Worlds Collide

A/N: Hikaru_9, glad you caught up, so of course I'm going to add another chapter to change that. If you didn't like last cliffy, well... Kuragari, I understand the internet thing. As for how the twins are, I don't know you'll quite get an answer this chapter. Amethyst-eyed Koneko, I thought I'd open with a bit of fluff. And as for the middle names, Ed's spelling ewe was just the realization almost any middle name would spell something, but Roy's was kind of intentionally pervy, that and I was in a community theater production of Chicago, and the name Irving from the cell block tango just kind of stuck. Nicholas definitely shows traits reminiscent of Ed, but even Roy in the way he's charging off without concern for anyone but his sister. I may have to fix the Amestrisian/Amestrian thing. Aideen ran off, but not without good reason. And the Obsessed much? comment was about Roy. I swear. Oh, and I loved the pics. They were great.

Also, I tweaked Ed's portion of last chapter so there are more tell-tale signs that Dante is involved and some of his actions make more sense.

Chapter 36

Attack

There were times being in the role of fuhrer was the most despicable position Roy could be given, and this was one of them; He knew that his entire family was in the line of danger, but in order to save them and the country, he had to give commands and organize an attack against the chimeras. The paternal part of his nature said that he needed to be out there fighting like a crazed animal, destroying as many of those chimeras as he possibly could to protect his family. The rational portion of his mind was arguing something entirely different, telling him that he needed to order troops in, take control of the situation because many troops under his command were far better than trying to go against these beasts on his own.

He barked out orders, Breda looking at him frightened. Armstrong already long gone into the battle, trying to find Rose, who’d been shopping in the south end earlier that day. The massive alchemist loved her, and once he saw his children were both safe, he would not be satisfied until he was given the opportunity to take troops into battle and find her.

“I should be doing the same,” Roy muttered to himself.

“Sir?” Breda asked.

Roy considered making up some false answer, but the fact was Breda was his friend, and necessary to determine if Roy’s actions were due to his family’s danger or those of a rational leader.

“I said I should be doing the same as Armstrong. I’m embarrassed that I’ve only managed to stay here.”

“You’re better off here commanding the rest of us. You know that. It’s your strategies out there saving your family, even if it can’t be you physically.” Breda patted Roy on the back and walked toward one of the lieutenants reporting back.

“Breda, you know there are some times you show that you graduated top of your class at the academy.”

“Thanks, Fuhrer,” Breda said with a faint smile.

Standing at his office, sadly the city had become enough of a battleground that from his own office window, high up in the Central Office, he could observe all of the happenings. The large desk had become a place for maps and radios, his office a hub for strategic planning. They had to find a way to attack the chimeras without injuring the citizens in town. He had to save his people and his husband and children, and he had to do it quickly.

********

Russell watched in awe as Wrath faced off against the chimera, no transmutation circle needed. He was left with the rather dubious task of defending the boyfriend and the rest of the soda shop. Kneeling next to him, the mousy-looking man looked out the window, as Russell donned a set of leather gloves which would allow him to do stone alchemy—he’d given up his efforts on plant alchemy a long time ago, Fletcher regularly teasing that he was trying to become more like Ed.

Outside, Wrath was leaping almost unnaturally, his fists melded together with metal and stone, baring his teeth looking almost animalistic. He was attacking one of those monstrosities, then the next. Angrily, he pounded away, not allowing the somewhat stiff clothes to restrict his movement as he broke strong, thick bones with each impact of his alchemically enhanced fists.

Unable to control himself, Russell was cheering Wrath on, while working to block his view of the unbelievable fight going on outside by barricading the soda shop. With a rather loud crash, Wrath sent the cat-like creature flying into the next building, and with a howl that escaped his own lips, Russell jumped up in enthusiastic victory. He couldn’t help it, breaking his usual reserved demeanor in public and certainly even the usual argumentative nature with Wrath. As he continued to extend the brick walls of the shop to cover over the glass walls, he watched as the former homunculus demonstrated the most incredible alchemic and fighting display the elder Tringham had ever seen.

He looked to Jacob, who suddenly looked sick.

“Don’t worry, Wra… um… Ulysses will take care of it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jacob said, turning away from the one remaining window, while Russell went to block it entirely. He didn’t ask any questions because honestly, he didn’t care. If the little mouse couldn’t manage to watch a little fight, then he wasn’t worth the alchemist’s time, and he certainly didn’t think he deserved the former homunculus’s either.

He had the final window nearly blocked and took in the sight of Wrath pouncing on a bear-like beast, being tossed backwards into the wall next to Russell’s observant eyes, his transformed hands clawing into the wall, glancing in the shop at Russell for just a second before pushing himself off and onto the creature’s back, the last thing Russell heard when the wall was finally closed was the sound of the thing crying out before Wrath finished it off.

