For Her. For Him.

A/N: Thank you to all of my reviewers. We're down to the last five chapters here, I think.

Chapter 39

Capturing the Elrics

“I don’t like this, Roy.”

“Don’t make me tie you down, Ed.” Roy kissed Ed’s forehead. “You need to stay here.”

“Why? So if you get yourself killed I don’t know? So I can sit here worrying you’re already dead?”

“At sunset, we are charging the city, and I want to know you are here and safe. I want to know you’re okay, Ed. You want to look at this in a way that doesn’t bother you, then look at it as keeping me safe. I can’t be worrying about you when I face off against him, Ed, I can’t.” Roy held Ed’s glaring face in his hands. He meant what he’d said. If Ed stayed at the campsite with Izumi and Sig, Roy felt his lover and their children were safe, and he could face Pride without concern--no more than to be expected--that Ed was somehow in danger.

“That’s being manipulative, Roy,” Ed said.

“Maybe, but did it work?”

Ed didn’t answer as he folded his arms across his chest defiantly, though Roy knew this was a yes. The colonel bent down, taking Ed’s left hand in his own, lacing their fingers, the rings on their middle fingers touching together. Roy did what he could to memorize Ed’s face, to take in every detail of his lover’s features. He couldn’t help but notice as Ed’s honey-colored eyes twitched, apparently doing the same.

Ed reached into a bag he’d been carrying at his side, pulling out the dagger he’d pulled from Wrath’s foot. “Take this,” he said as he handed the weapon to the black-haired man.

“Ed--”

“I’m not going to be able to get close enough to use it. Besides, we know you’re facing off against the fuhrer, and I want to know you’re going to be safe.” Roy felt the distinctive feeling of that metal arm, so much a part of Ed that Roy was beginning to love those damned limbs as much as the human ones, wrapping around his neck and pulling him down to the blond’s level. They kissed, Roy wishing that there could be a point in their relationship where he didn’t have to kiss his lover like it would be the last time they would set eyes on one another.

“I love you, Roy,” Ed said, the first time he’d actually said it without the older man initiating it.

“I love you, Edward,” Roy returned, kneeling in front of the teen, rubbing the belly before him. “And we both need the two of you to wait. I want to be there when you’re born.” With a resigned sigh, Roy stood back up.

“Well, if you want to see them born, you’re going to have to come back in one piece.”

********

“Brother,” Al said, looking across a campfire at his older brother, who sat on a makeshift chair, Wrath still at his side, Izumi on the other. His brother’s right hand was wrapped around his stomach, the other rubbing the pendant he’d received from the colonel, worry, anger and frustration all flickering across his features. Sig Curtis sat by Al’s side, a blocker of sorts from Izumi, Wrath and Ed, but even the butcher’s conversation couldn’t distract the younger Elric from his brother. He looked lost, sitting there, tears faintly falling down his cheeks. Al wanted to go over and try to comfort him. This wasn’t Ed’s area, showing emotion, showing pain. Al was the bleeding heart of the family, and because of the philosopher’s stone, the one thing they’d been looking for all these years, he couldn’t come near his brother.

Al looked over at Wrath, who was reluctantly close to Izumi, with only Ed as a barrier between the two of them. The younger brother suspected that the homunculus wasn’t really as angry at his creator as he let on, but yet he didn’t seem capable of forgiving her. Izumi on the other hand, looked like her stone façade might break any moment, having to be so close to the boy she created, yet do nothing, offer him no comfort and gain none for herself.

“Damn it!” Ed said, smashing his automail fist into the wood chair that held him. “I shouldn’t be here just waiting. Waiting isn’t doing any good!” Ed lifted his hand, revealing a splintered armrest.

“Edward,” Izumi said, “it’s very important that you take care of yourself.”

“I know that!” he snapped. “But I’m not supposed to be here sitting while Roy, my friends, and the other people fight my battle.”

“It’s everyone’s battle, brother.”

“And what good is sitting here doing getting your body back? I promised you that I’d get you restored before I had the twins.”

“Brother, it’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t. Roy’s off fighting the fuhrer, that bastard father of ours is fighting Dante.” Ed growled, “That isn’t their place. At least not alone. It isn’t right--”

“Shh.” Wrath said, looking off to the distance.

“Did you just shush me?” Ed started to say more, but Wrath placed Ed’s former right hand over Ed’s mouth.

“Cars. Coming this way.”

Al could hear them now, listening as the door of a vehicle opened, then slammed shut. “Ed and Alphonse Elric…”

“That voice…” Ed said.

There was a click. Then another.

“Boys, run!” Izumi yelled, though all could recognize the sound of sound of guns being cocked.

Wrath helped Ed to his feet, as the three youths moved away as quickly as they could, Sig and Izumi remaining behind, even as a red eye began glowing in the near-dark.

********

“Hohenheim,” Dante said, her new body barely hiding to her former lover her true form. “Did you come back for a visit?”

