Worlds Collide

A/N: TrulyWished, thanks for reviewing. The chimera thing, I figure Noa's been syphoning off of all of the members, like she did off of Ed in the movie. And, since they were able to create the armor in the movie, I figured, why not a chimera? Both take alchemy. kuragari75, glad you liked it. Amethyst-eyed Koneko, the chimera thing, like I said, they managed some alchemy in the movie, so I thought, what the heck. Stephen is not OC, but he might as well be. Yeah, you are a little jealous, butthat's okay. Aideen's going to come into her own later. Right now she and Nicholas are still kids, but as they get older their parts will get bigger. Exotic Rose83, I've worked really hard to make their reactions to parenting believable. I figured their first big fight would be along this line (not to mention Ed's own anxiety over where he stands with Roy). Glad you like the kids and the Wrath story line. (And the name Ulysses, when I looked it up, means Wrath and is the name of the main character of the Odyssey, when it isn't listed as Odysseus, so I thought it seemed appropriate, even though I hate that beast of a name. I've screwed up the spelling a couple of times. Thank you spell check!)

Chapter 6

Closeness Between Worlds

Amestris

Ed walked beside Roy, feeling much too gross to be wearing his jacket, so he carried it under his arm, clad only in the wet and sweaty white tank top. Feeling the older man’s eyes on him, he looked up, seeing Roy was watching him very intently. Though part of him still wanted to hit the older man, Ed’s anger at his husband was fading, if just slightly, and Roy seemed to be doing everything he could to show how sorry he was.

“You look tired,” Roy said.

“I bet I do.” Ed said as he felt Roy wrap an arm around his waist, looking very pleased to see he wasn’t turned away. “Are you sure you want to touch me? I’m sweaty.”

“I’d rather do more than touch you, but we’re still in public.” Ed was more than a little surprised at the man’s answer, but didn’t glare at him or smack him for it. It was kind of a nice reminder that yes, Roy found him attractive. Now, if he could just convince the idiot to stop flirting with women.

Making their way to the fuhrer’s car, armed guards moving toward their own, they saw Havoc, Gracia, and Elysia exiting not far behind them, obviously not feeling up to the dance that had followed the dinner.

“Hey Boss, hey Chief!” Havoc yelled. The two men waited as their friends slowly made their way to them. Ed felt for Gracia, he really did. Now six months along, he knew her feet and ankles had to be swelling and her back aching, though she certainly did seem to be glowing, and Ed had never heard a complaint leave her mouth—according to Havoc, she saved those until they were alone.

“Did you enjoy your meal?” Ed asked, sharing a knowing and empathetic smile with her.

“It was really good,” Elysia answered. “Uncle Roy makes a good waiter.”

“Yeah,” Roy said, with a grin “if this whole fuhrer thing doesn’t pan out, I think I could have a career in waiting tables.” He put a hand on Gracia’s arm. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay today.”

The new Colonel Havoc stood behind her, hands on her belly, that grin of “I did that” plastered on his face. Ed just rolled his eyes at him. He’d never really gotten to see that expression on Roy’s face, but considering the number of complications there’d been with the twins, not just medical ones, it was little surprise.

He knelt down in front of Elysia.

“So, are you getting excited about your little brother?” he asked her.

Happily, the eight-year-old nodded her head. “We’ve been getting stuff for the nursery.”

Ed looked up at the two parents. “Let us know if you want any of Nicholas’s old things.”

Gracia was about to say something when the earth began to shake, and a sudden storm broke out in the sky.

“What the hell?” Ed said, not really taking into account Elysia’s presence as he let the swear cross his lips. Then, he saw a flash of lightening in the sky that took the shape of an all-too-familiar symbol. “Gracia, you and Elysia need to get out of here. Fast.”

“Ed?” Roy asked, looking down at him.

“It’s the Gate.” Ed ushered Havoc’s family into his and Roy’s vehicle, as it was closest, tossing them his set of keys. “Get away from here. Go home, go anywhere but here,” he said to Gracia before they sped off.

The armed guards, whose job it was to protect the fuhrer and his family from human threats looked a bit intimidated, even frightened as the symbol shifted into a giant rift in the sky. Blocking out the blinding light from the rift with a hand held to shade his face, Ed watched, waiting to find out just what move he was going to need to make.

“Brother!” he heard from the distance, a set of long legs making a quick trip down the street. “Is that what I think it is?” Al asked when he got near enough. Ed only nodded. Out of the corner of his eyes, Ed saw Al gathering back his hair and tying it out of his face. He also watched as Raine appeared.

