Worlds Collide

A/N: Sadler Girl, Last chapter was fluff as a sort of preemptive apology for the crap that's about to happen. Anyway, the guys are getting older, and I'm glad the relationships involved in this are realistic. I'm trying to keep updates quick, but I'm actually going away tonight and tomorrow, and don't know how much I'll get to work on this. And next one's going to involve fighting, those always take longer, but it's a weekend, so maybe I'll get time to really work on it. Amethyst-eyed Koneko, yeah, Roy's now judging his age based on others. Obsessed much? Aideen's struggling, but she's too stubborn to give up and move on. And Nicholas's gift was really just to expand his dad's abilities. The metal one would definitely be more handy. Jealous Russell is kind of a bitch, I know. And I have no idea what Roy said to get him mad. I just wanted something for Wrath to observe and compare to his own relationship. Anything like that pic, my yahoo is nom_de_plume_13@yahoo.com.

Chapter 35

Revenge by Inaction

Two weeks Later

They were investigating her warehouses! The fuhrer actually had the gall to investigate them, send troops into them, and remove all of the items and research she’d worked so hard to preserve. Bastard.

She knew there remained only one that had not been thoroughly searched, now that the troops realized the underground portion of these warehouses was far more extensive. She had considered giving Tucker enough advanced notice that he could get himself and the chimeras out of there, but Dante decided that he would make it out just fine with his ragdoll daughter in tow. But the chimeras, they would show Roy Mustang exactly what happens when he underestimates what she has created and left behind.

********

Groggily, Roy opened his eyes. Damn, it was morning already and his wrists hurt. He looked over at the devil he’d married, who was still sound asleep with an impish grin plastered to his face. Of course he’d be smiling. He wasn’t the one blindfolded and tied to the bedposts last night. Roy was all for a bit of kink, but he preferred it when Ed was the one bound and gagged. He particularly liked him gagged.

Though, memories of being absolutely at Ed’s will while Ed nipped, tickled, and licked in random patterns over his prone body were making what had been mere morning wood grow somewhat painful. Then the sensation of Ed riding him last night, all the while he was blindfolded, unable to watch, only imagine, the pleasure on the younger man’s face suddenly flashed before his memory, much as he tried to will it away.

He groaned, knowing that there wasn’t time to do anything about his growing problem, and began to get dressed, watching as Ed slowly sprawled out across the sheets. Nearly thirteen years of marriage, and even a bit longer sharing a bed, and Ed still insisted on taking over the entire thing somehow with his small body. As he got dressed in his uniform, Roy knew the inevitable was coming. He’d have to wake Ed up, and that task had become incredibly daunting since the obsessed alchemist started depriving himself of necessary sleep. Now, though it was next to impossible to get Ed to sleep, it was nearly so to wake him up once he’d gotten there.

“Ed,” he said, walking over to the thing that seemed to be entirely arms and legs beneath the blankets of their bed. “Ed, wake up.”

“Fuggoff,” he mumbled against the pillows.

Roy rolled his eyes. “Very mature, Ed, but the twins are probably already up. I know they turned into teenagers a few days ago, but do you want them to go off to school without seeing them?”

“Warm here.”

Roy pulled the blankets off of Ed’s still-naked body—they’d climbed into bed immediately after the shower. Before he could stop himself, Roy found he was kneeling on the mattress next to his husband, kissing the tanned, taut skin, tickling his hands down the ribs, noticing as each muscle beneath twitched and shifted. He smiled into his husband’s back, realizing that though Ed was thirty, he had yet to reach the downward slide, his body a bit too thin compared to a few years ago, but still as firm as ever. His hands made their way to the little dip at the base of Ed’s spine, then over those solid yet soft globes beneath.

He could hear Ed humming into the pillow.

And at that, Roy smacked him with a resounding slap that echoed through their bedroom.

“You son of a bitch bastard!” Ed said, whipping around and shooting straight up, hand still protectively on his reddened behind. “What the hell was that for?”

