#versus the harder edges when she goes crazy goes stupid

[gnawonid]

I was in 212 on the Uptown A

[anthropwashere]

our indestructible days ch 5

ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4

All Ed can hear is screaming—hundreds of souls all tangled together in a deafening, incomprehensible choir. He's got no idea how Ling dealt with this shit for so long without totally cracking up. Either he and Greed get along a lot better than it shows, or Ling was just that crazy from the start. Never mind. Now's not the time to theorize. He's gotta get in the fight. They have to stop Father now or not at all.

He claps, intending to transmute the cracked and scorched concrete into spikes aimed for that weird energy shield, but freezes at the first glimpse of alchemical discharge around his hands. Red. Right. Better to hold off transmuting until he figures out if there's a way to avoid using Pride's goddamn Stone. Instead he shakes his hands free of any tingling and closes the gap to hurl his automail fist at the shield as hard as he can. The impact nearly winds him, as it nearly does anytime he puts that much effort into through the automail around. It sure as hell feels like he did more damage to his arm than to the shield, but whatever. Better he pay out the nose for a new arm when they all survive this rather than risk using the Stone. Winry'll understand.

[What are you doing?!]

The razor edge of Pride's—self? awareness? what do you call the part of a homunculus that would be called a soul in a human?—batters at his mind like gale force winds. It's a headache and heartburn and something so much worse than either. He trips over his own feet, or maybe his feet trip over him? He's not the swirl of shadow and gnashing teeth catching at his heels but it's still a part of him somehow. He doesn't know how the transference from Pride's Stone to outside his body happens but he can feel the ground beneath their shadow and he can feel the shadow pooling in his chest. He's got a fucking Philosopher's Stone grafted to his heart and a homunculus oozing around his cardiovascular system. No wonder Greed calls Pride a monster. The Ultimate Shield's a goddamn party trick compared to this.

He shakes his head, squinting through pain that's migraine-adjacent. Not now. He's got bigger things to worry about.

"Forcing you to pick a side!" He hollers, pummeling at the shield again and again, and once more for good measure. Some piece of his hand goes flying. Something grinds in his elbow; scarcely heard, felt through his port like an electric shock of warning. Too bad. He rears back and punches that scrabbling inch harder that really does wind him, at least for a moment.

[You're insane!]

Ed's grin is all teeth. Like he hasn't heard that one a hundred times before?

Teacher swings in startlingly close, bloodied but focused and furious and sprinting faster than he's ever seen her move. Blue light arcs between her hands, stone twisting like clay with a thought into a pair of swords. Ed has to push down a stupid twinge of jealousy at the display. Her eyes meet his as the light dies. "It's about time you showed up, Ed!"

Ed tries to warn her but Pride steals back control before he can do more than inhale. "Not quite," Pride calls out in an absurd, echoing sing-song. The shadow at his feet arcs out and up, a jagged wing that slams between the bristling shield and Teacher's blades before she can land a hit. She barely skids to a halt in time, spinning on her heel to gawk outrage at him. Ed feels his face twist in a crazed grin, then his vision goes stupid as even more eyes fan out across the shadow.

She's gonna kill him if they survive this.

Ed wrestles back enough control to stagger back, dragging the shadow like so much dead weight with him. "Damn it, don't do that!"

Pride doesn't answer but most of the eyes wink out. He trips over his feet-shadow-something again as his own watering eyes struggle to focus while five other eyes he can see through roam every which way but where he's trying to look. He blinks and finds himself on his hands and knees with no memory of falling down. Eyes meet eyes and there's no his-versus-Pride's, it's just their perspective. If he moves he will puke, and he has no idea if it'll be the meager breakfast he had at dawn or chunks of the soldiers Pride's shadows minced that'll come up. He really doesn't want to find out.

Major Armstrong and Teacher are doing their utmost to beat through Father's shield. Reactionary light from their every attack stabs his vision, damningly red. He swallows, and swallows again. He's gotta get up. One of them's gotta get up. They're sitting ducks right now. If Father takes an opening he'll definitely try to take Pride's Stone again, and he has no idea what that'd do to him, and there's no way in hell he's gonna leave Al in a million pieces let alone still stuck to that stupid fucking suit of armor—

Greedling jumps in out of nowhere, throwing a carbon-coated punch that lands a neat blow not against the shield but against Father's suddenly raised forearm—and sticks. Ed thinks Hohenheim shouts something but can't make it out over the screaming in his head-heart-Stone. Instead he just kneels there, dumbstruck, as Greedling is almost literally absorbed by Father and then subsequently knocked aside when Lan Fan leaps in to raise some hell. Something about that brief connection—conflict?—seems to have hurt Father in a way all the other attacks haven't yet, because right after that he curls in on himself like a dying spider with no sign of recreating that shield of his.