“You know why I’m here?”

Rolling her eyes slightly, Dante smiled at Hohenheim. “There was a time when you didn’t care about using people for our own benefits. Have you had a change of heart, or is it simply because this time it involves your two favorite sons?”

At those words from the shadows, an androgynous figure charged at Hohenheim, but the older man had been expecting this, his own son’s remains in his hands, weakening Envy before he could even make contact with his creator and father. Hohenheim’s discussion with Roy had warned him that his creation was still very much alive and angry at him.

“You bastard,” Envy practically growled at his father.

“Envy, I told you to wait,” Dante said authoritatively.

“If you thought I was going to wait while he was here, you were kidding yourself.” The homunculus struggled against the piece of bone Hohenheim held in his hand, shocking its creator at the strength and determination that forced him onward. The older man heard the sound of a baby crying in the distance, and glanced over his shoulder to see the figure of a woman in a long white dress cradling a fidgeting bundle.

“I figured if you could be a father again, I could maybe adopt a child,” Dante smiled. “Until I realized that a much better option was about to present itself.”

“You are not getting my granddaughter,” Hohenheim said, his usually calm demeanor fading.

“And you are going to stop me?” Dante asked, shifting her new body’s features into an amused smirk. “I highly doubt it, Hohenheim.”

“Ed would sooner see his own child dead than have her body controlled by a monster like you.”

“I would imagine so,” Dante said, “though tossing around a word like monster is a bit hypocritical.” She walked over to the woman and her baby. “She’s still breastfeeding, you know. All I need to do is wait until your precious little granddaughter is born, and Rose can care for her. I don’t need Ed.”

“I’m going to have another baby,” the woman named Rose said in a dreamlike voice. “A little girl. A little sister for my boy.”

“What have you done to this girl?”

“Merely prepared her mentally for motherhood again, Hohenheim. I considered taking her body myself, but she is such a sweet, caring woman, I thought she would make a perfect mother.”

“You cannot use a baby for your own devises. You can’t use this woman like that.”

Dante raised her hand over the squirming bundle. “Strange, I think I can, and I will. Nothing’s going to stop me. Not even you."

“No!” Envy shouted. “You can’t send him through that Gate!” The homunculus continued to struggle, shifting into the form Hohenheim had nearly forgotten, the face and body of his eighteen-year-old son, blond hair, golden eyes, strong masculine form. “I want to finish him off.”

“As long as he has your body on him, you can’t. And Envy, don’t forget who is master here.”

"I don't give a damn about you Master. The only reason I follow you is to see humans die, and for the chance to see him die. If you stop me from doing that, then I have no reason to follow you anymore."
Hohenheim watched as something began to glow on the child’s stomach as Dante's hands circled the air above. He wasn’t going to escape, but maybe…

“Do you want to come after me? Make me pay for creating you and abandoning you for my two better sons?” Hohenheim tossed the bone away. “Then come after me.” He saw in the corner, the female homunculus from the camp, watching, waiting to see her master destroyed, and realizing in that instant that it wasn’t going to happen.

“Envy don’t!” Dante shouted.

As he felt himself being pulled into the gate, Hohenheim saw that Envy was right behind him, ready to attack, but that didn’t matter. He couldn’t defeat Dante, but there would be no coming back for the homunculus. The monster he’d created couldn’t hurt his boys.

********

Ed could only move so fast, and even at top speed in his condition, the thing that was emerging from the woods could easily overtake him. Looking back as he ran, he watched as something half-human half machine exited the woods.

“Elric brothers! I am here to arrest you in the name of King Bradley. You will not be harmed.” Ed watched as the thing stepped into the light of the campfire. The half of him that was metal was almost unrecognizable, and the human half still looked to be recovering from a few bruises, but the right side of the man’s face was clearly recognizable.

“Archer,” Ed hissed.

Izumi clapped her hands and attempted to drive a stone spike through the half-man, but he merely blocked it with his strange looking left arm.

“I was told not to hurt the boys,” he said, not moving his mouth, his voice seeming to come from somewhere else within the man. “But nothing was said about the two of you. After the embarrassment you caused at the Southern Headquarters, I don’t think anything could be more pleasant than to finish you off.”

Izumi put up a large barricade between Archer and her self and Sig, as Archer’s left arm rotated, pointing a long gun-barrel-shaped object at Ed’s teacher and her husband. Archer began to fire, slowly breaking away at the cover Izumi had provided.

“Teacher!” Al shouted.

“No!” Ed yelled almost simultaneously.

“Ah, there are the brats,” Archer said before turning to face about twenty troops behind him. “Capture them.”
Once again, Izumi tried to create a spike, but between a coughing fit ending in blood and the strength of Archer’s new body, it did no good. Meanwhile, Sig was busy taking out the soldiers, doing enough damage to them that it was a shock to the teen still trying to run away as the butcher was shot in the arm.