“Your wake-up call, Edward.” Ed looked at him strangely. He rarely used Ed’s full first name since they had discovered the existence of the other Edward. But honestly after the playful spank, it fit. Really, he’d have thrown in the Warren that followed Edward, but he knew better. When your parents were sadistic enough to give you the middle name “Irving” you didn’t throw stones from your glass house.

Roy watched as Ed stormed around their bedroom, pulling on a pair of boxers, then an undershirt, glaring at him all the while.

With a smirk, Roy put on the black fabric that he was seriously contemplating doing away with. He’d realized that the print in books wasn’t being made smaller nowadays, and somehow, the idea of wearing glasses with an eyepatch seemed ridiculous. He’d grown accustomed to the scar and even learned to appreciate Ed’s craftsmanship on the glass eye. And the scar was fading, not that it would ever be gone, but it was by no means as garish as it had once been, though that was perhaps a perspective he’d gained since accepting the prominent blemish on his face.

“So Havoc, Frank and some of the other troops are investigating the underground of the last warehouse today, right?” Ed asked.

“Yes,” Roy said as he grabbed a comb and ran it through his slowly graying hair—that was one blessing. The sides were white, but the black was still putting up a fight.

“After everything that’s been found so far, I’m wondering if maybe I should go along with them.” Roy raised an eyebrow at Ed as he dressed, actually pulling on his hardly-used uniform. “Everything that’s been found so far makes me think this could be the main warehouse. It could be anything from a wealth of research to another laboratory five.” He buttoned up the white dress shirt and pulled out the blue pants, minus the flap on the outside. Ed hated the thing, and this wasn’t a mission that called for the full uniform. Roy merely watched, trying to decide how he felt about his husband having to go up against yet another laboratory five. To this day, what Ed saw there, even what Al saw there, disturbed them both, and what they knew went on there thanks to Marta’s descriptions, didn’t help with the nightmares and the dark memories.

Still, there was no justifiable reason for Roy to keep Ed from going, especially not when his troops were and those troops included two of his own friends.

Roy walked over to Ed, who was tucking his shirt into his pants, kissing him atop the golden hair. “I’ll go down and start breakfast. Pancakes okay?”

Ed nodded as he zipped up his fly. Roy glanced back at him, putting on the coat that signified him as a lieutenant colonel—a rank Ed was quite happy with remaining—remembering the first time he’d managed to get his husband in uniform, and how much he’d looked like a child playing dress-up. Not much had changed in Ed’s appearance since then, but nothing in the tanned face or golden eyes made him seem like a child any longer.

********

“Since I happen to be in Central at the moment, why don’t I go with you?” Kain said as Frank was trying to untangle his limbs from his lover’s.

“As long as you don’t overstep authority. You might outrank me, but this is my mission along with Havoc.” Frank kissed Kain at the bridge of his nose and climbed out of bed.

“I’ll obey every order,” Kain said, stretching and incidentally allowing his undershirt to ride up over his stomach. A bit embarrassed, he pulled the shirt back down.

“You do know that I don’t care, right Kain?” Frank began the process of getting dressed.

“But look at you, I don’t think I’ve ever had the build you do.”

“You had it last night,” Frank quipped as he removed his folded underwear from the drawer.

“You know what I mean.” Kain sighed and moved to the closet where his uniform hung. “They had to give me a bigger sized uniform last week because my old ones were getting tight…” He thumped his stomach. “here.”

“Still don’t care.” Frank easily changed in front of his boyfriend, stripping to nothing. “Besides, the only reason I look like this is I expend all of my sexual energy in the gym when you’re not here. I’m forty-five. Do you think this would happen if I wasn’t spending at least two hours lifting weights and working out every night?”

“You work out and I eat.”

Boxers on, Frank walked over to Kain, pulling the stubbly, round face into his hands and looking down at the big brown eyes. “Do you care if I lose my hair? Because I think it waved a white flag yesterday in defeat.” Kain shook his head as best he could being held by those hands. “Then I don’t care if you get bigger than Breda and Armstrong’s father combined. Understand me?” There was a nod. “Good.”