Pride hisses. [Oh no.]

Father screams, a guttural and senseless bellow of pain that rings throughout the parade field. More red alchemical light lashes out of him, a blinding burst of humming energy that chews through their shadow before the backlash bowls Ed over. He musters half a scream before he's—they're—sent flying. He knows there's pain, more than the there-and-gone scrape and bruise of his body as it's rolled and dragged along bare concrete and sharp-edged rubble. He feels their shadow burn in the light of this strange explosion. His skin burns too, maybe. His arm makes a splintered squeal that feels like a knitting needle's been jammed deep into his port which means something crucial just broke. He hears the souls of who knows how many dead Xerxesians groaning and crying and screaming, and Pride's screaming too, and maybe that's Kimblee laughing? What about Major Armstrong? And Teacher? What about Al and Mei? Donkey Kong and Piggy? Lieutenant Hawkeye and Mustang? All those Briggs soldiers? He doesn't know if they're okay. For all these fucking eyes he's got now he can't see. 

Please, don't let it be only him that survives this. Please, don't let anybody else die because he fucked up.

=

His Stone, despite having been reduced to a handful of guttering embers, can still muster up the power to heal this body's broken ribs and myriad contusions. Edward has fled, intentionally or otherwise, into his Stone and so this body is his to do as he pleases for the moment, and for the particular moment he has no intention of doing anything more than staying prone and catching his breath. His true self had burned to ash in the wake of Father's startling loss of control, and so he's reduced to viewing the battlefield through this body's stinging eyes alone. He can't see. He doesn't know where Father's gone. He doesn't know who will attempt to attack Father next. He doesn't know if he has the speed or strength left in him to protect Father even if he did. 

Even if he did. Even if he did, it's clear to him now—Father is losing control.

Father is losing.

Without the souls of all of Amestris to power his Stone and with all these living Amestrians doing their damnedest to wear him, Father's had no choice but to waste his own Stone on protecting his new body rather than make any progress toward regaining what power Van Hohenheim had dared steal from him.

How strange it is, to see how little it's taken to wear Father down to desperate measures.

Edward demanded he choose a side. Fight with Father, or against. What can he do? He must choose, and now, before either side recovers. The meanest glimpse of the battlefield is enough to determine who the victor will inevitably be. Still, Pride is nothing if not cunning. He has spent centuries in the shadows, calculating odds, gambling on the corruption inherent in all mortal men. A glimpse is all he needs.

If Father wins this battle, killing or absorbing every last human soul, he's already shown his true colors. He'll take Pride's Stone to save his own skin, never mind centuries of loyalty. It wouldn't be a true death, but it would be a death of the self all the same.

If Father fails today, then Pride and Greed will be the last of the homunculi. They've survived this long solely thanks to the human bodies they've bound their Stones to. Greed, the humans might well deign to spare; he's been a coward and a turncoat since the day Father excised him. But him? Pride has been nothing but faithful. If Father fails today then so too will Pride. If he runs then the humans will hunt him down purely for Edward's sake. They'll kill him truly, burn him out of this flesh as Edward has tried to do already. They've already killed most of his siblings. True deaths. Final deaths.

What kind of choice is he left with?

When the dust settles and Pride's Stone has finished healing Edward's body, Pride dares to grow tendrils of himself again. He strains in every direction, disoriented and unwilling to trust this body's senses any more than he must. His nose finds Father before his eyes, and when his eyes hone in on the still-strange shape he stills. Father is staring right at him. Not at Edward's body but at him. Father knows, somehow, that he's taken Edward's body for his own, and knows too that he would benefit from killing them both. He watches Father lurch toward them, black smoke dribbling from his slack mouth. Not smoke. Himself. He's clinging to control of God's power, and he's slipping.

"A Stone!" Father groans, wide-eyed and staggering. "A Stone! A Philosopher's Stone!"

He's become a shadow of himself; a pitiable shell of a god, hollowed out and scoured raw. Pride stares, unable to discern whether this turmoil knotting his new organs is pity or disdain.

"Edward!" Van Hohenheim shouts across some great distance. "Get out! Now!"

Easy enough for the old fool to say. He's not the one Father's after anymore. 

He feels the rebar pierced neatly through their left arm, his Stone healing the wound just so it can open again with his every twitch. It hurts. It hurts. His Selim container could feel echoes of sensations, enough to cheat convincingly, and human adults always made presumptions when it came to children's feelings anyway. This body has startled him with its capacity for pain at every turn. Even with the rest of its injuries healed he feels—echoes. Phantom sensations. Nerves throbbing with the memory of hurt. His skin itches; from sweat and dirt, yes, but from something more than that too. Their lungs are strong, their ribs healed, and still Pride chooses to sit where the crooked rebar has pinned their arm. He shies away from further pain even as their cardiovascular system throbs concern. 

