Worlds Collide

A/N: Of course, thanks to all my reviewers. This is the chapter you've been waiting for.

Orion 117, this is the chapter where you find out who Dante is. Thanks for the comments about the twins. I enjoy writing them, flawed as they are. And the character death last chapter was Wrath. Amethyst-eyed Koneko, well, that wasn't evil Tucker, just wallowing-in-self-pity Tucker, but yeah, he's dead too and I'm not upset about it either. And Fletcher's comment about Roy is justified. A cat-eye shift is working through the night when a person would be sleeping. Basically, Roy's making Fletcher work the crappiest time of day for longer than anyone else. He's being a hardass, sorry, but true. Dante is still very much in hiding. No one other than Wrath saw who she is yet. Oh, and Al has 4 adopted 1 biological children. Shirk, actually, Wrath's reaction makes sense for any number of characters. All it has to be is someone he trusts, he trusts Rose, Aideen, Nicholas, Raine, and any number of the others who have been suggested as Dante. MustangsHavoc, I never said who Dante was last chapter, and actually, Dante asks him if he's thinking about three people, Russell, Edward, or the body she's inhabiting, pretty much eliminating Russell. Lucien, I know, but I've known for a while now that one of the fatalities as this comes to a close had to be Wrath.

Chapter 53

Greater of Two Evils

Munich

Dietlinde Eckhart stood beside one of her troops as he guided the ship through the Gate. In a holding room at the back, she knew Hohenheim would keep that woman under control. He was a knowledgeable man, and she pitied that he wouldn’t be able to view this amazing sight. To see the awful beauty of the opened gateway was something that Eckhart thought’s she’d never live to manage, and something she felt certain held the respect of the man nearly her own age, the man she wouldn’t have minded getting to know better.

The biggest uncertainty for the leader of the society was not the ability of her superior forces to catch the other world’s military off-guard or even what she would encounter there. The deception she felt she saw in those letters from Dante was not in the description of Shamballa, Dietlind was certain. It was in the nature of the other woman herself and her “loyalty” to the Thules’ cause.

Personally, Eckhart thought the fact that this other woman thought she could deceive her was rather amusing. Eckhart was a woman in a world controlled by men. She had risen to a role of respect within the Nazi regime. She would be damned if she allowed this other woman to get anything more than a moment of feeling superior before Dietlinde decided what she wanted to do with this Dante. She could prove useful, but Eckhart realized she’d have to at least be captured, if not killed due to the threat she could pose.

The dirigible was now at the opening of the Gate, and the normally cold woman could feel herself shaking in anticipation. She knew she would begin her entrance into Shamballa in a cavern. Dante had told her to expect that. However, she had created the dirigibles to go on this mission to the proper proportions. She would take no chances, not with her entrance into this world, not even with Dante. After all, the woman had failed to prevent the creation of the blocks that kept the Gate from opening anywhere in the city, forcing the Thules to limit the size of their equipment and make an entrance not only through the Gate but a cavern. Truly, Eckhart couldn’t stand the idea that she was so reliant on a woman so inept.

********

“We’re at the Gate,” Hohenheim said to the blond woman. “Do you trust me?”

“Trust you?” she scoffed. “You must be joking.”

“We’re going to be cross through to another world and you’re going to need to have faith in me to keep use safe.”

“Another world?” She chuckled nervously. “Pull the other one.”

“I, my lady, am most assuredly not pulling your leg.” He clapped his hands and wrapped his arms around her.

“Get off me you letch!” she yelled.

“Listen to me, Mrs. Mustang,” he said in her ear, “you are important to people on the side of the Gate we have just left, but I assure you that you are special on the side where we are about to arrive. Now, you must trust me to protect you.

“This vessel, as well as the others are covered in arrays that Eckhart believes will help to make the these planes and dirigibles more responsive to their pilots.”

“And they won’t?” she asked in a tone that said she only half-believed what he was saying.

“They will be responsive, but those aboard will not be the same after passing through the amount of alchemic power as exists in the Gate. It’s all theory to me, but if you do not trust me to block out the power, we could end up a piece of this ship.”

Hohenheim found himself looking to a pair of rust brown eyes. With a warm smile, he met them, and began to summon up every ounce of his alchemic power to protect them both.

********

Nicholas was running alongside his dad, both having lost their guards at some point in the confusion, when he felt the enormous surge of alchemy. He looked down at his father’s halted form. “Dad? It’s the Gate. It’s open.”