Frank leaned forward pressing their lips together. He’d never had anyone save for his own mother who cared about him the way Kain did, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to care if his small lover had become a bit softer around the middle.

Now all that was left was to get into the bathroom before the brown-eyed man. Not living together all this time had nearly made Frank forget just how long Kain took in the bathroom shaving and getting ready in the mornings. There were a lot of the little obnoxious habits both had forgotten that had led to some of their more petty arguments. Though the petty ones were the easiest to fix and led to really good make-up sex without the residual feeling of guilt for having fought in the first place.

Thankfully, Frank made it in first, practically racing his lover there, sticking out his tongue childishly before he shut the door. Life was good.

********

Nicholas knelt beside the injured cat, feeling Aideen’s eyes on him. While he’d gotten to move beyond practice and theory, getting to actually heal the animal, his sister, who was better than him at almost every other form of alchemy, could still only watch.

“Put your hands near the wounded leg,” his Auntie said from above, “but not on it.” Nicholas nodded, clapping his hands and placing them on the animal his aunt was restraining. Focusing on the task, he closed his eyes, using alchemy to move the chemicals in the animal’s body, making it stop bleeding, then moving his mind entirely to the job of mending the open wound.

After he felt it was time to stop, he slowly pulled away, feeling Aideen hugging his shoulders. “You did it.”
He grinned up at her, quite proud of himself and was happy to see that she was too. “That was so cool.” Nicholas could tell his sister was leaving off her own wish that she could do the same.

The cat, which Aideen had used medical alchemy to drug, looked around itself, somewhat dazed. Aideen looked prepared to remove the cat’s dopey state, but their aunt stopped her. “Give it time to rest. What you did will wear off and if not, I can remove it.”

Aideen nodded her head, though she looked disappointed. Nicholas knew she had a hair appointment in a half-hour and wouldn’t get to finish their work with the cat, leaving their aunt to do it. Leave it to his sister that she could manage pain killers, endorphins, hormones in medical alchemy that he had yet to begin doing, but not the simple knitting transmutation that he had become almost an expert at.

Still, he knew his prowess over his sister wouldn’t last long, as Fletcher had managed to determine her problems in their training together. It was a problem of focus and positive energy, or some Eastern-sounding crap like that. Nicholas didn’t know. He preferred the incorporation technology Wrath was teaching him, as it was raw and driven mostly on almost primal drives. The last thing Nicholas would ever have to do before a training with Wrath was sit and meditate for an hour like Aideen did. Not that he thought his sister minded too much sitting next to Fletcher practicing breathing techniques, but that was just speculation on his part.

Aideen looked at the watch on her wrist. “I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll see you when you get home,” Nicholas told her.

“And don’t try to evade your guards again,” Auntie chided her.

Aideen rolled her eyes. “I won’t.”

“And if I remember right,” Nicholas looked up at his aunt as she spoke. “you have a check-up with Dr. Knox.”

Nicholas had hoped she’d forget that. Though, it could have been worse. At his age, the idea that his aunt might be his doctor seemed a little strange. He preferred having a male doctor so that if or when issues came up, he didn’t feel hugely embarrassed to talk to a female doctor, let alone one he was related to.

“I’ll take care of the cat,” she said. “You need to get yourself to your own appointment.” He nodded and started to walk out of the door of the little clinic. “And Nicholas…” He looked back over his shoulder. “Good job.”

*******

Wrath walked beside Russell down the street of Central. The blond had offered to buy him a few books as penance for his cruel words about Jacob. Now, according to Wrath’s conditions, they were going to a soda shop where Russell would sit down and at least have a drink of some kind with Wrath’s boyfriend. It had taken some persuading, but honestly, Russell was his friend, all arguing aside, and he wanted him to like Jacob. It was important to him, more than he really thought it would be.

