Iserlohnn - continued

Visions in the Night

The sound of a deep throaty echoing laugh roused Edward from his slumber. He glanced at his watch. It was after three in the morning. He yawned and then listened for the noise that had awakened him. For a long moment everything was silent. Then he heard the sound of someone in boots walking towards his room. He turned towards the open door and in the harsh artificial light of the hospital corridor he saw a man clad all in white wearing a white leather duster with his snowy hair pulled back in a thick long ponytail looking in at him.

“You!” Edward breathed.

The White-Haired Man smiled at him then turned and headed towards Tenshi’s room.

“NO!” Edward screamed as he leaped out of bed totally forgetting he was hooked up to an IV. The pole and the two glass bottles hanging from it fell over the glass bottles shattering and spilling their contents all over the floor. The tubes connecting Edward to the bottles were yanked from his arm and the pain of the IV needle suddenly pulling free from his skin made Edward wince. However, Edward felt no pain after that for he was running on pure adrenalin when he rushed into Tenshi’s room.

The White-Haired Man was at Tenshi’s bedside peering over at him. The little Alchemist was oblivious to his presence and didn’t respond when the stranger gently caressed his cheek.

“Get away from him!” Edward commanded as he transmuted his Auto-mail arm into a sword.

The White-Haired Man looked over at Edward and cast an appreciative eye at the young man standing there clad in nothing but his boxers. The Fullmetal Alchemist had been the only person to actually hurt him in a very long time. He could use someone like Edward Elric. However, he knew breaking that boy’s will was not going to be easy…

“You have no idea who you are dealing with, do you?” the White-Haired Man said to Edward. Edward glared but did not respond so he continued, “You can’t win. Look at your friends. They tried to stop me and see what happened to them.”

Edward shot a quick glance around the room and saw the Princess was sprawled unconscious on the floor by the bathroom door and Al was lying in a heap of twisted metal against the wall.

“Brother…” Edward heard Al moan.

Edward closed the distance between them. He could repair Al and he noted the Princess was still breathing so she was still alive. He’s just toying with me, Edward thought. Well I’m through with being played…!

The White-Haired Man smirked at Edward as the Alchemist leaped at him attempting to impale him on his sword. He stepped aside easily avoiding Edward’s blade but now his back was to the window. The White-Haired Man noted the escape route but he didn’t count on getting to it so soon. Edward transmuted his sword arm into a battering ram pulling the extra metal he needed to do the transmutation from Tenshi’s bed frame and a great metal ball connected to Edward via a chain shot forth from Edward’s arm roughly shoving the White-Haired Man out the glass window. The glass exploded outward as the White-Haired Man’s body connected with the window with the force of a stream train and he found himself falling five stories to the concrete sidewalk below.

Edward ran to the window and looked down in time to see his opponent land with a squishy thud. He stood there watching and waiting to see what the White-Haired Ma n would do next. Edward knew he wasn’t dead. He had seen him reform after receiving far more devastating injuries. What he wanted was for him to just go away. As he stood there resting and watching, the White-Haired Man’s body transformed into a swarm of bees and the insects flew off into the night leaving nothing of themselves behind.

“Brother…”

Edward turned at the sound of Al’s voice. He raced over to his brother and quickly gathered up all the pieces of the armor that lay scattered on the floor.

“Don’t worry, Al. I’ll get you back together,” Edward promised as he hastily scooped up all the fragments.

“How can we fight this thing?” Al asked as Edward continued fetching his pieces. “It’s not…human.”

“I know Al,” Edward said his voice quavering with exhaustion as he put the last of the pieces in place. “We’re going to have to figure something out. Let me get you fixed up and then we’ll talk.”

Edward clapped his hands together completing his transmutation circle and then laid his hands gently on Alphonse’s metal chest. The armor quickly reshaped itself into its normal appearance and, once Alphonse was back to normal, he caught Edward in time to keep him from landing face flat on the floor. All the exertion and use of his powers had wiped out what little strength Edward Elric had in him. Al gently lifted him up and carried him over to where Tenshi lay sleeping and put Edward in bed beside him. The bed was big enough to easily accommodate the two boys. When Al was sure both of them were okay he went over to check on the Princess.