He watched the long-haired man nod.

For just a moment, Nicholas stopped, trying to sense the exact location and power of the now-open Gate. “Dad,” he said, trying to no avail to keep his voice steady, “that power, it’s totally open now. Not like before.”

“You can tell that much?” the older man asked as Nicholas ran to catch up once again.

“Always. I think even more than Aideen ever could.” They ran to the nearest opening of the underground city.

“You should—”

“Dad, I’m older than you were when you were risking your life. I’m going to help you find Aideen.”

“Stubborn little shit,” his dad said as they neared the guarded opening, nodding to the guards that it was okay for the younger man to follow him beyond.

As they were about to run beneath Central, the ground began to shake. “Dad, I don’t think we’re going to need to go down there to fight them.”

********

Phillip, however, found himself beneath the city, the fuhrer at his side. He’d felt the disturbance with the Gate as well, and part of him, the part that still had nightmares of the large door which held behind it thousands of little tendrils and frightening eyes, was terrified at the idea. From what he and Aideen had managed to guess, memories of that thing had been engrained upon his soul, rather than his mind. According to her, and he trusted her to know about these kinds of things with the amount of research she did, when a person’s soul is used or manipulated in some way as Phillip’s was, the memories incorporated themselves into it.

Perhaps that was why, now, as he stood staring and the eerie glow of the Gate’s opening, he felt like his veins had been filled with ice water.

“Cadet Armstrong,” the fuhrer called to him as he ran ahead, “are you coming?”

“Y-yes, Sir.”

Phillip caught up to the older man, only to find himself being halted by a surprisingly strong arm. Something was rising from the buildings, something monstrously huge. Beside it, two of the flying crafts that Amestris was still trying to perfect few from the gate and began firing something at the cavern ceiling.

“Come on, we need to get to a higher level,” the fuhrer ordered as Commander Ross, his ever present guard handed him the radio strapped to his waist.

Phillip watched the man with the same respect, despite his earlier harsh words, that he always had. Though he suspected that the man would have preferred a life where he didn’t have to lead his troops into battle and bark orders, there was no denying that the man was in his element. He was good at this, better than good at this. The fuhrer was a natural-born leader, with no desire for increasing the power he had, and if it had never been evident before, it certainly was now.

As the little airplanes—if Phillip remembered the word right—began attacking the cave ceiling along with the now fully extracted dirigible—again a name the young man was surprised he’d pulled from memory—he began drawing designs on the rooftop of the building as he watched the older man at his side putting on his gloves.

“Sir,” Phillip said, “the components of this building, I can make them into a highly combustible dust cloud.”

“Then do so, Cadet.”

Phillip nodded as he placed his hands on the design, breaking up the flammable components and sending them into the air, allowing for the fuhrer to use his fire alchemy to send the first attack at one of the strange-looking planes. In the midst of the fire and dust, he thought he saw a figure clinging to the side of the dirigible trying to gain entry as one of the planes crashed to the ground. Still, more of the things kept coming, and they were obviously going to break through the ceiling as the dirigible, which had done very little in this time began alchemically transforming its sides into enormous guns, shooting through the cavern at it’s weakest point.

“Everyone out! Now!” the fuhrer yelled into his radio. “Send word to have the Tringham brothers and General Armstrong secure the ground above. Wrath, see what you can do from below.”

“We’re going to have to fight from above,” the fuhrer said as he led Phillip along with the other troops in the underground city from their positions of attack down to the old streets and up to the surface level.

********

Fletcher had gotten the fuhrer’s orders to secure the streets of Central from an attack below, as Frank and Kain gathered troops under their command. Though all had prepared themselves for this day, none had wanted to admit that it might become necessary. When he’d arrived at the center of the city, the place where the quakes and tremors were growing worse, he could see his older brother, still buttoning his uniform coat running toward him. The two both produced pieces of paper and laid them on the ground almost simultaneously, working to prevent the entire cavern from collapsing as whatever was below attempted to burst through the ground.

They received an all-clear from the radio, and just as the two men were about to begin putting the columns of rock into the ground below, columns that could have injured those who might be standing in one of their locations.

“Not all clear. Wrath is still down there.” Someone yelled over the radio. Fletcher glanced up at his brother, watching as the usually cocky demeanor faltered, as he now seemed hesitant.