Wrath still felt guilty about the way he’d slammed Russell into that wall at Ed’s birthday party, not because it had happened, since really it needed to after the way the older man had behaved. He regretted it because a few days after, he’d accidentally come upon Russell changing clothes while visiting Fletcher, and there were some nice bruises across his chest and shoulders. Of course, that hadn’t been all he’d noticed about the lean figure he’d seen, but it was the part that he consciously blamed for causing him trouble.

“So, I hear you’re going to get to help in the construction of the first Amestrian rocket,” Russell said.

“The offer’s been made, but I’ve been doing research with you. I don’t want to abandon you.”

“Think I can’t handle it alone?” A blond eyebrow quirked upward, possibly the other, too, but Wrath couldn’t see it beneath that ridiculous fringe of bangs.

“Of course,” Wrath said, “but I was working with you first.”

“I’d never expect you to pass up the chance to do that. Besides, you’re the only person who has any experience in them. Doesn’t it make more sense to have you on the project?”

“I suppose.”

They were only a few doors away from the soda fountain when Wrath spotted a bakery with an enormous apple pie in the front, making him stop and stare for just a moment. It looked very good.

“What is it with you and apples?”

“On Earth, they were one of the easier fruits to get, so they kept me from living on candy all the time.” He could see that Russell still wanted him to say more. “The very first thing I ate when I became human was an apple. It had been considered a treat at the orphanage for each of us to be given a slice. It was the first thing I’d ever eaten that made me feel satisfied, that I could really taste and enjoy. I’d eaten before, but it always felt empty, and I only half-tasted what was given to me.”

“Hence the fact that you practically drool any time you see an apple dessert.”

“That’s a big part of it. I also like cinnamon, and they’re usually put together.”

“So it’s a win-win.”

Wrath nodded. They were there, and now, for some reason, he wasn’t feeling too anxious about having Russell and Jacob together in the same building, let alone at the same table.

********

Ed was flanked by both Havoc and Frank as he entered the warehouse, Al close behind him. He hadn’t really wanted his brother to come along, too afraid something would happen to the body they’d worked so hard to preserve, let alone the brother himself he’d always protect with his own life.

They walked into the warehouse, seeing nothing but a bunch of dusty, empty boxes that had already been searched a few days ago during the initial investigations. They had been certain there was nothing here, but after discovering the underground pathways beneath the other buildings, it was enough evidence to have shown them that beneath this could easily be anything, though Ed had a growing dread about this warehouse’s contents, one he couldn’t shake hard as he tried, and he was definitely trying. Havoc and Frank stepped just a bit ahead, moving toward a section of the floor.

“Lieutenant Colonel, do you want to do the honors?” Frank asked Ed.

Jaw set, Ed stepped forward, moving toward the corner facing west in the building. With a clap of his hands, Ed placed his hands on the floor, knowing what he needed to be visualizing after discovering the same result in four other warehouses. The boards of the floor parted, revealing a staircase and undoing a silencing transmutation.

When Ed heard the growls, his blood ran cold. “Not again,” he muttered. He could almost sense his brother stiffening behind him. He glanced over his shoulder at Al, seeing that he was right as the taller brother’s body seemed to have gone entirely rigid.

“Lieutenant Colonel Elric?” Havoc asked, using the formal title, when it was obvious he just wanted to say “Ed?”

“Chimeras, in pain.” With no small amount of effort, Ed forced himself down the steps, taking a flashlight from his hip. There were growls, hisses, and the animal equivalent of screams. It had been several years since he had actually heard such noises, and all he could remember at that moment was when he had been younger even than his own children now were, staying at Shou Tucker’s and facing what the man had done to Nina. Ed had never begrudged Roy entering him into the military, but that reference his husband had given him all those years ago to the Sewing Life Alchemist, that he still held some resentment for. Roy had no idea of course, but what little bits of his childhood had been left suffered irrevocably for the time in that house.

He knew that Frank and Havoc were still practically at his sides as he went down the darkened staircase, the noises getting louder as he did. He closed his eyes for just a second, just enough to prepare himself for what he was about to see and continued down the stone steps, moving the flashlight to reveal the first set of cages at the base of the staircase.

