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batsutousaiTitle: Dragon's Gold
Series: Chimera-Dragons 'Verse
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/manga
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Warnings: Alternate Universe, worldbuilding, dragon!Roy, chimera!Roy, prince!Ed (Ed is the worst prince), demi!Ed, whipping as punishment, Ed's potty mouth, mention of inhuman experimentations, mention of torture, dragon!Maes, dragon!Riza, dragon!Kimblee, background character death, graphic depictions of violence, fluff, angst
Summary: Prince Edward is a pain in his parents' behinds, and they eventually resort to locking him up in a tower with a dragon in hopes that some enforced solitude will help him sort out his priorities. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't quite work out the way they'd hoped.
As it turned out, Roy had a couple safe houses in Central City that he could stay in while Edward was trying to find his way into the lab, but he wasn't certain about how secure they'd be. So Edward had left him in an alley with most of their things, alchemising the opening closed behind him, then made his way to the first one Roy had on his list, which was apparently a pub in a less-than-acceptable area of town. He saw a couple shady people eyeing him as he walked along, but no one tried to stop him, and Edward couldn't tell if it was because of the akinakes hanging off his belt – really more of a decorative accessory of the Xerxesian nobility, honestly, but no one in Amestris would know that, and Edward had sharpened his so it was very much a weapon capable of drawing blood – or something about the way he carried himself.
The pub was a cramped affair, with a lot of dark corners. A heavyset woman was standing behind the bar, wiping at a glass with a cloth, and she said, "We're closed," when he stepped inside.
Edward frowned at that, because the door had been unlocked, then shrugged it away and said, "Rosaline sent me for the madam."
The woman looked up at him, her dark eyes so like Roy's, Edward suspected there was a relation. "Rosaline is dead," she said flatly, and it was only because Edward knew Roy's eyes so well, that he saw the flash of grief in hers.
"She is not," he promised quietly, and it was really quite disconcerting to be referring to Roy as a woman, but it wasn't a terrible cover, he supposed. "Amestris had other plans for her disappearance."
The woman stared at him for a moment, before setting the glass down on the bar with a 'click'. "Where is she?"
Edward shook his head. "How secure is this place?"
The woman narrowed her eyes and gave him a long glance, her eyes fairly obviously catching on his akinakes. "Secure."
"No dogs sniffing around?" Edward pressed, because no fucking way he was going to bring Roy into a trap.
The woman crossed her arms over her chest. "Is Rosaline in trouble?"
Edward just stared at her, because the fact that Roy was free, instead of in the Amestris military's clutches, and had sent someone else to check his safe houses for him made it pretty clear he was in trouble, in his opinion.
The woman finally got that she wasn't going to frown him into speaking, because she sighed and shook her head. "Not in at least a year. But you'd still best bring her in the back."
"Show me," Edward requested, and she motioned for him to come around the bar and follow her into the back of the pub, which turned out to be a kitchen.
There was a tired-looking woman working back there, scrubbing listlessly at dishes. As soon as the bartender cleared her throat, though, the dish-washer straightened and pasted a smile on her face that looked surprisingly convincing. "Grace," the bartender said, not reacting to the change in expression, "go with this young man so he can find his way back in the back way with our stray."
The dish-washer, Grace, blinked at Edward. "Stray?" she repeated.
"I do not need a guide," Edward said flatly, because he didn't need a second person around while he was trying to manage Roy.
The dark-eyed woman shot him a hard stare. "That secure in navigating our street, foreigner?" she returned.
Edward couldn't quite stop a grimace, because Roy had been able to give him exact directions to the pub, and he believed he could find his way back fine by retracing his steps, but the architecture of Amestris was alien, and it wasn't impossible he'd end up lost on his way back. Especially if this 'back way' was unfamiliar to Roy, or he dozed off en route. "Fine," he muttered.
"Go," the bartender ordered, waving toward a door leading out of the room.
Grace sighed and nodded, undoing an apron and setting it aside, then took the lead out of the building. Once back out on the dirty streets of Amestris, she asked, "Where is this stray?"
Edward looked around at the unfamiliar street, did some quick mental figuring, and said, "This way," as he set off in the same direction he'd originally come from.
It wasn't too hard for him to meet back up with his original path, and finding the walled-up alley, from there, wasn't much harder.
Recalling his promise to stick to drawn arrays as much as possible, to lessen the chance that someone would recognise him for who he was, Edward quickly sketched the necessary array on the wall with the chalk he'd shoved in a pocket during their preparations to flee his prison, then pressed his fingers against it.
The wall melted away, revealing the alley, Roy, and their things. Almost immediately, Grace let out a gasp and breathed, "Roy?"
