It had been so sudden. One moment Rukh had been feeling better than fine (minus the dull throb in his shoulder), exhilarated and full of energy, stronger than he had ever been before, and then everything exploded. It started at his feet, but had been so fast that his entire body was enveloped almost instantaneously. One by one, his nerves fried in the wake of the electrical surge, and from all over his body his brain received mental messages of agony beyond comprehension. Then the river of lightning reached his brain, and everything shut down.
He crumpled beneath his own weight as his muscles slackened, falling to the hard floor in a heap - it hurt just to feel how cold the metal surface was - smoke rising from his prone form and sizzling robes. His creamy skin, once smooth and without blemishes of any kind, was now riddled with scorch marks, the scales flaking off as he twitched uncontrollably, like a chicken with its head chopped off. His face was contorted into silent scream, mouth open and eyes wide; though he had no control over himself anymore, his empty gaze fell upon the alchemist, the unknown assailant.
Damn that woman...she dare bring harm to me? She dares bring harm to MY beautiful skin?! Remember her face well, Rukh; you will be helping me take my revenge upon her soon enough.
But the once-Ishbalan said nothing, nor did he think anything; he was too far gone to notice anything around him or even in his mind by this point. Something came up over him, a large shadow of a man, bending over and holding a syringe. The needle went neatly into his neck, with him completely unable to object physically or verbally, and injected its contents.
You're not going to make it until the medics come; that's kinda my fault, I guess - if you had been fused with that Rhyperior you might have avoided this mess. Don't worry, I'll keep you alive, for both of us.
He was already unconscious by then.
It was pure agony: it felt like his entire body was burning, being pelted with red-hot cinders, even though most of his skin was covered by a heavy cloak, dripping with his sweat despite the arid environment. It didn't seem possible for a sandstorm to be this bad - the ones he had lived through back home were so mild in comparison - and he feared that he might be caught up in the dust, his flesh ripped apart and scattered on the wind across all the world. He dare not open his eyes while facing the maelstrom, lest the blazing grains become lodged beneath their lids and drive him further into this sand-swept hell, but even then he wouldn't have the slightest idea of where to go; everything was the same. And then, after an eternity of staving off his madness, the bombardment stopped, the howling winds merely a comfortable breeze on what little of his face was shown. He opened his eyes, slowly, carefully, and saw...
...A dull, gray surface, seeming to stretch off in all directions from this vantage point. Rukh bolted upwards from the comforting caress of the bed, almost immediately regretting doing so; he winced from the painful ache that spread over his body, still feeling sore from the earlier battle. Moreover, all attempts to move his hands were met with a constricted, tugging feeling around his wrists, and one glance downward revealed the culprit: a rectangular piece of wood shackled around his hands. ...Wood? Just wood? No way, I could break these easily; they wouldn't make it that simple for us to escape a second time.
And indeed, a glance around the room revealed that not only were the other chimeras - miraculously, all of them were still alive - similarly chained down, but Edward, Nia, and that blue canine fellow were in far worse predicaments. Additionally, there was actually a guard this time, a man standing outside, a very stern, grim look on his face; Rukh took note of the sleek rifle placed well within his reach, and decided that the escape would have to be put on hold for the moment. He also saw the cell across from theirs, along with its sole occupant - a human, it seemed, interestingly enough - and...some bizarre mannequin which he could only assume was built from the bed that had once been there.
It was then that he became aware of a dull buzzing in his ears, one that steadily became louder and more distinct as he focused on it and his senses returned to their full ability. Talking, a particularly gruff voice, that of the officer outside, seemingly directed at Edward, who was in the bed directly to Rukh's left - he grimaced as he saw the scars around the golden-haired teen's torso, no doubt a result of his now-missing automail. As he listened, realization began to dawn: they had killed people just now. He himself had not been responsible, no, but it horrified him nonetheless. And that they had had families to their name...he offered a silent prayer to Ishbala, begging for forgiveness.
But all of his thoughts ended as he heard what the man had to say about humans, about monsters, about the chimera. They...they were inhuman, now? Ravenous beasts? No; though they had succumbed to primal fury, they had only been acting on human instincts, on human rage. But that the military would be lecturing them on this matter? "How can you accuse us of these crimes?" Rukh demanded of the guard, "You, who are yourself but a tool of the military?"
"You say we are now without human feelings, beyond remorse, mercy, and compassion. Answer me this, great human: when the military goes to war, ravages the land of its enemies, kills its people, soldier and civilian alike, do they come crawling back afterward and beg for forgiveness? When they came into the Ishbalan homelands and killed thousands, for no explained reason whatsoever, did they apologize to all the refugees who had managed to survive?!" He remembered the horror, the fear he had felt in that time, always fleeing from the men in blue coats. Whole branches of his family tree were cut off and chopped to pieces over the course of only a few years. And when it was all over, he continued to live in fear, dismayed and hopeless until Ishbala returned him to faith. Then he remembered again that horrible woman they had encountered earlier, the Lightning Alchemist. "I have seen the blood spilled by war, the methods of the alchemists who abused their godly strength for the military's cause, and I can tell you that you are no more human than any of us have become!"
