (probably because it was one in the morning).
However, Ed had just spent thirty minutes stumbling around, down too many freaking streets, trying his goddamn best to find a phone booth.
He crashed into the wall of the booth, sliding his finger into the rotary dial. Eventually (too long, that took too long, he couldn’t breathe-) he heard the phone start ringing.
“Good evening, Eastern Command,” A voice chirped from the other end.
Ed swallowed heavily, speaking as clearly as he could. “Can you-” He started, “Can you connect me to Colonel Mustang? It’s an emergency.”
He heard the woman on the other end hum, and then she sighed, “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to connect from an outside line.”
Ed’s breath hitched, and then he rasped, “I- I’m Major Edward Elric. The Colonel is my superior officer. I’m trying to contact him. It’s an emergency.” He was trying to stay calm, but he was bleeding out, and there was a good chance that there were corrupted military higher-ups, possibly in the same building as the Colonel!
“Can I have your code, please?” The lady asked, “I’m aware it’s an emergency, but it’s our policy.”
Thank Truth that Ed had memorized his stupid code ages ago. “Yes ma’am. It’s yellow, chrysanthemum, Isaac. And then seven, four, two.” He swallowed, and then shook his head when he felt dizzy. He had to wait for the Colonel. The Colonel would know what to do.
“Alright, thank you! Your code was verified, please hold while I connect you, Major!”
He breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall of the booth, cradling the phone against his left shoulder.
Please hurry, please hurry, please hurry, please-
“Edward?” A voice rang from beside him.
Ed yelped, clutching the phone to his chest as he snapped his head to the right. Then, his brain processed what he was seeing. “Colonel?” He spluttered, “Shouldn’t you be in the office right now?” Mustang always stayed in the office late on rainy days, usually only going home at the ungodly hour of two am. It would’ve worked out for Ed to call him, but Mustang wasn’t even there.
Mustang frowned. “Well, I was actually just going out on a walk to clear my head, but then I saw that-” He jerked a finger to the left, and Ed realized he’d left a bloodtrail. Somehow he’d bled through the jacket. Whoops. “And followed it until I found you.”
Ed shrugged, wincing when he jostled his wound (that was still gushing blood).
His gaze softened, just a fraction. “You had me worried for a second there.”
Despite everything, that was what got to Ed. He had to physically bite his lip to stop himself from crying, which was dumb, because he wasn’t a stupid crybaby. It was just… That meant a lot to him, to hear the Colonel say that. He felt warm, for a moment, and almost forgot he was injured. Almost. “Well, I was about to call you, but I guess that was a stupid idea.” He frowned at the phone. “Besides, the command center is pretty far away from here, so I don’t know how you would… have gotten over here… quick enough.” How did Mustang walk this far? It was a twenty minute drive to where he was. He couldn’t imagine how long it would take to walk over.
“Yeah, that would have been stupid,” Mustang’s smile thinned. “Come on, Ed, we’ll need to find something to deal with that shoulder.”
The illusion of safety that had been slowly blanketing Ed shattered, then. He gripped onto the phone and backed further into the booth. “No,” He whispered. “The Colonel doesn’t call me that. Who are you.” They both knew he wasn’t asking.
Mustang backed off a step, and his face seemed so genuinely baffled that Ed almost apologized, but then something darkened. He clicked his tongue, and then rolled his eyes dramatically, before staring at Ed again. It was so un-Mustang-like that Edward physically shivered. That was painfully unsettling. The thing pretending to be Mustang reached into its holster, pulling out a pistol, and aiming it at Ed.
He inhaled sharply. “You heard me the first time, who are you?!” He demanded, choking on his words.
A smirk bloomed across Mustang’s face, and then it said, in a voice that was decidedly not the Colonel’s, “I don’t know, who do you think I am?”
The Colonel’s face crackled, then, with glowing red lightning. Alchemic textures spread across him until it was no longer his superior officer, and was instead…
“You’re… the other one. The one working with-” He grunted. His shoulder was starting to make him dizzy. “You were with Lust. At the Fifth Laboratory.”
“Hah!” They cackled. “Yeah, that was me. Envy, if you wanted to know. Envy the Jealous. Nice to meet you.” Their hair looked like an ugly palm tree, Ed decided.
“You know, you’re annoying.” Envy said.
“I’ve been told,” He replied hesitantly, “What’d I do this time?”
“You left the notes behind, dummy!” Their finger tapped against the side of the barrel. “I’m gonna have to go all the way back there to burn the damn things.”
Mentally, Ed facepalmed himself. Evidence, he should’ve taken the evidence with him!
“Now then!” Envy raised the gun. “Guess we’ll be saying goodbye pretty quickly, huh, kid?.”
Ed jolted, and he tried to run. He wanted to run, to get out-
BANG
His head hit the wall of the booth, and he collapsed to the floor.
His chest felt warm again. Not the nice kind of warm, like earlier. The fuzzy, nice warm. No, something was wrong.
The pain hit, then. Oh, right, he remembered, I just got shot.
He groaned, peeling open an eyelid.
Envy was gone. (They’d said something a minute ago, hadn’t they?)
The phone booth’s door was shut, being propped open just slightly by his foot.
Something clicked behind him.
“Fullmetal, this better not be about some kind of property damage. Again,” Mustang’s voice grumbled. He sounded tired.
The phone. The phone! Mustang had picked up the call, thank Truth.
He tried to turn over, to shift to the phone- which was now hanging from the cord, and not in his hand, for some reason- but was hit with a wave of agony. He winced, curling his knees into his chest.
“...Fullmetal? Are you there? I was told this was urgent.”
He tried to say something, but all that came out of his throat was a high-pitched whine.
His breath was shuddering, now. His vision was blotting out. He’d been dizzy before, but now he felt funny. Something told him that was bad, but he couldn’t bring himself to care anymore.
“Fullmetal? Answer me. That’s an order!”
“S’rry, C’nel…” He slurred, leaning against the wall.
He wasn’t sure if he’d been heard.
He was tired. Could he sleep? Was he allowed to?
Mustang had said something about an order, so he was probably supposed to be doing something, but he couldn't remember.
Everything felt like static. Like the crackling hiss of an unanswered phone.
He felt a laugh bubbling from his throat, but instead, it came out as a cough. Blood. He was coughing blood.
That probably wasn’t good.
Ed was tired.
Ed liked the color red, which was good, because there was a lot of red near him right now.
“Fu…al, say s…thing! Edw…d!”
“...Dad?” He mumbled, sinking further into the wall.
He didn’t remember who was on the other end of the phone anymore, but he felt like it was his dad. Yeah. He felt fuzzy inside at that thought. Actually, he might’ve already felt fuzzy. But this was different.
He’d stopped coughing by now. That was probably good.
The red dribbled down his chin.
He wanted to sleep.
“Ed…d, re…ort! Pl…se, s… som…ng!”
He… he was going to…
He was going to fall asleep now.
“E…d, pl…se! Ans… me!”
As he gave into the all-consuming darkness, he had a final, semi-coherent thought.
Love you, Dad.