These chimeras seemed to be more nocturnal creatures, hissing and growling at both Ed and his light. As the light hit them, bulging eyes reflected in the darkness. It was hard to say what these things might have been originally, but they were perfect transmutations, inseparable by alchemy now that they'd been combined. And they looked hungry, as though they hadn't gotten their meal that day. Though, it was obvious someone had been down here caring for them, giving them food, water, everything they'd need, but seemed to ignore cleaning up after them.

Each cage-like cell had a stone wall with an alchemic symbol, one slightly obscured by the creature being housed inside. Without the opportunity to examine what it was, Ed didn't dare risk trying to perform alchemy to destroy these beasts. The symbols could mean anything, and he didn't dare set off a trap if he didn't need to.

Ed looked up at Frank, who stood with the arm of his uniform over his nose and mouth, whether to block out the smell or to keep from becoming sick, Ed didn’t know. He imagined it was both.

Together, the group moved through the underground tunnels. There had to be at least a dozen of these nocturnal creatures, but to what purpose? And who was keeping them alive?

The proceeded further, finding the next hallway lit with torches, and at least two dozen more chimeras lining either side in heavy iron cages. He could now see that on the ceiling was a series of transmutation circles he'd become familiar with since blocking the Gate. They deadened the effect of alchemy directly below them. While they hadn't been effective for the purposes of blocking the gate, they would be for ensuring that the large and rather bloody transmutation circle just visible in the final twist of the underground chamber didn't affect the already-created monsters.

Ed was about to disable the circles, to find a way to block off the chimeras when there was a sudden noise, the sound of a large metal door clanging shut, making Ed and the others run toward the sound, to find the person, almost certainly Shou Tucker, as these chimeras bore every one of his trademarks. Ed did his best to ignore the sight of the blood and the fresh transmutation circle on the dirt and limestone floor as he focused only on the man he'd hated for more than half of his life.
“Tucker!” Ed yelled as he ran. “Damn it, I know it’s you, you freakish chimera. Where are you? What are these for?”

Turning to his left, Ed found the metal door that had been shut, only to hear the sound of a transmutation and excited noises from the chimeras within.

“Havoc, the men in the nocturnal chamber need to get out. Now! The rest need to come here before it’s too late!”

The repeat visit to the gate along with the conversation he’d held with it allowed him at least some knowledge of what the last transmutation he’d sensed did. It was destroying the iron bars and releasing the chimeras, and the transmutation was complex and multi-stepped, far beyond anything Tucker would be capable of designing on his own. Ed tried to fight the transmutation, tried to stop it, but for every step he anticipated, there was another he hadn't. This was the handiwork of someone with even more skill and experience than his own, leaving only one person now undeniably alive who could have created this booby trap that ensured no one in that chamber was safe. He heard Havoc barking orders, but the screams had already begun. As troops flooded in around him, Ed pushed his way back toward the main chamber of chimeras, watching as Frank, Havoc, Fuery and the rest were shooting at the creatures, vainly attempting to stop the bloodthirsty chimeras, barely even stunning them.

He saw men on the ground, already falling victim. There was nothing more he could do for them, nothing he could do to save them as the chimeras proceeded to rip them apart. He did the only thing he could, the hardest decision he’d made in a very long time.

He clapped his hands and made a wall close between the chimeras and the remaining troops, cutting the chimeras off from their next meal and their victims off from their only chance, slim as it was, at escape. He then clapped again, transforming the rock and metallic elements above him into a siren, one that hopefully would sound enough like the one created after the first attack of the gate that the people above ground would take cover.

“Brother, those men, we can’t leave them there,” Al said.

“Do you want to be attacked? Do you want to be responsible for the injuries of the people here who are still safe? Right now, we have to break through to the surface. There’s no way the opening over the staircase was closed in time, and even if it was, it was wood. These things are going to be out in the street, out in Central, where the entire population and our families are.” As he had been speaking, Ed moved toward the metal door, forcing it open and running through the remaining tunnels toward a dim light, the troops he’d closed off with him following behind.

