windandwater, you tyrant!

[mikkeneko]

Not terribly happy with this part. But Sera said, post, so I'll post.




Raised voices floated through the door; one a woman's, high-pitched with distress. The other was his brother's, distorted by fury, and Ed pushed himself to his feet, fighting off the shakiness that threatened to overtake him. Looked like he couldn't afford to relax just yet.

The first floor was already a mess when he got to the top of the stairs; the wooden railing at the top of the landing had been torn off, leaving the stairway open to the the room. Ed considered jumping straight down, as Al had obviously done, considered the state of his legs, and took the stairs.

The tables and chairs had been pushed back from the center of the room -- thrown back, and several of them lay in piles of wreckage on the floor. The door to the kitchen had been torn entirely off its hinges, as had most of the other first-floor doors. Al had the landlady backed up against one of the wooden pillars, hands fisted in the front of her dress and nearly lifting her clear off the floor.

"What did you do to my brother?" Al shouted as Ed came slowly down the stairs. "Don't lie! You must have put something in the food! What was it?"

The landlady was crying and shaking, her hands clutching at Al's wrists. Normally, the sight of his sweet-tempered little brother putting mortal terror in the heart of an ordinary person would have shocked Ed, but he couldn't find it in him to muster up very much sympathy right now.

"It w-wasn't me," the landlady sobbed. "M-master Doring's orders --it w-was his orders -- all the tr-travellers are supposed to get a dose --"

"A dose of what?" Al hissed menacingly, lifting her another inch into the air. "Was that poison? Is that what it was? Were you trying to kill my brother?"

"No!" she cried, shaking her head wildly. "It was just a dose of the Rapture, that's all -- it shouldn't have hurt anybody! It doesn't hurt anything!"

"Doesn't hurt anything?" The light in Al's eyes flared like a bonfire going out of control. "I spent half the night watching my brother trying to skin himself and you tell me it doesn't hurt anything?"

"It sh-shouldn't have done that," the landlady gasped, eyes wide and horrified. "I -- I -- I measure out the dose every time, and put the right amount in his food -- for someone your size, it would take more, and it didn't hurt you at all, right?"

"You fool!" Al's gloved hands clenched, and the landlady shrieked with terror as her feet left the ground entirely. "Brother's arm and leg are automail! He's only two-thirds the size he looks like! And me -- I don't even eat! You nearly killed him!"

"Al," Ed closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his human hand. "How many times have I told you about not blurting out our secrets and weaknesses to our enemies?"

"Brother!" Al whirled around, keeping a firm grasp on the woman. "You should be upstairs, resting."

"I won't get much rest if you tear the building apart under my feet," Ed snapped. "Al, put her down."

"No." Al glared at his older brother with something approaching mutiny. "She hurt you, Brother."

"It was an accident," the woman sobbed, tears streaking her face. "an accident, I swear."

"She wasn't the one behind this," Ed said, both to Al and to the hysterical woman. "And besides, we need her to answer our questions, and she can't do that if you throw her off a building."

Reluctantly, Al put the woman back on her feet, and then had to grab for her shoulder to keep ahold of her as she nearly collapsed onto the floor. A movement out of the corner of Ed's eye distracted him, and he turned to see the maid, looking pale and terrified, hovering in front of one of the doors. When he saw her, she squeaked and made a break for it, dashing for the front door of the inn.

"Oh no, you don't," Ed muttered. He didn't feel up to a sprint right then, so he merely clapped his hands, and planted them on the splinter-strewn floor. The alchemical charge raced across the room, crackling across the remaining tables and chairs, and one of them warped and grew into a thick bar that fused across the door, sealing it shut.

There was a shocked gasp from behind him, and he turned again to see the landlady staring at him with a combination of fear and horror. "You're an alchemist," she said. "Like Master Doring."

Oh, good. She was providing information already. Ed swayed on his feet, and groped around for one of the few chairs still standing. "Doring," he said. "The same Doring who tells you to put drugs in the food of guests?"

Al apparently decided that once Ed was down, he was staying; reaching out to snag a table, he dragged both table and landlady over to where Ed was, and forced her into a seat across from him. For himself, he stayed looming over the back of her chair, hands placed on the back. He wasn't uttering threats any more, but then again, he didn't need to.

The landlady darted a look up at Al, and Ed, and shrank down in her chair. "You don't understand," she began in a faltering voice.

"Then explain," Ed hissed, eyes narrowing. "Because yes, I am an alchemist. My name is Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and I'm here on behalf of the military to investigate the strange disappearances that have been occurring in Elliotsburg. And I think you know more than you've let on what's been going on around here."

Whatever color the landlady had had left, she lost at that pronouncement, and Ed thought she would have fainted if she hadn't already been sitting down. "Y-you're the Fullmetal Alchemist?" she squeaked, gasping for breath. "That -- that's impossible! You're just a child! You're much too small!"

"Who are you calling short?" Ed snarled, coming half up out of his chair and over the table. Standing behind the chair, though, Al made a sound like a laugh trampled to death and stuffed behind an alley before the police could find it, and relaxed somewhat. Ed gritted his teeth, and restrained himself.

"Forget it," he said. "Explain. Who is this Doring, and why is he poisoning people who travel to the city?"

"It's not poison," the woman began, hesitantly, still darting glances back and forth between the two brothers before settling on Edward as the safer of the two. "Master -- Master Doring provides the Rapture for everyone in this town. He left orders that everyone who stays here overnight should be given -- should be given a proper dosage of the Rapture. You -- you must understand, it isn't supposed to hurt anything! It's only to give people the most wonderful experience of their lives!"

A low growl came from inside Al's armor, and the back of the chair that he'd been holding in his hands snapped with a shot. The landlady startled, and gave a small shriek.

"Without them knowing," Ed snarled. "Who the fuck does he think he is, drugging people up without their permission? Why the fuck do you go along with it?"

"Master Doring," the woman faltered. "Master Doring is in charge of this city. He -- he is the only one who can make the Rapture. Everyone does what he says, or else -- they receive none."

Ed's eyes widened in shock, his anger momentarily lost in a rising tide of realization. "Are you saying," he said, "that everyone in this city is taking this drug -- this Rapture?"

Quaking slightly, the landlady slowly nodded.

"Fuck." The pieces were falling into place, the connection made. This was how a botanist, a chemist, could make himself the sole lord and master of a town of thousands. This was how he had gained control of the factories, the houses, the people; he was the only one who could give them their happiness, their -- "Fuck," Ed said again, as a second wave of realization crashed down on the first.

"This -- Rapture," he said, nearly spitting the word. "Once you've taken it for a long time, you can't stop, can you?" He didn't wait for confirmation, following the chain to its end. "Even if you want to, you need to have it again, and since Doring is the only one who can make it, he's the one who controls --" He bit off the rest of the sentence, mind racing. Fuck. And by launching it on the newcomers to the city, unawares, he could bring them under his control, giving them no chance to run and report his scheme to the military. No need for a prison to hold them, this was a chain that was much harder to break. And once caught --

Al spoke then, breaking into his train of thought. "How much," he said slowly, "does it take for a person to become addicted to Rapture?"

The landlady's lips quivered, and she hunched further into his chair. Ed drew in a sharp breath, attention riveted on her once again. "How much?" he demanded, in a shaking voice.

She gulped, visibly, and answered in a tiny voice. "Several doses," she said, "if... if the amount is small. How... however... if the amount is very large, then..."

Fuck just didn't seem to cover it any more.


~tbc~