Princess Katarin was just coming to when Alphonse made it over to where she lay. She looked up at him and then surveyed the room. “What happened?” she asked.

“Edward got rid of him,” Alphonse told her. “But I have a feeling he is going to be back.”

“You’re right, he will be back,” she stated. “I heard what he called Tenshi before he knocked me out. He called him Hope the Key Holder.”

“What does that mean?” Alphonse wanted to know.

“That is the name of one of the Seven Divine Virtues,” she explained as she allowed Alphonse to help her to her feet. She turned toward the bed where both Edward and Tenshi lay sleeping and continued, “Apparently your friend is not only one of the Divines but one of the two most important of the Seven. And the man we fought here tonight is apparently after the Divines.”

“Why?”

“To unseal The Gate,” she told him. “The Key Holder and the Gate Keeper are two of the Sacred Seven. The other Five are needed to power the way to the Gate. The only reason anyone would try to gather together the Seven Virtues would be to enact the ancient Ritual to open The Gate without suffering the consequences.”

“Open The Gate? Is that even possible?”

“Yes, it is. And the person who does this would have access to limitless energy. They would be like a god and wield more power than even a holder of the true Philosopher’s Stone.”

Alphonse was stunned. He had no idea something more powerful than the Philosopher’s Stone existed. Then again, until they went to Iserlohnn, they had no idea Alchemy could be used to send messages, move people from place to place, or find people using nothing more than a personal item. Maybe what they should be doing instead of seeking the Philosopher’s Stone is finding these Seven Divines. It sounded like a much better way to achieve their goals. All the research they had done on the Stone still led to the same conclusion: you had to sacrifice people’s lives to forge a Stone. These Divines sounded like they already had the power within themselves and all anyone had to do was to get them to channel it to achieve the effect you desired.

Maybe these Divines would be willing to help us get our bodies back, Alphonse though to himself. It would be worth it to find them so we could ask…

“Princess, what if WE were to find the Divines? If we got to them first we could keep them safe,” Alphonse suggested.

“They could never be kept safe here,” she told him. “You don’t have the knowledge or the power to protect beings of such importance.”

“But we can’t let him get them!”

“True,” she agreed. “But he will return to collect the three Divines he has found already.”

“Three?” Alphonse asked confused. “You said Tenshi was one but who are the other two?”

“We are,” she told him and if it were possible for Al’s jaw to drop it would have at that moment.

“Me?” he stammered.

“Yes, you and I are among the Seven,” she told him. “Somewhere etched into your armor is the Sacred Seal. Each of the Divines carries this mark. Here, see for yourself.” The Princess unbuttoned her tunic top and revealed a circular black tattoo on her breastbone that looked like a blending of angelic wings and a transmutation circle. “Since no one has mentioned seeing this mark on you it must be very well hidden,” she said.

Alphonse looked over at his sleeping brother and said, “This changes everything. We have to tell Ed.”

“When he wakes up we’ll explain this to him,” she said. “It’s not like he can do anything right now anyway considering…”

Al hadn’t intended to wake Edward up anyway. This news could wait until morning when Ed was up and the Colonel came back to see them. He would have to tell the Colonel about this as well because it would probably affect the plans he was making. Al had no idea how Mustang would react to this situation. Edward always went on about how power grasping the Colonel was and it was known around Central that Mustang wanted to be Furher someday. However what lengths the Colonel would go to in order to realize his dreams was anybody’s guess. Al didn’t think The Colonel would use the Divines himself but, then again, he wasn’t so sure.

He would definitely have to discuss this matter with Edward the moment his big brother woke up…

By the time the Colonel, Hughes and Armstrong returned the hospital staff had cleaned up the mess in Edward’s room and moved Tenshi so that he was now sharing the room with Ed. The two Alchemists were each in their own beds, Edward having been relocated back into his bed by the nurses after his room was cleaned up, and they were both still sleeping when the three military men arrived.