“But,” Al protested, obviously not wanting to leave those men to their fate.

“Al, come on,” Frank said, harshly, pulling the tall, sandy-haired man with him. “It was a decision that had to be made. I’d have done the same.” Al still looked hesitant. “There’s a reason you aren’t a military officer, Al.”

Ed could only see them out of the corner of his eye, but when Al even looked to Fuery who nodded resolutely, it seemed enough to coerce him away from the muffled growls and the now-stopped screams.

At the moment, Ed’s concern was not these troops, but Central itself, the people, his children, all possibly at the mercy of mindless chimeras. He hoped something had stopped them, but upon reaching the sunlight, he realized the hope was futile.

********

Dante had heard the siren and smiled to herself. Tucker had done exactly what he’d been told to do in case of an emergency, and the chimeras were now loose. The brat and his brother had gone down to investigate. She had to wonder if they had managed to survive, knowing that more than likely, the two little vermin did. They always had before in even the most desperate of situations.

Still, there was a part of her that wished she could use this to her advantage and make another philosopher’s stone. There would be so much death and destruction that it seemed a pity not to benefit from it.

********

Nicholas heard the siren starting in the south end of Central. He felt his personal guard tugging at him, trying to get him to safety, but there was something wrong here, and he knew it. There was something very wrong and his sister was sitting in a salon in the southern part of the city not far from the location of the newly created siren, that for some reason had a long blond braid behind it.

“Nicholas,” his guard called to him, “we need to get you to a shelter.”

“Aideen—”

“Has someone who will make sure she’s doing the same thing.”

Nicholas nodded his head, and once the guard was convinced he’d agreed, the blond teen darted back through the crowd to his sister. Just hearing assurances from guards and military personnel wasn’t going to work. He needed to know for absolute certain that his sister was safe.

He had been near the south to begin with, stopping at a favorite book store there, and he knew it wouldn’t be a long trip to reach the salon. It was then that he saw it, some great creature, barreling through the streets like an ape on its feet and knuckles. It looked like some cross between a wolf, a monkey, and a lion, but in the most grotesque possible ways. It was getting closer, and he knew if he didn't stop it, this thing with muscles that flexed beneath its fur with every move would kill him instantly

Not even thinking about what he was doing, Nicholas clapped his hands and drove a spike from the ground through the thing’s heart. He’d never killed anything before, and he knew that once the realization struck him of what he’d done, he would feel guilty. At the moment, his only concern was of his sister.

He ran through the streets, hearing inhuman noises and screams, but had yet to spot another of those things. Without concern for his own safety, he charged ahead, hearing his guard yelling for him in the distance. He just needed confirmation his twin was safe. That was all.

He neared the beauty shop, only half noticing as he stepped on a sprig of red flowers, and only noticing them because they seemed out of place. He saw the destruction outside of the little shop, saw bodies outside, saw the body of Aideen’s personal guard mangled almost beyond recognition. Unfortunately for Nicholas, he’d managed to realize who the man was, and there was hesitation in his movements out of fear for what he might find next, a dread that he might never block out these images from his young mind.

He saw the shop had been barricaded, and noticed there was no sign of the monsters around it. He shouted for his sister, for anyone inside to answer him.

“We’re in here,” someone said. “Please, Aideen locked us in here to be safe, but we can’t get out.”

“She did that? She was okay?” Nicholas asked as he alchemically released the binding placed on the metal door.

“She was when she left,” the woman said. “She’d just finished performing alchemy on my nearly dead plant,” she gestured to a healthy-looking red begonia in the corner, “when those things started to attack. They would have gotten into the shop if it hadn’t been for her, but she charged outside to fight them, yelling at them, attacking them. I think she scared them off, but we were trapped and don’t know what’s happened to her.”

“There’s an underground vault at the bank that is acting as a safe haven. Go there now. I saw people heading in just a minute ago, so it should still be safe,” Nicholas ordered before running off, looking down at the red flowers, which Aideen had probably taken to show Fletcher she’d managed to make the plant bloom.

He needed to find her. Now.