Roy's eyes – which had been looking at Edward when the wall vanished – turned to the woman and widened. "Gracia!" he whispered back, surprise and relief painting his expression. "What are you doing here?"
"I– Some women came to get me, right before the arrest announcements, using Maes' emergency phrase. Elicia and I have been staying with your aunt; I didn't have anywhere else to go, after–" Grace – Gracia; Grace had apparently been a code name, like Rosaline – broke off with a choked noise and looked away.
'Maes' was one of Roy's friends, Ed knew, and Roy had mentioned something about him having a wife and daughter he'd hoped had got away. This was probably the wife, then, and while she hadn't fled the city, it appeared she'd found a safe place to lay low. And the heavyset bartender was probably Roy's aunt, given their similar eyes; nice to have that relationship connected.
Roy frowned at Edward, uncertainty in his eyes. "Did the madam say anything about dogs?" he asked.
Edward nodded. "Not in the past year. You are afraid they have been keeping eyes on people they can use to control you?"
Roy nodded grimly.
"Roy," the woman said, sounding hopeful, "they said you were dead. Is Maes–?"
"Maes was alive the last time I saw him," Roy promised, before shaking his head. "We can talk more at the madam's. Ed?" He held out a hand toward Edward.
Edward sighed, but obediently walked over and knelt in front of Roy, helping him onto his back.
"What happened to you?" the woman whispered, her eyes wide and horrified when Edward looked at her as he stood.
"It's complicated," Roy offered, his hands gripping tight to Edward's shoulders. "We need to move, right now."
"Can you help carry some of the bags?" Edward requested as he checked Roy was settled and his hood was pulled forward enough to completely shadow his face.
"Yes, of course," she agreed, sounding a little distant. But she still helped collect all of the bags, then led them unerringly back to the back entrance of the pub.
They were greeted in the kitchen by Roy's aunt and two other women. As soon as the door had closed behind them, Roy brushed his hood back and false-cheerfully offered, "Sorry I didn't call ahead, Aunt Chris."
The bartender and the two new women's eyes all widened, clearly shocked, and Edward knew it was probably due to the thinness of Roy's face. But there was relief in their eyes, too, and Edward relaxed a bit at that; these people would take care of Roy while he found his way into the lab.
"Some things," Roy's aunt said with a strained smile, "never change. What trouble have you brought with you this time?"
"Oh, just some illegal experimentation the military has condoned," Roy replied, still in that false-cheerful tone.
Gracia let out a broken noise, while Chris' expression tightened, and the two newer women both looked away.
Edward snorted. "I should find my way now, while there is still some sun," he interrupted. "You may play your word games without me."
"We do have streetlights in Amestris, Ed," Roy teased.
Edward scoffed, because he wasn't particularly fond of the harsh light the Amestrisan electric lighting put out. Which he'd told Roy while they were on the train. "You can take your fucking streetlights and–"
Roy laughed and kissed his ear, derailing Edward slightly. "Okay. I need to be on the roof," he said to the rest of the room.
"The roof," Chris repeated flatly.
Roy's chest expanded against Edward's back as he took a deep breath, then got out in a rush, "I'm a chimera, Auntie. I need to be on the roof to change."
There followed a silence heavy with horror, during which Roy shrank a bit against Edward's back, his too-tight grip leaving bruises all along Edward's clavicle.
Finally, all-too-aware of the time he was losing, Edward straightened and snapped, "The roof, if you please. I do not intend to stand here all night while you sort out your emotional states." He slung a narrow look at Gracia, who had tears in her eyes. "Your husband is still in there."
That snapped them into motion, and Edward was very shortly depositing Roy on the dirty roof, muttered disparaging things about how filthy Amestris was under his breath.
"Stop that," Roy murmured, grabbing Edward's wrist before he could get away. "Come here for a minute."
"I am losing sunlight," Edward reminded him, but still knelt next to the chimera.
Roy cupped his cheek, his eyes troubled. "Promise me you'll be okay," he whispered.
Edward bit back a sigh, resigned to Roy's overprotectiveness. "I have been sneaking past guards since I was a boy; I will be fine. And if I run into trouble, I need only make it to my embassy." Because the line of national embassies weren't far from the lab, according to Roy's knowledge of the city.
Roy grimaced. "And they'll deport you as soon as they recognise you," he muttered.
Edward rolled his eyes. "You leave managing my people to me." He brushed a hand through Roy's hair, which was a lot less fun after Roy'd made him cut it, but it was still plenty soft, and Roy's eyes slid shut at the touch, leaning into it. "If something happens, do not worry about me, just get out."