“Sig!” Ed shouted, trying to run to him, but found his own arm stopping him.

“No,” Wrath said, looking sternly up at him. “Do you want to get yourselves caught and taken right to her? Is that what you want? We need to go.” The boy looked up at the suit of armor. “Go!” Al began to run and Ed found himself practically being dragged into the forest.

“And how fast do you think you can run, Major? Do you think you can outrun me?” Archer taunted, his mouth finally opening to reveal why he no longer used it to speak. He was a human gun. “If I see Flame again, I’ll have to thank his sister. The painkiller she released in my body let them make some amazing modifications and make them rather quickly.”

"Don't you even know what you're following? What the fuhrer really is?" Ed yelled while he ran.

"A superior being, a homunculus. Yes, I know, you little brat, but it will be a great empire he will build, and I will help him do it. I'll be a general, I'll be renowned, and your little boyfriend will be dead. Don't think I don't know what I'm doing."

Ed knew he sounded certain, but listening to the man talk, he got the feeling that Frank Archer wasn't really there anymore, not mentally intact.

The gun began to open fire, striking Izumi in her abdomen before she could even manage another barrier.

“Mother!” Wrath shouted.

“Take the brothers somewhere safe!” she yelled back. The wound was not horrible, but with her already weakened body, particularly there, Ed felt a growing dread that this would be how he would last see his teacher. “Be a good boy.”

Wrath pulled again at Ed’s hand, tears in those violet eyes, but determination to protect fiercely written across the young face. Even with Wrath holding so strongly to him, Ed still tried to pull away, to try and save his teacher.

“She’s dying for the two of you. At the very least do her a favor, and don’t get yourselves caught.” Wrath glared angrily as they moved away.

Though Izumi was doing her best to distract the monstrous colonel, it seemed to be doing no good, as his attention was now on the three attempting to escape. Completely ignoring the Curtises, Archer began chasing after the three.

“I always wondered why you liked to flash that automail of yours around, Fullmetal. I understand now. The sheer power in these things… It’s amazing.”

“Automail is not a blessing, even if it’s the best in the world,” Ed responded as he continued to struggle in his getaway.

At that, Gluttony suddenly appeared, stepping between the colonel and the three fleeing. He grabbed hold of Ed before the teen could offer any protest. “Dante has my Lust,” the homunculus whined. “I must take you to her.” Gluttony, in a speed far more rapid than Ed would have thought the cumbersome creature capable of, began to run off, the blond still in his arms.

“Let go of me!”

“You have to save my Lust!”

“What about my father?”

“Gone.”

“What?” Ed felt his heart sink. “Gone?”

“Through the gate. With Envy.”

Ed could see the figures of Wrath, Al, and Archer chasing after him. “You have to go to Dante. She won’t let my Lust go until she has you. You have to stop our master.”

Ed wanted to fight, but with the options either being carried there by Gluttony or dragged and tortured there by Archer, for once the homunculus seemed the better option.

“I’ll go,” Ed answered.

Wrath, seemed to hear that answer before Archer actually was close enough to grab hold of the boy homunculus. Wrath turned around and leapt at Archer, bonding his hands to the man’s automail arm and swinging the thing backwards until the unpleasant sound of popping wires could be heard, just barely hidden by the scream of pain that erupted from wherever the colonel was . The boy then grabbed a rock, absorbing that into himself, smacking at the man’s metal face. Finally, the boy brought his stone fist down to the metal knee, denting it. While Ed was carried by Gluttony, he could hear Al struggling to keep up, the limitations of the large suit of armor obvious at this moment. He watched as Wrath disappeared beyond the horizon, leaving a dented and bruised--possibly even dead--Archer to find his mother.

********

In Central, it had become a war zone, but search as hard as he could, Roy couldn’t find the fuhrer. He saw, out of the corner of his eye the movement of a vehicle. Giving orders to that woman, Psiren, the vehicle was stopped with a blast of water from a nearby fire hydrant. At a glance, he could see that inside were the fuhrer’s wife and son. Pride was trying to get them out of Central, to save them. It was strange to think that the homunculus actually seemed to care about his make-believe family, but Roy couldn’t let that stop him. He couldn’t forget his own family, one that would be in danger if Pride wasn’t stopped.

The fuehrer’s mansion, Roy realized. It was almost a stronghold unto itself, and looking at how the troops still loyal to the false leader were being positioned, Roy could see that they were actually working to keep the rebellion from targeting the mansion.

He shouted more orders, the boy Fletcher proving to be very helpful, even from his position at the back of the line, creating enormous vines to hold and constrict the officers without killing them as the rebels led by the former colonel pressed onward. But with each step, more and more of his followers became caught up in the battle, leaving the colonel alone when he reached the fuhrer’s mansion.

The front door opened to the older man with his eye patch. “Are you going to stand outside, or are you waiting on your followers to help, rather than facing me like a man?”