damned_institute | Day 22: Brunch

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Day 22: Brunch

Cid usually liked sleeping in, especially in a place as messed up and uninviting as this, but this happened to be one situation where he really wished he hadn't.

Right there, on the bulletin board. The Head Doctor and he'd fucking missed it? Some part of him wished he'd been there to take his eye out and another part of him knew he wouldn't have been able to. No man that powerful who hid for so long went to dangerous places without some kind of entourage.

Brunch sounded like it'd be filling, at least, though he nearly stopped in his tracks when the bastard announced TEA. TEA. It'd been a damn long while since he'd had some fucking tea, though with all the stress this place had found fit to rain down on his fucking head, it hadn't really been the first priority on his mind. Kinda nice, even if Cid was sure this was just some game the mother fucker was playing to get them all stuck neck-deep in Stockholm Syndrome.

He scanned the mostly-empty room for any sign of a familiar face once he'd piled waffles and sausages and syrup on his plate, though the person he really wanted to talk to was that Reynolds guy. "Spaceship" was the last word he remembered clearly before waking up in his bed, and dammit if he wasn't going to keep it stuck like glue in his mind.

He found a table where he could watch people come into the cafeteria and grabbed for his mug. The steam rising from his drink and the bag of herbs in it was nearly enough to make him grin despite it all, and it was with marked leisure and a little relief that he drank his goddamn tea.

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[from the same place]

Ed deposited his tray, careful not to drop anything and damn, he'd forgotten how difficult everything was with only one arm. He sat down opposite the man and quickly gulped a few more mouthfuls of food.

"Yeah, I made it in my room," he replied, a little wariness in his voice. "I got some metal from the kitchen so I used that."

Alchemy... that was... interesting. He'd encountered people with some strange abilities, but this was like nothing he'd run into before. Fox took several bites of his own food before speaking.

"So, all you need, in order to make a weapon... you only need the base materials it's made of? No equipment or anything like that?" That was amazing, and Fox had a pretty good idea where he could get some metal for Edward to work with.

He just had to get the younger man to agree to making it.

Ed nodded, dropping his fork so he could attempt to cut up his food with the knife. He really hated having broke automail. He hoped Roy wouldn't gloat too much about being asked to fix it. "Yeah, give me the materials to work with and I can make something, as long as it's the same amount. No equipment." Of course, normally, he wouldn't be quite as limited; he'd be able to draw the minerals out of the earth itself to make himself whatever he desired, but here it was easier to use what already existed.

"Oh, an array helps. But I have paper to do that. Normally I wouldn't need one."

Fox was quickly going over places to get sufficient metal of a good enough quality to make a sword.

Door knobs would be too difficult to gather, and too weak a metal. He didn't want to go all the way to the kitchen... there wasn't enough good metal in his room. The bathroom would-

Oh, the bathroom... plumbing. A slow grin spread across his face and he tried not to chuckle slightly.

"Could you make it from a pipe?"

Ed cursed softly as the knife slipped, scraping across his plate and then skittering a couple of inches away. He grabbed it again and dropped it huffily next to the plate before reaching for his fork again. The offending food was quickly eaten, along with the rest of it.

Mostly sated, Ed propped his chin on his hand, forcing away the return of his tiredness. At least he'd managed a little while during the first shift.

A pipe? Ed thought for a moment and then nodded. "Yes. Just hope they aren't lead. And eh... the water will leak."

"It's called sabotage, I hope the head doctor has a good plumber he can call, replacing the pipes will take a lot of work... And if they were using lead pipes we would've noticed by now, I think." Fox shrugged slightly and ate more of his food.

"Could I get you to transmute a sword for me? I don't really have anything I can offer in exchange for it, unless you count my ability as a fighter." He glanced around the cafeteria, quietly observing everyone from a distance.

Ed couldn't hold back a soft snicker at that. Fox had a point. Although... "As long as it doesn't mess up the food or the bathrooms." That was the last ting they needed. At least they were being fed and had showers and toilets.

He excused himself for a moment to go and get another large plate of food and quickly returned. He'd need as much enegery as he could get if he wanted his automail to keep working. He wasn't greedy, he just required a lot to keep moving.

"I can make you a sword," he replied, a little embarrassed at the offer of an exchange. Why did people keep doing that? He made stuff because it was what he did; it let people protect themselves. "Don't need anything in return," he said. "Unless you want to share information. Or if you find a stash of metal, I wouldn't mind being told. I can use it for more weapons." That sounded about fair, he thought.

One last things though which he really shoulde mention. He smiled tiredly at the man. "If you want it tonight, you might have to wait until a... an acquaintance can fix my arm first. It got damaged last night."