“He was ordered to work from the ground. That is probably what he is doing.” Another voice said.

Russell still looked pale, but nodded to Fletcher as they began putting every ounce of alchemy into their work, creating columns from below. When General Armstrong joined them, he put on his gauntlets as he began his work, looking concerned.

“General,” a young officer said, “we have received word from your wife that she has your son, Alex, in a stronghold now. She’s at the mansion with other families in the shelter.”

“And Phillip?”

“Has reached the surface with the fuhrer. The fuhrer said to assure you in one piece.”

His posture relaxing just a bit, the general nodded. Though it was no secret that things had been tense between Armstrong and his wife for the last year or so, no one would deny that he loved both his boys. Yet, Fletcher was a little curious as to why that message about Phillip being in one piece was so specifically important, and coming from Roy.

********

Frank stood at the ready, his troops all armed with various weapons that had been modified from Earth technology. His troops contained no alchemists, and he preferred it that way. Alchemists had the tendency to out-shine, but here, these men were operating complicated rocket launchers, advanced guns, and they were doing it without some genetic advantage.

They looked frightened, unsure of using these weapons against technology that had still yet to become more than a theory in Amestris, as their energy sources had never been designed for fossil fuels. These men had seen very little more than a glider, and Frank could only guess at the things that that bitcher was planning to bring through the ground. Though the Tringhams, along with Armstrong had obviously done what they could, Frank saw when he arrived at the scene of the cracking ground, it was obvious that whatever had gotten out from the ground below would obviously make its way through, regardless of their actions.

When the ground finally crumbled into the city below, a flinch on Russell’s face—Frank had already heard that wrath hadn’t come to the surface with the rest, Russell looking all the more sick at that fact.

The cracks became a gaping hole.

“Men!” Frank yelled out. “Steady your weapons and prepare to fire!”

He watched as planes soared out of the widening hole, giving his men the orders to fire at will, shooting off the launchers at the planes. Over and over again, they fired, Frank never visibly pausing while he silently prayed that Kain was safe atop the building.

********

Beside his son, Ed ran to a building opposite the one where he saw Kain and his troops stationed. Everything was running with almost frightening ease as attacks were made by the troops of Amestris, the planes initially just trying to break free of the underground city and not overly concerned with the troops on the ground as they all cleared the area for something Ed suspected was much larger.

Over his shoulder, he glanced up at his son—taller now than Roy, damn the boy—who stood with a pyrotech glove on one hand, an intense look on the usually carefree face. “Ready Dad?” He gestured to Ed’s pocket, a signal that he needed to put on the glove Roy had insisted he carry with him because, as his husband had pointed out, “Not everyone fights hand to hand.”

With that he put the thing on, looking over at his son, nodding. Together, they would combine their fire alchemy abilities. Both held up a gloved hand to the sky, snapping, focusing on transforming the air before them, creating a blast that might as well have been a bomb as it exploded in the sky with a large crack and destroyed the first plane as it swooped downward to do damage to the city.

“Those things,” Nicholas yelled over the noise of the crashing plane. “They don’t look like Frank described them. I think they’ve been enhanced with alchemy.”

“They seem responsive to their pilots,” Ed said, loudly as he and his son pointed their hands in the air and repeated the process again to destroy another two airplanes before running across the building to leap over the dividing wall between that one and the next.

“I’d like to get a better look at the arrays on them,” Nicholas said as he followed behind.

“You sound like Aideen,” Ed said, stopping so abruptly that Nicholas slammed into his back.

“Dad?”

“Nicholas, get down!” Ed slammed his son to the rooftop putting his body over top of the taller teen as the dirigible surfaced and began firing with alchemic force.

“That thing…” Nicholas said as he poked his head up over the tiny piece of wall in front of them before Ed pulled it back down, another blast nearly hitting the building where they laid. “It’s part human, or at least, that’s what I think. Like an entire army of humans became part of the thing.”

Ed nodded. He hadn’t quite the sixth sense when it came to alchemy either of the twins did, but he could tell something was off about the thing.

“I think it’s the one in control of all of this. We need to get to it, Dad.”

“Well, we have to wait until—” There was an explosion not far from them. “—Son of a bitch!—that thing isn't firing directly at us.”

As another of the weapons almost magically formed at the side of the craft, Nicholas raised a single hand, snapping his fingers and blasting the weapon off, showering a distinctively fleshy metal onto the ground below.