Roy opened his eyes just enough to give him a narrow glare. "If you think I'm going to–"
"You are a wanted criminal," Edward reminded him flatly, and Roy looked away with a frown. "I am not yet in their sights. Stop being stupid and overprotective; I can take care of myself."
"This isn't Persepolis," Roy reminded him grumpily.
"What would you know about Persepolis?" Edward asked, amused, and Roy glowered at him, clearly unamused. Edward rolled his eyes and kissed the irritable chimera. "I will come back, Roy," he promised.
"I'll burn the whole city down if you don't," Roy growled, his too-strong grip tugging on the back of Edward's neck.
"Will not," Edward murmured, but didn't resist the pull, let himself get lost in Roy's kiss for a moment.
Someone cleared their throat in a rather pointed manner, and the upward turn of Roy's mouth as he released Edward, said he'd been expecting that.
Edward huffed against his chimera's mouth, nipped his lower lip, then ducked out of Roy's grip before he could pull him back in.
As he stood, Edward caught sight of Roy's aunt watching them with one eyebrow raised, while the two women he didn't know wore wide, knowing smiles. He felt his face heating, mentally cursed Roy, and stalked over to the pile of their things to pull out his dark grey desert cloak, a handgun and some extra ammunition – not his favourite weapon, but he'd been trained to use it, and Roy had insisted – and the two flares he'd alchemised before they left Xerxes, to set off once he'd destroyed the Amestrisan's machine, to let Roy know it was safe for him to come.
"Peggy, show Ed back downstairs," Roy called as Edward straightened. "And find Gracia on your way back up; I need to talk to her."
"Sure thing, Roy," one of the two waiting women, the blonde, agreed, before crooking a finger at Edward. "Come on, little lover."
Edward snorted, but didn't bother debating proper form of address as he followed her back down to the street. She was willing to give him some quick directions back to an area he was sure he could find his way from, then vanished back into the pub while Edward started off.
He got some odd looks, but no one approached him, and he did his best to look certain of where he was going.
The laboratory he wanted was fairly obvious; it was a blocky sort of building, painted dull grey, while the other buildings around it were mostly red brick. It lacked the multitude of windows that seemed to dominate Amestris' buildings, and was surrounded by a tall fence made of flat stakes of black metal. Steel, most likely, knowing how much Amestris loved using it. They were spaced apart just enough that Edward could probably stick a hand between the stakes, but he wouldn't be able to squeeze through, and they lacked any helpful hand- or foot-holds.
He circled the building as unobtrusively as he could manage, which got easier as the sun started to sink below the tall buildings, giving him plenty of shadows to hide in. There only seemed to be one guard post, and while there were some impressive, thick bushes hiding the grounds, Edward didn't notice any signs of guard patrols inside the fence. Which, well, given the lack of windows, meant there was probably only the one entrance, which was in clear view of the guard post.
Edward hadn't honestly expected for it to be easy to get in, but he still ground his teeth a bit at how complicated it was looking to be.
And then, through the barrier of bushes, near the back of the building, he heard the sound of the Amestrisan metal door latches open, then caught sight of a glow of fire.
Someone taking a cigarette break?
Edward didn't bother hiding the wide smile that spread across his face as he hurried back around the nearest corner, where another building cast a long shadow over the fence, and the stone pillar gave him just enough purchase – used to scaling smooth sandstone walls during his attempts at running away – that he could climb on top of it. The bushes were a bit wider than he was comfortable jumping, honestly, but he'd never be able to get through them silently, so he took a deep breath, then threw himself over them, ducking into a roll as he hit the grass on the other side.
The grass was a lot kinder than sand, unsurprisingly, and Edward allowed a quiet, relieved breath when nothing felt broken or sprained. A few bruises, but he'd never been one to worry about those, so he got up and made his way back toward where he'd seen the fire through the bushes, keeping as low to the ground as he could, to minimise the chance of someone noticing him. (Another thing that was easier with vegetation; there wasn't really a good way to hide against the differing shades of the sand and sky, out in the desert, even in the dark.)
The smoker was still standing there, staring up at the sky with his cigarette held loosely in one hand, the white coat Amestrisans insisted workers wore in their laboratories and hospitals hanging around him. A door – likely indistinguishable against the grey walls when closed and impossible to open, as there was no handle – was propped open with a clipboard between the man and Edward.
Edward had a brief thought of just knocking the man out, but then he remembered watching Roy pull his own scales out, and blood staining the sand as he tried so desperately to remove the piece of metal that had been shoved inside him in an attempt to keep him from changing forms.
His akinakes was in his hand in a heartbeat, and Edward rushed forward impaling the man on the blade.