Fox nodded slightly. "I'm sorry I didn't do more to help in the fight... being taken out so quickly like that... it was kind of embarrassing. I've taken on larger machines, I didn't think one so small would be as difficult to deal with as it was." He paused for a moment, thinking back to his other fight against a machine, and shook his head slightly.

"And as for sharing information, I really don't know very much about this place that you probably don't already know. But I'll keep that in mind in case I do manage to find something," Fox smiled at Edward and finished off his food before pushing his tray aside and resting his head and chest on the table.

Ed's eyes widened slightly and he finished off his second plate of food before replying. "You've fought them before?" he asked, a little confused. Fox didn't know about Alchemy, but he'd fought Soul Bonds before? "You have Soul Bonds in your world too? How do you make them if you don't have alchemy? How do you attach the soul?" He couldn't help but ask, desperate even now for knowledge. There were so many people here with different abilities; there must be a great deal to learn.

Ed returned the smile brightly, glad for any help that he could get. "Anything is good. Even if it's just about the layout of this place. It's easier to find if there's more people looking."

Fox could only stare at Edward, trying to process what he was saying. Soul Bond? Attaching a soul to a machine? His world? He went through that information several times before deciding on the sanest answer he could give.

"It wasn't... The machine we fought last night, the sounds it made when it moved were from internal gears and plating moving against one another, and probably some hydraulic sounds. It reminded me of a machine... a... hmn, how to describe it. Metal Gear. It's a bipedal tank that's roughly... three stories tall, I think. The sounds it made were similar, and the machine we fought last night almost reminded me of a miniature Metal Gear without a pilot. It's the closest thing..." Only, it really probably wasn't. It had been intelligent. It was probably closer to what he had been when he'd been stuck inside the suit.

"Metal Gear is pretty much the closest thing to what we fought last night that I've run into. I'm ashamed to say I did much better against the Metal Gear than I did against the... whatever it was last night." Fox was kind of curious, though.

"What is a soul bond, a soul attached to a machine? Do you use dead people to make them?"

"Metal Gear," Ed repeated quietly, trying to picture it. A bipedal tank, something as tall as the military HQ, taller maybe. The tanks of his own world were rudimentary things, clumsy and not particularly developed. Why bother when an alchemist could do twice as much damage in a shorter time? He had difficulty imagining something like that, no matter how he tried.

"And you'd fought one before?" That was impressive. It wasn't as though Ed had fared well against the Soul Bond. If his alchemy wasn't working, then maybe in his own world, Fox was stronger. It sucked not being able to do what he normally did.

Ahh, this was something he could understand better though. "I eh... broke into a secret military facility," he said with no trace of shame. "They had guards there. Soul Bonds are... they're human souls affixed to suits of armour with a blood seal, an alchemy array drawn in blood." He sighed softly, leaning back in his chair and carefully not mentioning Al. Fox didn't need to know about it unless it came up. "They'd been using prisoners to do it. Killing them and putting their souls in the armour. And they moved and talked and thought just like that thing last night."

"Yes. I fought one... but I had a High-frequency blade, and a force cannon... of course, I ended up losing my arm and then it stepped on me, but I did a lot more damage to it." Fox considered what Ed was saying about the military and Soul Bonds...

"That sounds... too similar to something the military was doing in... in my world." That was too strange, different worlds? But he was a lot more willing to accept it after last night and the events today than he would have been yesterday.

"There was a soldier who supposedly died on the battlefield. When the military recovered his body during part of the clean up operation, they found out he wasn't quite as dead as they thought. They put him in a lab and attached a special suit of armor. An Exo-skeleton. He eventually broke out, but he had gone crazy by that point from all the experiments..." Fox leaned back in his chair.

"There are some things that are worse than death... being attached to armor like that against their will..." There was also something else about what Edward said that caught his attention.

"What were you doing in a secret military facility anyway? And how did you know about it? The military in my world it down right paranoid, and always disguises their most important buildings as something else. I'm not one to judge or anything, that sort of stuff is... it was my job."

Ed just stared for a moment, half of the words going over his head, which was not a sensation that he liked. Force cannon? High-frequency blade? And getting stepped on by a Metal Gear thing sounded painful. "Lost an arm? Guess we have something in common," he said with a slight smirk. Even if his automail was broken for now.

He went sheet white when Fox talked about being sealed in armour. He glanced off to one side for a moment, a guilty gesture, not wanting to meet the man's eyes. "I know that," he said quietly. "And someone who did attach a soul to armour would be unforgiveable."