“You were saying?” Nicholas said, sounding just a bit like his other father at the moment.

“Oh, stop being a smug little bastard,” Ed said. “You hold off the guns, I’ll see to getting us up to the thing.”

********

Atop the other roof, Kain was leading more troops with aerial weaponry, half of his troops working to take out this large blimp that had broken through the street of Central, destroying several structures in the process, the other half working trying to get rid of the numerous other smaller aircrafts that circled.

He took only a split second to check for the dark headed colonel below him as he continued to command his troops, moving back within the ranks to aid his troops with the large rocket launchers. Despite his need for glasses, Kain had always had a fairly accurate eye when it came to aiming a weapon, even for aiming at where a target would be, rather than where it was.

Yet, as Kain glanced down, he saw that the Gate seemed to be closing in the underground city, and that one final dirigible and two planes were coming up. Grabbing the radio he had at his hip, he gave orders to Fletcher and Russell to begin closing the opening, hoping that if they could do it while the second dirigible was midway through the hole, it would essentially cut the thing in half.

********

Russell and his brother were doing what they could from behind a barricade, having to move there as the large dirigible made its slow progress upward. Not only had it grown unsafe to be so close to the gaping hole below Central, but that thing seemed to have a mind of its own, shooting at damned near anything that moved. He heard the orders from Kain, and deferring to the older man’s higher rank, he obeyed.

Apparently, General Armstrong had received the same message, though probably didn’t take it as an order from the lower ranking brigadier general with the better perspective on the battle. The large man nodded to both Tringham brothers, and together, they began working at closing the street. It was a process that would have taken little time at all, had some of the stone beneath them not been used to create pillars to support the weight of the city at the surface.

Much to Russell’s relief, the opening began to close before the weapons of that leviathan were at the same level as he, and the stone began to shape its way through the soft skin of the air-filled blimp.

But, he hesitated. He was making this crash, making it fall down into the underground city, the last reported whereabouts of his boyfriend. If Wrath was still alive… He shook his head, he couldn’t think that way. Wrath had to be down there, and because he absolutely had to be alive down there, Wrath knew better and would be coming to the surface any moment now to rub it in Russell’s face that he’d been worried over him. If nothing else, Wrath sure as hell would get away from a crashing aircraft.

Again, Russell focused on his work, closing the opening, trying not to meet his brother’s concerned eyes, not wanting to show that there was worry in his own, worry for the person he loved that he had yet to hear any word on.

********

Roy looked around at the damage being done to his city and with a fury began to attack at the offending vessels that kept coming from the now-closing opening to the underground. He’d fought too long and too hard to be essentially a guardian for his country, and he wasn’t about to let a bunch of arrogant fanatics from another world do anything to change that.

But more than that, there was the concern over Aideen. He had asked if there were any signs of her yet, anyone who had found out where his daughter had gone off to. Though he did his best not to show that there was a part of him that was very much overwrought at the idea his daughter was somewhere out in the midst of this. According to Danny, who’d been taking her for a drive to calm her nerves while Nicholas began the confrontation, she’d needed to come home, and heard her family having a discussion about something incredibly personal without her present. He could only imagine how hurt, how confused his little girl was, and she was all of that, in the middle of a battle between two worlds.

Again, he tried to shift his focus back to the battle, telling himself that Aideen could handle herself better than the cadet by his side—and he was doing remarkably well, though as one who had become part of the Armstrong family, it was little surprise. Aideen had learned to fight from the time she was old enough to walk, kept a pair of gloves on her person at all times, and was lethal at almost any type of alchemy she tried.

Aideen would be safe.

At the moment, his concern was the growing column of stone that he saw held two very important blonds rising through the air. With an angry glare, he decided if his husband and son didn’t get themselves killed with that stunt, he’d fry them both himself.

Then, to top off matters, he had people operating Central’s missile systems that were not the commanding officers, nor were they people he particularly trusted, though they seemed to be doing everything efficiently and accurately. He would question them and their commanders later why some of his smarmiest, most snake-like officers were operating such intricate systems, but as long as they were functioning well, Roy couldn’t complain. Though he had a feeling the nagging feeling at the back of his mind would increase once he had his family safe and all properly berated for their irresponsible behavior.