"Wha–?" the man gasped, before Edward changed his grip, twisting his blade to point up, and stabbed into his heart.
He smothered the cigarette under one foot while he wiped his akinakes off on the white of the man's coat. Then he stepped past him and into the building, tossing the clipboard over his shoulder carelessly.
Roy's knowledge of the insides of the building had been sketchy, at best, but he had been certain that the chimera-dragons were caged at the top of the building, with massive doors in the roof allowing them up and out, so they didn't have to be carted through the much narrower hallways he'd remembered in the lower levels. He hadn't been able to guess exactly what the electrical charge machine would look like, but he'd been certain it was in the building.
So Edward just...systematically went through every room he came across and alchemised any weird little steel contraptions onto useless piles of their base materials. (Which was an interesting study into Amestrisan machinery, and Edward actually sort of wished he could take the things apart by hand, figure out how everything fit together and how it ran. Some other time.)
The ground floor was eerily empty, and the first floor only had three people, none of whom discovered any of the others before Edward had killed the last of them.
A soldier spotted him on the second floor, calling out, "Who the hell are you?!" as he reached for his handgun.
There was no way Edward could reach him with his akinakes before the soldier could shoot him, and the man had a head start on drawing his gun. So Edward went for his next best weapon: He clapped his hands together, then swiped one hand along the wall next to him, sending a hail of sparking concrete chunks at the soldier, while the wall let out an unsteady groan.
Edward stopped to eye the wall for a moment, while the soldier went down, before shrugging it off and stepping over the scattering of concrete to slit the soldier's throat.
Someone screamed, and Edward looked up in time to watch a white coat vanish around the corner.
"Fuck," he muttered, wiping the bloodied tip of his blade off on the soldier's uniform. He drew his own gun, made a face at it, then started after the person who'd fled.
Two corners later, he found himself faced with a line of five soldiers, and barely managed to throw himself back around the corner before they opened fire, peppering the wall with bullet holes.
They stopped after a moment – likely needed to reload – and a male voice filled with authority called, "Reinforcements are already blocking off the lower levels. Don't throw away your life; surrender now."
Edward smiled grimly at that – he was hardly fool enough to believe he would survive a capture in one piece, surrender or no – and slipped his gun away, then pressed his hands together around the handle of his akinakes. And then, because it amused him to do so, he slipped the blade of his akinakes around the corner.
"Hold your fire!" the man who had spoken called, although Edward half expected it was half an attempt to get him to trust them, so he could round the corner and they could shoot him.
He used his akinakes to point down, at the ground, then knelt and pressed his free hand to the concrete, while someone around the corner let out a confused noise.
Alchemic light sparked across the floor, and someone shouted, "Alchemist!" just before the floor caved in under the group.
The noise was nearly deafening, people shouting and concrete and steel clattering and shattering against each other. In fact, it sounded a bit like more than just one little section of floor had broken.
The entire building shuddered, and Edward scuttled back as a bit more of the floor broke off, too close to comfort.
"I may have misjudged that," he muttered in Xerxesian. Although, really. Who put metal rods in a crosshatch across their floors? If you needed that much extra stability, stop using such heavy materials! Or stop building things so ridiculously tall!
(Or, more importantly, stop turning human beings into dragons and keeping them at the top of a building. Fuck's sake.)
Edward chanced a glance down the hole he'd made, grimacing a bit to discover he'd taken out part of the wall and the floor on the first floor. There was likely additional damage on the ground floor, and he whispered a, "Whoops," then pressed his hands together and touched them to the floor, closing his eyes so he could focus on repairing the damage enough that he could walk around the corner without fearing the floor would cave in again.
He knocked the blade of his akinakes against the floor once it was repaired, nodded at the solid ring, then got up and stepped around the corner.
A gunshot rang out, and a line of fire bloomed along Edward's left cheek and the outer rim of his ear.
Edward narrowed his eyes at the woman standing just inside a door a bit of the way down, a gun held in shaking hands. She was wearing one of the lab coats, which would have made him dislike her even if she hadn't shot him. "Drop it," he ordered, mostly because she didn't look like she had the strength to shoot it again.
Indeed, the gun clattered to the floor at her feet, and she threw up her hands in a show of surrender, tears starting to run down her cheeks. "Please! I don't want to die!"
Edward stalked forward and kicked the gun down the hall, out of her reach, while he considered that. He didn't much care for killing women who had surrendered, even if she had shot him, and if she could lead him to that electrical charge machine...
"The electrical charge you use on the chimerae, where is the control?" he demanded.
"One floor up," she said quickly, her eyes wide and terrified as she stared at his akinakes, rather than his face. "I can take you right to it!"