Ed wrenched his attention back to the present and away from a dark night and the scent of blood and crying. He looked up at the man, his normal cockiness showing, albeit a little subdued. "It was a lab. They had information I needed for my eh... research so I broke in." He shrugged as though it was nothing. "They pretended it was abandoned, but it wasn't."

"Yeah, losing a limb isn't very much fun. Neither was being stepped on, truthfully, but I guess I've probably been through stuff that's almost as bad." He could laugh about it now, but he had to work very hard to keep from thinking about that battle too much.

"If it's a painful subject, you don't have to talk about it, and I didn't mean to say anything to open old wounds. Everyone has parts of their life they'd rather not have mentioned." Fox smiled slightly at Edward. He couldn't begin to guess what the kid had been through. That slightly guilty look... it momentarily reminded Fox of his own guilt. But he swallowed slightly and pushed those thoughts aside before they could take root. He didn't want to think about his sister right now.

Fox didn't believe for a second that Edward had done it purely for research purposes. There had to be another reason. "I've never been very fond of labs, personally. Bad memories. It's strange, being from very different worlds, but there are still similarities between the military... hey, do they have nuclear weapons where you're from? Or even nuclear reactors at all?"

Ed had to snicker at that. "Yeah. Hurts like hell. Especially getting them fitted with automail." Winry would have killed him for getting it damaged if she'd been here. He was extremely grateful that she wasn't. At least she was safe. "Getting stabbed through the heart wasn't a bundle of laughs he either," he added, slightly more bitterly.

Nuclear? He shook his head. "Never heard of it. What's nuclear? What kind of weapons are they?"

Ed scrutinised Fox for a long moment, watching his expression carefully before he came to a descision. It was probably foolish, but he felt like he could trust him, the same way he trusted sensei, the same way he trusted Hughes. He took a breath and spoke before he could overthink it. "My brother. I... mother died. We tried to bring her back but it didn't work." He touched his automail with his flesh hand. "What we wanted wasn't possible. The reaction took my leg but it took my brother's body." He licked his lips nervously. "The only thing there, was a suit of armour. So I... I gave up my arm to attach my brother's soul to it." His fingers clenched on the edge of the table. "I condemned him to that! To not be able to feel or eat or even sleep."

He sat back in his seat, watching Fox impassively and waiting for his reaction.

"If you haven't heard of them, you really don't want to know." Fox said concerning the nuclear weapons. He'd been about to say something else when Edward started talking about his brother.

He just went silent and listened quietly, studying Edward with his calm, blue eyes and not looking away. It was strange, to have someone open up to him like that, tell him everything. The trust involved in revealing something like that... especially considering how upsetting it was too Edward.

"I... I know what it's like to be an older brother. And... the soldier I told you about, the one put in the suit of armor? That was me." He didn't look away, but just quietly held Edward's gaze.

"You did what you had to, in order to save him. I know what it's like to hurt people you care about..." Fox finally closed his eyes, forcing himself to relax now that he realized his muscles had been tensing up as he spoke.

Ed wasn't entirely sure about that. He always wanted know things. If he didn't find out, then how would he know one when he saw it? Still, Fox seemed kind of serious and there were more important matters at hand so he let it drop.

He hunched up slightly as Fox scrutinised him, shifting uncomfortably. He had really piercing eyes, a bit like the Colonel when Mustang got serious. There were very few people who had ever looked at him the same way and he wasn't used to it.

His eyes widened slightly at what Fox revealed. The Exo-skeleton armour. Trapped in a lab and experimented on until he went crazy. The thought made him feel slightly sick. He felt like he should apologise or something, even though it wasn't his world. All he could do was return the man's gaze steadily. It'd be kind of disrespectful to look away. "You seem find now," he said, curiosity clear in his voice. Had something happened there, or was it another result of this place?

"He was ten," Ed said quietly. "I was eleven and it was my idea to bring her back." He smiled weakly, finally breaking eye contact. "That's why I joined the military and why I broke into the lab. So I could find a way to restore his body."

"I... I guess dying again brought me some piece. I died saving someone very close to me... I can still almost feel it, there are times when I think I'm just going to start fighting and be unable to stop myself. But I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I no longer have machinery attached to my brain and spine, and it's also... this place." He frowned slightly, and looked at Edward again.

"So all of this happened through Alchemy?" That was interesting, and Fox was slowly putting pieces together. "So the military in your world has Alchemists as part of the army... and what rank are you, Edward?" He was really young.

Ed scowled briefly at Fox's words. "Seems like half of us here have died," he muttered. It gave him the creeps thinking about it. And what happened afterwards? If they got out of here, would they be dead again? He hoped not. Hughes needed to see his family after all and Ed still needed to restore Al and kill that bitch Dante.