And yet, despite the amazing display and the knowledge that Wrath was more than capable of handling himself, Russell was afraid for him, hoping that he would be okay.

*******

Ed broke through the underground area, bursting through the ground, almost immediately finding one of those things biting at his arm.

“What the hell is it with you chimeras? Why do you keep insisting on attacking that arm?” With an almost sadistic grin, he looked over at the thing. “Can’t find a decent grip?”

He punched the thing in the face. It was a bit stunned, being one of the nocturnal creatures and in the bright sun of early afternoon. It took very little to dispatch of, and he found Al was holding his own nearby, creating spikes and walls to kill the beasts or at least divert them from the people still trying to find shelter.

He watched as Frank and Fuery ran off, going after a bat-like creature, trying to shoot it down as it tried to take off in flight. Havoc and a few of the men who had been saved below were trying go after some of the other nocturnal creatures, as they were the more immediate threat, the others seeming to have scattered into the brighter areas of town these were reluctant to enter.

Hand transformed into a spike, Ed began stabbing at the next creature he came across, the blood running down the crevices of the automail. No matter how many times he had to do this, to knowingly kill something, it was difficult. He didn’t know if it was because of the act itself or the images of Nina as one of these things. Then the thought of Nina, the idea that Tucker had to be working with Dante renewed his rage. He was once again attacking with all the anger he had in him, cutting at these things almost beyond what was required, becoming the killing machine necessary to defend his city, to protect his children who were somewhere in it.

********

Frank felt his heart stop when he saw Kain go down. Gun blazing, he ran after the bat thing Kain had managed to finally shoot to the ground. Wounded as it was, it was still trying to crawl its way to hurt the one who’d hurt it. Frank fired a round into the thing, hearing it give a defeated squawk. He reloaded the gun and fired again, shooting until he was absolutely certain the thing was dead and ran to Kain. He saw a growing pool of blood around his lover’s head and a definite laceration on the man’s thigh.

“Kain!” he yelled, kneeling down beside the young colonel. “Kain!”

“Thing got me in the head,” the man muttered, his glasses skewed.

“You’re alive!” Frank nearly hugged Kain, but he realized that the fresh blood seemed to be drawing even more of those things to them. “We need to get you out of here. Can you walk?” It seemed that was a definite no when Kain attempted to sit up. Without a second thought, he scooped Kain into his arms.

“Good thing you’ve been doing all that working out,” Kain joked as Frank lifted him up and began carrying him to the nearest building.

“I’ll need you to shoot them until I can get you somewhere safe.”

“Vision’s a little wonky, as you’d say, but I can manage it.”

Entering the nearly abandoned home, Kain’s blood dripping in a perfect trail behind them, Frank shut and barricaded the door. “Kain, I hate to ask you this, but you’re going to need to treat your wounds, if you can. These things are going to find another entrance, and I’m going to need to hold them off.”

Kain grunted and took a piece of cloth offered to him by Frank, as well as the small first aid kits on both of their waists. Frank began firing at the creatures from the miniscule window not far from the door, trying to do all he could to frighten these things away.

“Frank,” Kain called. “Frank!” Frank turned around, only to find Kain single-handedly tossing him a bottle of liquor, as his other hand was applying pressure to the cut on the top of his head.

“You want to have a drink at a time like this?” Frank asked, knowing that wasn’t what his little lover had in mind.

“Don’t be stupid,” Kain said. “Put a rag in it, and light it. It might scare these nighttime creatures.”

“You shouldn’t be able to think clearly with a gash in your head and a chunk out of your leg, you know.”

“Be glad I can.”

He was obviously in pain, trying to smile through it, but knowing Kain was still lucid helped matters just a bit, helped Frank focus only on trying to kill their inhuman enemy and not on trying to play nurse to his boyfriend. He ripped a piece of the curtain off and jammed it down in the bottle, lighting the fabric and tossed it out the open window receiving exactly the response that Kain had said it would. Those things looked somewhat blinded and fearful of the fire, and while they were stunned, Frank continued to fire at those things until he’d drawn enough blood that they started attacking one another, already incensed by their blood lust, they took ripping one of their own to shreds to fulfill that need. Seeing they were capable of attacking their own, he continued firing until all were wounded and it became a frenzy among the animals.

Turning back to Kain, not liking that the younger man was so quiet, he found his boyfriend had passed out, midway through treating the injury to his leg. Feeling he was safe enough for the moment to turn away from the window, he closed the tiny thing and went over to Kain, lightly smacking him on the face.