“The kids?” Roy asked her.

“With Winry at her shop.” She looked up at the sky, like the rest of Central surely was at the moment. Then it happened, the rift began spewing suits of armor, some closely resembling the one Al had worn. The first to hit the ground, awkwardly stood, nearing a young man who looked absolutely terrified. Immediately, the four alchemists and the new colonel charged at it. Ed was the first to reach it, clapping his hands and transforming his arm, spearing through the metal like butter. He hadn’t hit the blood seal, but he had provided a definite distraction to allow the young man to get away.

“Come on you piece of tin, come and get me,” he taunted.

As another and another came smashing into the ground, Roy began snapping his fingers, lighting the insides of armor with flames hot enough to burn off the blood seals after a few quick snaps.

Al, who had regained all memories from the Gate no longer needed to draw his alchemic symbols, was clapping his own hands, disintegrating the armor with a fierceness that could almost be called frightening, knowing that he, himself, had been encased in such a way.

Raine was the only one at a loss to attack, having to take the time to draw symbols to fend off the thirty-odd suits that were attacking the city. Havoc merely shot at them, kicked and attacked them, doing the best he could, ordering alongside the fuhrer any citizen or military officer nearby to either attack or run.

It wasn’t a difficult battle, as the souls bound to the armor only seemed to have been done poorly, leaving them little more than mindless puppets, but the problem fighting them was that without a real functioning reasoning, the suits of armor had no plan or strategy for which those fighting them could expect and use against their opponent. All attacks were random, seemingly pointless except to destroy whatever was in their path.

It also allowed for one to slip away, one to head further into the city, the people rushing away from it as it made its way toward the new automail shop, a branch of Rockbell’s automail from Risembool, where Ed’s children were supposed to be tucked safely away.

Realizing the danger the twins, as well as Winry, could be in, Ed dispatched quickly with the suit he was fighting and ran like a madman to stop the one that with each step closed in on Ed’s children. It was possible the brainless suit had not intention of going into the automail shop, but as far as the angered father was concerned, his children were in danger, and it was his responsibility to protect them. Leaping into the air and landing practically on top of the armor, he rammed his spike-like fist through the metal man.

“Pay attention to me, you hunk of junk!” he yelled, kicking at the thing with his left leg. “There’s nothing you want there. Fight me!”

A driven man, Ed stabbed and slashed through the thing, making sure he’d not only gotten the blood seal, but practically every inch of the metal armor with his spike. Then, to ensure that it did nothing to hurt his children, if he had possibly missed a second seal, he picked it up—a feat he wouldn’t have been capable of without the adrenaline rushing through his body, no matter how muscular he was—and threw it closer to the battle, then kicking it back to the growing heap of lifeless metal. He watched as Roy finished off with the last of the armor, and looked up at the closing rift.

“I’m sending them back to where they came from!” he yelled to Roy over the roar from above. “That will get the message across not to send anything else!” He clapped his hands, causing the ground to rumble and thrust the armor into the gaping hole in the sky. Hopefully, whoever sent the things through would realize the same would happen to them if they made the attempt. No sooner had the suits been sent through than he watched his brother collapse, the rift slowly closing above them.

********

Munich

Quickly, Stephen moved away as hunks of metal that had once been armor came crashing through the opening on the floor. He grabbed for Noa, who was on a direct path of one of the sharper items. The poor young woman hardly looked like he’d remembered her from his time with the circus where her group of Roma performers had frequented. She looked, well, hollow. But perhaps she had always looked that way. He’d observed her for almost a year before her own people sold her to the Thule Society, and never had he seen her genuinely smile in all that time.

His arms protectively around the Roma, he heard her whisper. “I remember you. You were at the circus, but you couldn’t do any real tricks.” She smiled emptily as he tried to help her stand, her eyes looking over the hunk of metal that would have ended her life. “You should have let me die.”

“I couldn’t—”

“I know. It’s not your nature,” she said, before going limp in his arms. Quickly, he pulled her up, holding her bridal style, looking to the other members of the society.

“Take her back to her room,” the leader, a woman so cold and heartless, the member of military intelligence wondered how she could possibly be a real human being.

“Of course Frau Eckart,” he answered, the words making him sick. He hated enough that he had to take orders from someone in the society, but the fact that it was this woman, this monster of a human being made him ill. All the woman cared about was moving herself and her ideals forward. She was cold-hearted, ruthless and wanted glory more than anything, even at the expense of others.