*********

Dante had managed to climb inside one of the blast holes the brat’s brat had caused in the side of the dirigible. The fool Germans had used those alchemic symbols she’d warned them about, incorporating themselves into the mechanics of what amounted to an absolutely beautiful creation of steel. She could hardly restrain herself as she allowed her fingers to trace over the craftsmanship of the walls of the thing.

A woman, older, and half transformed into the ship, looked back at Dante, transforming one of the walls into a gun to fire at the skilled alchemist. With a smile, Dante looked over at her, dissolving the thing with a quick clap of her hands.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that Dietlinde,” she said. “You know, this truly is a terrifyingly beautiful ship you have here.”

“Who are you?”

“Allow me to introduce myself, Dietlinde. After all, we’ve been exchanging letters for quite some time.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Of course not. I’m Dante. I’m the one who informed you of everything you needed to know, while withholding what I didn’t want you to know.” The woman in front of Dante lost her focus for a moment as she, now little more than an extension of the ship, began to fire at something outside. “Like those nice little rocket launchers they have outside.”

“Dante has been writing me for twelve years.”

“Why do you think I typed that first letter? A four-year-old hardly has the kind of manual dexterity necessary for writing.”

The woman didn’t believe her, and actually attempted to fire something at Dante again. With a faint yawn, the ancient alchemist again dissolved the weapon.

“Do you have any other tricks, or is it just the one where you try to shoot me, because really, Eckhart, I grow tired of having to do this.”

“I will not be toyed with. Do you know who I am?”

“Do you know who I am?” Dante took a few determined steps forward. “I have lived for four hundred years invading others’ bodies. I am an alchemist of such power, such skill that someone as pathetic as you couldn’t begin to try to screw with me. I have created other beings, I have solved countless alchemic mysteries, and I did it all before you were even a glimmer in your father’s eyes. I have managed to find a host so damned powerful that I am able to draw off of her strength as well, and you really think you have a chance? The fact alone that I had to go through puberty for a second time is enough to make me stronger than you.”

The thing that had once been a woman lunged at Dante, and it was all she could do to refrain from rolling her eyes as she dodged the attacks. Really, she’d hated having to grow up all over again, but as her body—somewhat lessened in its ability from recent lack of activity but still superior to her opponent’s—flipped and rolled with ease Dante had never had in any previous bodies, she was grateful having learned to fight from nearly the day she was able to put her hand into a fist.

“And how do you plan to defeat me?” Eckhart asked, as she lashed out parts of her body almost whiplike at the alchemist. “Are you going to use your supposed skills, Dante?”

“Of course not. You aren’t worth my skills,” Dante said as she ducked down, pushing aside her red coat and reaching into a black boot to find the gun there. “You see, this body has another natural talent, in that its mother was a skilled marksman.”

And with that, she fired an entire round into the German bitch, rather enjoying how the other woman, the one who thought she could be a match for Dante, tried to regenerate herself against the bullets ripping through her head and body.

The woman must have expected a battle of alchemy, because with each bullet that struck at her malformed figure, Eckhart looked positively shocked.

“I fight dirty, I’m afraid,” Dante said, as she fired the last shot directly between the thing’s eyes.

********

When Nicholas leaped onto the now calm dirigible, leaving his father cursing at him on the column, he saw a dark-haired figure operating the thing.

“Aideen?” he asked tentatively. The dark head dipped down just slightly. If his sister was operating this thing, it would explain why it stopped firing at the city. “Aideen? Are you okay?”

She looked over at him, tears in her eyes, her voice sounding far clearer than he’d expected from the looks of her saddened face. “Nicholas, I don’t know how to operate this thing, and I- I shot…”

Nicholas looked down at his feet at the bloody mass. “Aideen, this woman was going to destroy the city. You did a good thing.” Trying to ignore the thing that looked somewhat like a woman, he stepped over the thing’s body, moving to his sister and wrapping his arms around her shoulders as comfort. She let go of the controls for a moment, something that obviously wasn’t going to cause the dirigible to crash, at least not immediately and returned the embrace.

“Nicholas, I was so scared,” she said, though she didn’t sound incredibly frightened.

There was a loud bang as the door to the back compartment flew open. Nicholas immediately stood at the ready, right hand extended with his ignition cloth-gloved hand. An older man, around sixty, stood before him, keeping a blond woman behind him.

“Mother?” Nicholas asked as he saw the face of the woman behind the older man, one that so closely mirrored his own and those seen in old photographs.

“Hohenheim,” Aideen said flatly.