She could be leading him into a trap, more soldiers, but there were soldiers making their way up, which meant Edward was running short on time. So, deciding to take a chance, he drew his gun again, then motioned for her to lead with his akinakes, since she seemed quite afraid of it. "Walk," he ordered.
He had to shoot two men in white coats – one on that floor, one on the next – when they thought rushing them would save Edward's captive, who tried pleading for them to run away.
If there was anyone else on those floors, they wisely stayed hidden as Edward passed, and the room the woman led him to was empty, save for the massive piece of shining steel taking up one wall.
"That's it," she whispered. "Please let me go."
Edward shot her a flat look as he holstered his gun again. "They will shoot you on your way down," he said flatly, though it was just a guess. With his hood pulled over his dyed hair and shadowing his face, it was unlikely anyone had got a good enough description to pass on, which meant the reinforcements were unlikely to let anyone out alive unless they recognised them, or they'd verified Edward was dead; that was the system in the Xerxesian palace, at least.
The woman gasped out a sob and sank to the ground.
Edward grabbed up a clipboard with partially used paper and a pen on it as he sheathed his akinakes, then quickly sketched the array he'd been using on the machines downstairs. He tore the paper off the clipboard and tossed that and the pen off to the side, then pressed the paper against the side of the machine, fingers brushing the array.
"What are you–?!" the woman shouted, right before the machine fell to pieces. "Are you insane?! Now we can't control those monsters!"
Edward shot her a cold look as he drew his akinakes again. "You should not be defiling the natural order," he said flatly, and she flinched and looked away. "Stand. I need an outside wall."
She opened her mouth, paused and stared at the sharp blade of his akinakes for a moment, then closed her mouth and stood without a word of complaint.
She led him to another room, pointing at the far wall, and Edward repurposed his array to make a hole in it, then lit one of the flares, throwing it as far up and away from the building as he could, then hurrying back across the room and dragging the woman down to huddle there just before the sky outside the hole exploded into light, a back-draft of air buffeting his cloak.
"What was that?" the woman asked as Edward stood and walked back to the hole, listening.
From only a slight distance, he heard Roy's roar and allowed a vicious smile as he turned back to the woman and said, "My reinforcements. Show me to the room with the dragons."
Her eyes went wide, then, clearly understanding. "Mustang," she snarled, the word unfamiliar to Edward.
Her arm moved behind her back, under the white coat, and only the flash of the Amestrisan's harsh lights on the steel of the gun warned Edward of the danger.
He lunged forward with his akinakes, but she turned, dodging it, even as she brought the gun around to bear on him.
But she'd misjudged either the sharpness of the side of his blade, or Edward's own footwork, because he managed to quickly recover from the miss and turned the lunge into a swing, putting enough strength behind it to sink into the side of her throat.
She stumbled from the force of the hit, and Edward's blade came loose, freeing a spray of bright red blood.
The gun went off, and the bullet cracked against the ceiling.
Edward thought, for a moment, that she'd missed entirely, but then fire bloomed through his right upper arm, and he dropped his akinakes with a gasp, the blade clattering against the floor nearly in tandem with the gun and the woman.
She gurgled something he wasn't certain he'd have understood even if Amestris was his native language, and when he glared down at her, wrapping his left hand around his right arm and hissing at the burn of pain, he found she was staring up at him with dying eyes, a wild smile twisting her lips.
"Fuck!" Edward bit out; Roy was going to freak the fuck out when he found out he'd got shot. Twice. By the same woman.
"Ed, you idiot," he muttered to himself as he let go of his wound and quickly pressed his hands together, then clapped his left hand back to the wound.
Alchemic light sparked, and Edward grit his teeth against the sensation of muscles and skin knitting back together.
"You deserve every second of hovering," he finished once the hole was healed. He considered healing the cut on his face for a moment, but it felt like it had already scabbed over, and he needed to find his way up to the top floor and figure out how to get those roof doors open before Roy lost his temper. (With any luck, he'd get distracted by soldiers out by the gate, or something.)
He stooped to grab his akinakes, grimaced as newly-healed flesh and muscles flexed, and drew his gun with his left hand as he shoved his way back out of the room.
The hallway was empty all through that floor, no one jumping out to try and stop him.
At the top of the next flight of stairs was a pair of massive steel doors, and Edward grinned, suspecting he'd just reached the floor with the chimerae. A quick clap had the doors folding back from the middle, revealing a massive room divide by floor-to-almost-ceiling cages, the bars far enough apart that a human could probably slip through them, but the chimera-dragons trapped within most certainly could not.