He made his way through the tunnels of the underground compound, a place for which the Thules had searched for more than five years, before even the major’s involvement in their work. It meant little to Stephen, who held apparently no alchemic ability himself, though he was sponge for the knowledge Wrath had given him. But those within the society that did seem to possess some form of natural ability, including the young woman in his arms, said the power in this place coursed through them. It was a place as close as possible as it came to connecting Earth to another world, Wrath’s world. That combined with the knowledge that the society’s members, Stephen included, had created the monsters in the suits of armor as well as the chimera who now laid dead around the circle, the energy needed to open the path to the other world killing it.

Now, the question was, what lay beyond that gate that was strong enough to take down thirty suits of armor and throw them back?

********

The Thules had cleared, and Edward made his way into the main chamber, as he’d done each time they were out of the room to supply Wrath with something to eat and some water until it was safe for him to leave his hiding place. The blond arrived in time to see the crate being ripped open. In a quasi-horror, he watched as Wrath shredded through the wood as though it was nothing, his hands gleaming in the light of the candles. He went to the rubbish from the armor, looking at a hole in one, bringing his right hand down to it, seeming to match the size of the mark with his hand, eyes somewhat wild as he looked.

Withdrawing the arm, Wrath said only one word: “Ed.”

He searched through the pile, finding some that looked like they’d met with fire, searching through the mess as though looking for any that had survived, seeming ready to destroy it. When the pile started to move, the teen leapt back, hands in fists prepared to attack. In shock, Ed watched a damaged suit rising from the rubble.
“Wrath, is that you?” the suit asked, looking at him with hollow eyes.

“Al…”

“I brought my soul through to see what sent these. Was it you?”

“No. Your body?”

“On the other side. And you’re here?” Wrath only nodded. “What sent them?”

“The Thule Society. They’re trying to get through the Gate, trying to get to Amestris.” Edward came closer, but still out of view of the talking suit of armor, if it had a view. Wrath looked at this Al who somehow was in the metal, but his body was elsewhere. “I’m going to try to stop them on this side. Can you go back and tell Ed to try? And tell him I’m okay?”

“I’ll tell him. Are you sure you want to block this? This could be your way home.”

“Yes. I’ll be okay here. I have friends here. They’re sort of my… family.” From his place in the shadows, Edward smiled a bit. He was Wrath’s family. “And tell him, tell him your father’s on this side too.”

“Father? Is he okay?”

“Envy made it through, too and is chasing him, but Hohenheim writes me, lets me know he’s all right.” Wrath fumbled nervously over his words. “Are the babies…”

“They’re fine. They’re almost four. Ed’s told them about you. He owes you a lot for them.” The suit collapsed to its knees. “I can feel my soul moving back to my body.”

“Tell them I’m sorry. Tell them that.”

“Sorry?”

“The society wouldn’t have known how to do this if it weren’t for me. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault they used it this way and no one was hurt,” the suit said just before it finally collapsed.

“But it is my fault,” the black-haired teen said, dropping to his knees. “It’s all my fault.” He looked down at his gleaming limbs. Edward stepped out of his shadowed hiding place, moving toward Wrath. He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Teary violet eyes looked up. “I should never have taught Stephen. I risked everyone in my world because of what I did.” He was practically shaking as he continued to look down at his hands. “And this place. It’s powerful. I can’t change my hands back.”

Edward could watch the growing frustration in Wrath’s face. He knelt down in front of him, then wrapped his own thin arms around the broad shoulders of the still-growing young man. “You need to calm down, Ulysses,” Edward said. “You told me they used to make you remember who you were, who you should be to let go of whatever you’d bonded with. You are my friend, someone who reads entirely too many books, has far too much muscle for someone his age—you make me look like a twig, has hands that don’t quite match…” Holding him like this was awkward, so Edward stood, bringing Wrath up with him, placing a hand on the back of the dark head, another arm beneath the mismatched one of the teen’s. He held him tightly, telling Wrath just to remember who he was, to remember the person he’d become, a real live person. “Please. You are Ulysses. You cannot forget that. Please, just try to remember.”

Then he heard it, like droplets of rain, the metal Wrath had bonded with inside of the crate dropping off of his hands in small pellets. He could feel the young man’s body relaxing, the noise stopping, and the embrace being returned. For a moment, risking how this looked and that Wrath wasn’t supposed to be there at all, Edward just held his friend, his left hand making small circles on the muscular back, his right gently rubbing through the coarse black hair.