He hears Alphonse Elric shout, though the boy's shrill voice is snatched away on a gust of wind. He hears panic, not the individual words. Whatever he's saying hardly matters. It's some familial concern, as if one explosion could possibly be enough to kill Edward anymore. Disregard the other boy; he'll only matter if they survive this damned day.

Pride shifts, wincing when he feels the rebar tug in their arm. Their automail arm is limp at their side. Not in pieces, but broken enough that even the minute responses he's managed before this would be a welcome change of pace. He doubts Edward would have much better luck manipulating it. At a glance he sees less a mechanical prosthetic and more an arm-shaped heap of scrap metal. He feels too, Edward stirring in his Stone, consciousness not so much fumbled for as bullied. He concedes control mostly so to avoid this strange burning-tingling sensation in their shoulder.

Edward groans, shaking their head and blinking rapidly, squinting further when Pride inches out a coil of shadow to gain a better angle on the state of the automail. Edward seems sluggish, disoriented, and so Pride ignores him for the few seconds he can spare. The arm is what's important. If Edward—if they—are to fight Father, then Greed has already proven how dangerous direct physical contact is. The automail seems exempt from that and Edward has proven infuriatingly reluctant to transmute anything at the risk of their Stone. The arm's their one sure weapon, and it's so much limp metal grafted to their shoulder now. 

Edward shifts, trying to force the arm to cooperate. The shoulder twitches, and creaks for its effort. The sound it makes is strangely muted; a dulled clunk that nevertheless seems startlingly loud in the silence after Father's inadvertent explosion. The fingers attempt a fist well enough and the shoulder hunches when he tells it to do so, but everything in-between remains frustratingly, terrifyingly inert. 

Pride peels himself off the ground, curling serpentine to better direct his glare. "How did it break?!" He demands through a mouth in his shadow alone despite knowing the answer. Steel alloys are strong, but Father has dragged God Himself down from his lofty perch; even his defenses are sturdy enough to tear metal asunder. Never mind the how, they're running out of time. He has three eyes watching Father's approach. He wishes it were more, too used to working with and from a dozen different angles at a minimum, but for the sake of urgency he's conceding to this body's infuriating nausea and minimizing where he can. As if the boy will ever thank him.

 Edward's physical eyes are riveted on Father too. "Rebound off his little meltdown," he says, matter of fact. "I'm surprised the whole thing didn't shatter."

Down an arm then, and Father's only yards away. "Get up! Run!"

Edward proves how insane he is once more by laughing, then jerking hard on their left arm. Red light crackles, hair raising along their skin. "Can't."

"My Stone can heal that easily. Get up!"

Edward does try, in his insipid, human flailing way. All he earns them is a hot rush of pain that leaves even their shadow gasping for breath. Metal scraping against bone is a uniquely awful experience Pride dearly wishes he had no context for, but here he is and here they are, and Father has now lurched that much closer. Pride spasms, growing teeth. "We don't have time for this. I'll cut the automail off—"

"Don't you dare."

Alphonse is still screaming, high and desperate, but the words aren't worth attending to. Pride sinks some, eyes on Father who is so, so close. Still croaking his desperation for another Stone. There's no trace of the cunning creature he's deferred to all these years. This thing is scrabbling and stupid. This thing is shameful. He averts their eyes, focusing wholly on Edward. "We'll die otherwise," he says.

Edward, stubborn as he is, grits his teeth and yanks on his left arm harder. Pain lances through the port and deep into their chest. They gasp equally, fingers and toes curling. "You do that, I'll hand us over to him," he says.

Pride gawks. They're running out of time but he has no choice but to gawk. "You wouldn't."

As answer Edward only throws him a crooked grin. Try me.

Fuck.

Fucking goddamn motherfucking shit.

Kimblee laughs. It's good to know somebody's enjoying all of this.

"Don't fight me this time!" Pride takes control before Edward can waste time with stupid questions. He grits their teeth, tensing despite knowing tension will make this all the more painful. Coward, Kimblee called him. That inaccuracy, his derision, chafes. Pride has no capacity for fear. He is, and has always been, pragmatic above all else. He tenses and strains and rips their left arm free. Steel dragged against bone and muscle and veins that scarcely bleed before healing perfectly. In his head-Stone Edward screams; he ignores it and runs.

Father must die today. This is a fact that chafes despite its logic. Centuries of loyalty—well. It's only right that it chafes now. But Pride is a pragmatic creature, and Edward has always put Alphonse's safety above his own. They can at least agree that dying now would be an infuriating waste of time. Father must die, and here Pride must aid that sentence. Fine. Fine. It's only fair. One good turn deserves another, doesn't it?

He'll worry himself with what might come after if they make it that far. Until then, it's time to take the offensive.