All of the dragons appeared to have been huddled in the back of their cages, but when Edward stepped into the room, some of them moved forward, looking curious. Most of them had the same sort of metallic colouring as Roy – although none of them were quite the same colour – but there were a couple whose colours were dull; a white one and a vivid crimson.
"I do not guess," he said, raising his voice to be heard by as many of them as possible, "that any of you know how to open the doors?" He pointed up with his akinakes, toward the long cut in the ceiling that he suspected marked the doors out.
The dragons were all silent, a couple of them shifting uncertainly.
Edward sighed, remembering what Roy had said about not being allowed to speak, and looked around at the space where there weren't cages. There were machines on both sides, and he sighed again, then went to the left, holstering his gun as he reached the controls. Which he...couldn't makes heads or tails of.
"I hate this country," he muttered to himself in his native language as he tried to decipher the notations written on a clipboard sat next to the the array of push buttons and other fiddly parts. "Why can't you people use alchemy and heat to power things, like we do? At least then I'd be able to figure all of this out."
He gave up on that machine relatively quickly, walking across the room to the other one. Which looked...exactly the same.
Edward kicked it and snarled insults about its creator in Xerxesian.
The dragon nearest him – bronze, it looked like, with aqua markings like stripes along its neck and sides – let out a snort of pale smoke.
"You are utterly unhelpful," Edward informed it drily.
The dragon snorted pale smoke again, a definite note of amusement in the sound.
Edward flashed it an amused look, only for it to pull back a bit in what looked to be surprise, then shift so it could duck its head down, eyeing him through the bars.
Edward tried a smile that he hoped was more welcoming than strained. "Hello," he offered. "I know you are not allowed to talk, but I would very much like to get that door open. Before Roy sets it on fire."
The dragon huffed out a startled cloud of smoke, then asked in a voice nearly as gravelly as Roy's, "Roy? He's outside?"
"Yes," Edward promised.
Before either of them could say anything further, one of the dragons further down the row shouted, "Watch out!"
Edward automatically crouched as he twisted to one side to try and spot the threat. The crouching probably saved his life, as the sound of guns going off rang through the room, and one of them skimmed the top of his hood, knocking it back.
"What," Edward snarled as he pushed off and ran toward the nearest cover, which was just a chair, "is it with you Amestrisans and shooting me!?" And he should probably learn to sheath his akinakes instead of holstering his gun when he needed a hand free, dammit.
Without warning, a bolt of lightning shot toward the doorway, and the three soldiers there screamed as they were electrocuted. Edward traced the electricity back to its origin, and found the bronze dragon he'd just been speaking with closing its mouth to stop the attack.
Edward squeezed his eyes shut and muttered, "Leave it to Amestrisan alchemists to not only defile nature, but to disregard the stories about dragons breathing fire. I hate this country."
He was going to make Roy take him to Drachma or Xing or anywhere that wasn't Amestris, fuck.
"Are you okay?" the bronze dragon called to him.
Edward sighed and pushed himself to his feet, sheathing his akinakes and taking his gun back out as he returned to the machines. "I am fine," he said tiredly as he checked his store of bullets. He was fine, for the moment, so he slid the magazine back into place with a click. "Thank you," he added a bit belatedly.
The bronze nodded toward the machine. "I've never seen them open the doors, but I've seen them use the console before, and they never touch the yellow button on the top right."
Edward considered the button, then shrugged and pushed it, because it was worth a shot.
The room shuddered, then something let out a high-pitched whirring noise, and the ceiling started to open.
Edward grinned at the bronze dragon, who replied by baring their teeth in what Edward was fairly certain was supposed to be a smile.
As soon as the opening was wide enough to admit him, Roy dove in, wings flat against his back, before he opened them right before he would have crashed into the floor, easily touching down with his head held high.
Edward rolled his eyes; show-off.
"Roy!" the bronze who had been helping Edward called, while the dragon that had called out the warning – one of the gold ones, Edward saw now he wasn't otherwise distracted – called a relieved, "Colonel!"
Edward raised an eyebrow at that; he'd never asked about Roy's military career, far more focussed on plotting out their rescue mission.
"Hughes," Roy said to the bronze, before looking over at the gold. "Lieutenant. It's good to see you both looking so well."
"Unlike some," the bronze said flatly, pointing its snout toward where new scales were only just beginning to grow in on Roy's sides.
"That was his stupid idea," Edward commented.
The bronze let out a snort of pale smoke, while Roy twisted to look at Edward. "Ed!" he said, relief in his gravelly voice, while he lowered his head toward the ground. But then his eyes narrowed and he gave a sniff. "That's blood," he said, something dangerous in his voice.