When the eyes behind the blood-splattered glasses fluttered open, he once again pulled Kain into his arms. “We need to get you to the clinic. It’s the safest place I can think of, and I think those little beasties are a bit distracted at the moment.”

“Uh-huh.”

Finding a back route, Frank ran outside, finding Armstrong’s wife not far ahead of him. “Rose,” he yelled out. “Rose!”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Frank!”

“Rose, let me catch up to you. Take the gun from me and fire if you see any of those things.”

She nodded and did exactly as he’d instructed. She probably wasn’t an expert shock, but must have improved, as Armstrong would want his wife to be able to protect herself.

“What happened to Kain?” she asked.

“I need to get him to the clinic. Raine should still be there.” Frank only hoped that he could get his lover there in time, as the warmth of Kain’s blood had begun to seep through Frank’s uniform coat and to his stomach.

********

Nicholas had asked everyone he spotted for any sign of his sister, but they said she wasn’t there at the moment, that the chimeras seemed to be following her and she tried to lure them away from the civilians. It was as though she understood these things wouldn’t leave her alone, they said. Ignoring the distant shouts from his guard and others to tell him to stop, the blond teen ran along the pathway of those who said they’d seen her.

In his path, there was yet another of these chimeras, another thing he’d have to kill just to survive, one more thing, grotesque and terrifying as they were, that his young mind would have to wrap around having destroyed.

Aideen was all that was on his mind at the moment. He didn’t understand much of what was going on, but he did know that if his sister thought she could help things by luring the threat away from the people of Central, she’d do it even at a risk to herself. Imagining that maybe this thing had already gotten to his sister, that maybe she’d had to fight it, he had no qualms punching the monster with his stone incorporated hand, before spearing it with another stone pike.

Before he could react, he felt the sharp piercing pain of something at his left arm. He immediately swung his right hand around to find some kind of reptile blend with a fang in his left wrist. The hand, with its incorporated stone, collided with the thing’s head, doing almost immediate damage before he even had to spear at the creature as he had the last. His left hand bleeding, he held it to his chest and continued running.

********

Raine had been dealing with the number of casualties, with only the help available at the clinic, which was mostly a small number of nurses, one other doctor, and some technicians and aides. The problem was they simply did have the equipment and medication available for the injuries.

Much to her surprise, she found Frank carrying Kain with Rose firing at some lizard-creature, the worst of the chimeras, as far as Raine had discovered, as the bites almost certainly held venom of some kind, and usually of such a combination there was no true antidote, leaving only drawing the venom out of the victim as an option.

“Please,” Frank said, with desperation in his voice, “please check him.”

“What was he attacked by?” she asked, while still treating another’s wounds, Frank placing Kain on an open cot.

“Some sort of bat creature,” Frank answered as Rose continued to fire out of a small slot along with a few of the other soldiers who were firing at two of those monsters outside. “It clawed him on his head and then his leg. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

Raine nodded, moving to Kain, laying her hands on either side of the wounds on the leg and sealing them at least well enough that the bleeding had stopped, then moved to his head. “Frank, do you know what kind of blood type he is?”

“A positive.”

“See if we have any in storage and have one of the nurses hook him up.”

“I’m O positive, if you don’t.”

“We’ll come to that if we need it.” Frank nodded and ran off to the supply room. Raine patted Kain’s shoulder as she moved to another patient, silently hoping to the Gate or any higher power that might be out there that this all ended soon and her brother’s friend, hell her friend, would be okay, knowing that at least, the wounds weren’t terribly deep, though he had lost quite a bit of blood in a short amount of time.

********

Finally as he entered an office on the second floor of a building in the business district, Nicholas spotted his sister, feeling strangely weak as he saw her shadow cast against a window. This district, being a usual day off for businesses, was almost completely deserted and below at the side opposite where he’d come in, there were still two chimeras attempting to get in the building.

“Aideen,” he said to his sister. He watched as she looked over her shoulder, long black hair somewhat obscuring her face. “You’re okay…” his voice drifted off as he felt himself slumping against the doorframe.

As though smacked across the face by his sudden weakness, Aideen came running to him.

“Nicholas!”

Half-delirious, he hardly noticed the moment he hit the floor, only hearing his sister yelling for him and trying to transmute something for him to lay on.

“Nicholas, stay with me!” He felt her hand on his face. It was so warm, and he was starting to feel so cold. “Why did you follow me?” She began inspecting his body for the injury, and though he tried to lift his hand to show it to her, his left arm seemed immobilized. “This is all my fault.”

She moved her hands to his arm, the source of a great deal of pain at this moment and began trying to perform medical alchemy on him. He might have argued under other circumstances, but he no longer had the energy.