He nodded when Fox asked about alchemy. "Yeah. My father was an alchemist." He carefully shoved away the complications that came from what he now knew. "Me and Al picked it up as kids. But there's nothing you can exchange for a human soul. That's why it didn't work." If he'd only realised that before he'd tried.

"Yeah, there are State Alchemists. They work doing research and stuff a lot of the time. Some of them are proper military like Colonel Mustang. I'm a Major and the youngest State Alchemist ever," he couldn't resist adding. He was proud of his acheivements, even if he wasn't happy as part of the military.

Fox listened quietly, raising an eyebrow at the mention of so many people having died before being brought to this place. It was very strange, he had to admit. One or two might've been passable, but more than that...

"I knew someone briefly who knew a lot about souls and spirits. And in my world there was a soldier who was said to be able to call the souls of departed soldiers to aid him in battle." He shook his head slightly recalling the stories he'd heard about the Cobra Unit during the second World War.

"Major already, that's quite an accomplishment." Fox grinned at the young soldier. "I've been a solider for my entire life, and I was a Lieutenant Colonel, in the U.S. and then Second in Command at Zanzibar Land... but in FOXHOUND I was awarded the highest ranking that could be achieved for a stealth agent when I passed the entrance exam with a perfect score. That really doesn't seem like very much though if you can turn a shapeless lump of metal into a sword... and became the youngest State Alchemist ever."

The talk about souls and spirits in that kind of context made Ed slightly uncomfortable, forcing him to remember Dante and his father's words. Alchemy was powered by human souls, that's what they'd told him. That other world beyond the Gate; people died there and their souls powered the alchemy he did unthinkingly. "There wasn't anything like that where I come from." Amestris was a science based country, with supersticion frowned upon. "But there were these creatures called homunculi; alchemically created humans without souls."

Ed returned the grin with a bright one of his own. He had to be honest though, unfortunately. "It's not so special. All State Alchemists start with the rank of major." He shrugged. "It's in case war breaks out again and they have to serve with the army."

He drunk in the information that Fox gave him. Again, much of it seemed to make no sense, he didn't know what these places were, but it was still fascinating. And he was smart too and talked to him without being condescending, unlike Mustang. "That's impressive!" he said, grinning widely. "Stealth? Is that like special operations? I knew someone who'd done that in my world. But she was betrayed by the government." He hadn't been as close to Martel as Al had, but he had still respected her.

"Special operations. Yes. It's a fancy name for sneaking around and stealing information and killing people when the government can't officially do anything. They generally sent us in with nothing but a radio, and we had to find everything we needed." Fox grinned slightly, amused.

"In the country FOXHOUND was run by, military equipment was made by whichever company bid the lowest... Roy use to joke that we had an on-site procurement policy because we didn't want the enemy to have better weapons than we did." That was completely untrue. On-site procurement was something of a tradition, according to Big Boss. It was also very good for stealth. Couldn't pin anything on america if there were no american made weapons around. It was cheaper, too.

Ed snickered softly at Fox's explanation. It did sound like what Martel had described. "I guess that's one way of doing things," he replied. "I should try it. I'd probably get in less trouble for property damage bills." Mustang hated those. It wasn't Ed's fault if they had shoddy workmanship which couldn't stand up to a little destructive alchemy.

He was about to say more when Fox mentioned the dreaded name. He looked up sharply. "Roy? You had a friend in the military called Roy? Huh." He frowned slightly. "Same name as the Colonel."

Fox blinked slightly at Edward also knowing a Colonel Roy. "That's strange. The Roy I knew was also a Colonel before he retired. He was technically my commanding officer at one point." Of course, Fox had never really taken orders from Roy, and Roy had, thankfully, never really tried to give him any.

"I take it you don't get along very well with your Colonel Roy? I've known him since... hmn, since before FOXHOUND, I don't really remember when we first met. I think it was through Big Boss, when I was still young. We never really got along too well... professional differences. He was pretty close with Snake, though... the man I was trying to save last night."

"This is just weird," Ed muttered. Coincidences and similarities were building up in a quite bizarre way. He shook his head vehemently at Fox's question. "He's a snarky sarcastic pain in the arse who manipulates me, sends on waste of time missions and makes fun of me," he said with a dark scowl. "And he wants to take over the military but he killed the Fuhrer and let me and Al escape so I guess he's not totally bad," he added grudgingly.

Come to think of it, he did vaugely recall seeing someone with Fox last night; he'd been rather preoccupied though. "Is your friend alright?" he asked.

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