"Most of it is not mine," Edward promised as he walked over to his dragon.
"Most of it?" Roy snarled, dark smoke curling out of his nostrils.
Edward hit the top of his nose and scowled at the cross-eyed look he got. "Stop being an idiot and let us free the others; I am tired of this country."
Roy twisted his head to look at the red dragon, who was watching everything with a sort of air like he was just waiting for something to explode. "Not everyone," he growled.
"Why, Flame, I'm hurt," the red dragon said.
All the other dragons, save the white one, let out snorts, smoke drifting up toward the sky.
"Roy," Edward snapped, putting all of the authority he had into his voice, and Roy turned back to him, raising his head defiantly. "I want this building and all its vile research destroyed. That means everyone out."
Roy glared at him for a moment, while Edward just stared up at him, unbending; for the sake of his people and his beliefs, he could not let this building remain.
Roy's head finally drooped and he muttered, "I hope you don't regret this," before reaching past Edward and running one claw lightly over a row of push buttons.
All of the cage doors opened, and the many dragons poked their heads out a bit uncertainly.
"Once everyone's in the air, fire on the building!" Roy ordered.
There came a surprisingly loud chorus of "Yes, sir!"s from the metallic dragons, then they all started taking off, while Roy held out a foreclaw to Edward.
Edward holstered his gun, then let Roy lift him up to his usually spot behind his neck. Only once he was settled, hands fisted in Roy's frill, did Roy jump into the air, wings giving a couple strong beats until they were clearing the roof door, heading up toward where the others were gathering.
Half of the other metallic dragons had already started flying away, clearly uninterested in helping to destroy the building, but the gold and bronze dragons Roy had spoken to – Maes and Riza, clearly, though Edward had no idea who was who, since gender didn't translate well in dragon voices – and one of the two silvers remained, as had the white and red dragons, though they held themselves a bit apart.
When Roy turned his fire on the building, the other three metallic dragons and the red all joined in, but the white just watched for a moment, before letting out a roar and flying straight at Roy.
"Roy!" Edward shouted, because Roy was facing the wrong direction to see the white dragon.
His warning wasn't enough, as the white dragon opened its mouth and let out a stream of ice at Roy's side.
Roy roared in pain, twisting in mid-air in an attempt to avoid the attack, and Edward lost his grip on Roy's frill. He made a desperate grab for one of Roy's wings as he slid off to the side, but missed entirely.
He was in freefall, staring up at where Roy was shooting fire at the white dragon, the bronze and gold dragons already turning to aid him. He couldn't tell if any of them had even realised he'd fallen, and Edward had one, terrible moment when he realised he was going to die, alone, in his least favourite country.
And then he landed against scales, two red foreclaws carefully caging him between them as the red dragon twisted in mid-air, then shot up toward the fight, mouth opening wide above Edward. It didn't breathe any fire, though, just kept going until it could clamp its teeth into the white dragon's extended neck, shaking its head and spraying fat droplets of blood everywhere.
Edward had to struggle a bit to find a dry corner of his cloak to wipe chimera-dragon blood out of his eyes, spitting out a mouthful as he did, only to snap, "What the fuck!" when he realised the red dragon was diving back down toward the building with its mouthful.
It dropped the white dragon into the room of cages, then called, "Little alchemist, if I draw an array to blow this building up, can you activate it?"
"Yes!" Edward shouted back, because there weren't many arrays outside his skills, and he had little fear of external arrays.
The red dragon hovered over the building and breathed out fire to scorch an array into the side of the building: A hexagram with the symbols for the sun and the moon inside. Opposing elements to create an instability into whatever it was activated against.
Edward raised an eyebrow at that, intrigued, but he didn't bother asking, just reached out to touch the scorch marks when the red dragon flew him close enough.
Below, someone was shouting an evacuation order, and Edward didn't bother suppressing a smirk at that as the red dragon flew them up into the air, well outside the radius of the explosion.
"Kimblee!" Roy snarled as he and his two friends flew toward them, the last silver apparently having run off.
Below them, the laboratory exploded, a wave of heat buffeting all of them.
"Just returning a favour, Flame," the red dragon said in a careless tone as it carefully loosened its claw cage around Edward, giving him plenty of time to step onto one claw and hold on for dear life. "Your little alchemist freed me, I saved his life. Now we're even."
That...sounded vaguely ominous. Lovely.
Still, the red dragon didn't make any motions like he was going to drop Edward, just carefully raised his claw and flew up a bit, close enough to Roy that Edward could jump over onto his back.
He immediately grabbed handfuls of the frill running down Roy's back, and used it to help him up to his usual spot behind Roy's neck.
The red dragon inclined its head, then turned and flew off toward the west.
"Let's get out of here," the bronze dragon said.
"We need to pick up your family," Roy replied, and the bronze dragon – Maes, apparently, which made the gold dragon Riza; good to know – jerked back in mid-air, clearly surprised. "They're with the madam."
"Dammit, Roy," Maes complained, but he sounded grateful; Roy had that effect on people.
They turned toward the roof of the little pub, where a small party was awaiting them. Riza stopped off on another roof that was a little higher up, watching out, while Roy led Maes to where Gracia was standing in the middle of the roof, holding a child.
Neither Maes nor Gracia seemed to know what to say, just stared at each other, Gracia looking uncertain.
Roy sort of ruined the moment entirely by lighting up the roof with purple transmutation light. Edward had about half a second to widen his eyes in disbelief, before he fell through thin air and landed on the roof with a pained grunt, a little behind where Roy-the-human had reappeared.
"Roy, you moron!" Edward shouted.
That was about as far as he got before Roy twisted and half-crawled, half-tossed himself across the space between them. He cupped Edward's face between his hands as soon as he reached him and proceeded to kiss him hard.
Edward couldn't really do anything but give in, pulling Roy into his lap, so the idiot chimera wasn't stretching quite so awkwardly.
"Knew it~!" Maes said, clearly going for a sort of sing-song voice and failing miserably.
The little girl in Gracia's arm's giggled and shouted back, "Knew it, too!"
"You did not," Maes insisted.
Roy pulled back from the kiss, only to start running his fingers over Edward's face and hair, frowning at the bullet graze on his cheek. "You're okay?" he pleaded quietly, his dark eyes desperate. "Kimblee didn't hurt you or anything, did he?"
"I am fine, Roy," Edward insisted, catching Roy's wandering hands before the idiot decided he needed to start removing his clothing so he could check Edward over everywhere. "But I am making a saddle, in case of any more sky battles."
Roy let out a quiet, helpless laugh and rested his forehead against Edward's. "Not a terrible plan. For everyone."
Edward blinked at that, then looked past Roy at where the little girl was climbing onto Maes' snout, looking delighted. "She looks a little young to be on the run," he pointed out.
Roy somehow managed to free his right wrist from Edward's grip and gently brushed his fingers against the side of Edward's face. "They'll have to go on the run either way," he murmured, sounding regretful. "The military's going to want us back, and they won't shy away from using what's most precious to us to do it."
Edward swallowed, didn't need to ask what was most precious to Roy. "What about your aunt?"
Roy's mouth curled with a fond smile. "She's slippery, never you worry. She's already got a bag packed and will likely be on her way out of town as soon as we take off."
Edward considered that for a moment, then hesitantly offered, "I can write a letter of introduction for her, to the Xerxesian court."
Roy gave him a quick, hard kiss, then pulled back and murmured, "Let's not go borrowing favours from your father quite yet; she has contacts in Aerugo and Xing who will take her in until she can set up something more permanent."
Edward nodded, relieved that he wouldn't have to test his father's temperament after their sudden departure. Also, Roy's family would be okay.
"Colonel!" Riza called in warning.
"Time to go," Roy murmured, and stole one last kiss before sliding off Edward's lap.
Edward sighed, but pushed himself to his feet, then hurried over to the pile of their things, past where Maes was helping Gracia onto his back. Their little girl was already up there, calling down encouragements.
"Ed," Chris called as Edward picked up the first bag in the pile and the roof lit with the purple light of Roy's transformation. He glanced over at her and found her holding out a hand. As he reached out and gripped it, she said, "You protect my boy out there."
"I intend to," Edward promised. "Keep yourself safe."
She smirked. "I'm not that old yet," she said, before giving him a brief nod and stepping back.
Edward nodded in return, then quickly grabbed the last of their bags and hurried back to Roy.
Riza and Maes were both already in the air by the time Edward got back to his idiot dragon, and he huffed a bit, even as he climbed into the hand Roy held down to him.
"Where to?" Maes shouted as Roy got airborne.
"Mountains!" Ed insisted, because he'd been serious about seeing mountains. And, if they ended up high enough, they should have a good few months to help strengthen the chimeraes' human bodies, so they could go places where dragons would be too noticeable, without needing to be carried everywhere.
Roy rumbled a laugh and motioned toward the north with his head.
All three dragons turned, Roy taking the lead, and they took off, quickly leaving the dirty streets of Central City behind them.
Somewhere off to his right, Edward could just make out the sound of a little girl shouting in delight, and he grinned into the wind, breathing in the taste of freedom.
Dragon's Flight
Dragon's Tongue
Dragon's Quake
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