After Alphonse and the Princess described what happened during the night Mustang knew the situation had altered drastically and his dark eyes narrowed dangerously. The security at the hospital was going to have to be beefed up considerably and something was going to have to be done to keep Edward and Tenshi from being targeted again. His troops could only do so much against an opponent with the abilities this strange White-Haired Man had but he knew they could at least slow him down long enough for some Alchemists to step in and deal with him.

The Colonel looked at Princess Katarin. When he saw her last she had been a little child not much older than Alicia, Hughes daughter. The intervening years had been very kind to her. She was probably the prettiest girl Mustang had seen in a long long time. If she weren’t Obaba’s granddaughter he would have been very tempted to pursue her. However the Princess was off-limits in that regard but she still possessed skills and knowledge that was unknown to the Alchemists of Central. The fact she seemed willing to help them was a plus, since his memory was sketchy on many of the old teachings he had studied when he lived in Iserlohnn.

The Princess watched with interest as the Colonel talked with Hughes and Armstrong about making the hospital more secure. Although Roy Mustang had changed greatly in the twelve years that had passed since she had last seen him, he was still handsome in a roughish sort of way and a powerful Alchemist. She had a feeling he had completely forgotten the promise he made to her when he left Iserlohnn to go to Central and become a State Alchemist. He had been an eighteen-year-old boy with ambition and the power to back it when he held the little Princess in his arms on his last day in Iserlohnn and promised to come back one day and marry her when she was old enough. She had laughed and told him she would love to be his bride and put a flower wreath she had made on his head making him her prince. He kept the wreath on as he made his farewells to Obaba and the others. Then he stepped on a Port Key and vanished never to be seen by Katarin again until yesterday when she saw him through the train window. Had it really been that long? And did he really forget about his promise to her?

The sound of a bed motor pulled Katarin from her reverie and she turned toward the source of the noise. It was Edward and he was repositioning his bed so he could sit upright. He saw the Colonel, Hughes and Armstrong were all back and they were not paying him any attention. The Princess looked at him not trying to hide the fact she found his hard muscular body attractive and smiled.

“Did I miss anything?” Edward asked her.

“The Colonel doesn’t want a repeat of last night so they are increasing security,” she said. “But they are going to need more than an army to keep that man from getting back in here.”

“True,” Edward agreed then asked, “I know you probably know more about scrying and the other lost arts so I have a question for you. Can a Ward be constructed to focus on one small location, like just this room?”

Katarin pondered his question for a moment before responding, “Yes, you can Ward just a single room. But you must understand Warding works much like Scrying. If you don’t have something tied to the person you are Warding against, then it’ll be impossible to create an effective barrier.”

Edward sighed deeply and pondered his next move.

“Your idea has merit,” she said taking his hand in hers the sudden contact making Edward’s face flush pink. “You’ll just have to find a way to get a piece of him the next time you two cross swords.”

Edward nodded his understanding but made no reply. She smoothed a few unruly wisps of hair out of his face and lightly caressed his cheek. Her touch was feather light and gentle and she was close enough to him that he could smell her perfume. Her proximity was awakening a part of his anatomy he really wanted to keep unconscious and Edward crossed his legs in an effort to hide his growing problem. His rotten teenage hormones would have to kick in now, Edward thought savagely to himself. Damn it!

Alphonse saw the uncomfortable look on Edward’s face and came over to his bedside. “Are you all right?” he asked.

The Princess backed off a bit but was still close enough to touch Edward if she wanted to. Edward looked up at Al and asked, “When we were doing our research on Scrying did you happen to come across any books about Warding?”

“A couple. Why?”

“We need to construct a Ward to keep that freak away from Tenshi,” Edward said.

“But you need something connected to him in order for it to work,” the Princess stated.

“No, to make one keyed to HIM we need something of his,” Edward corrected. “I just want to make a generic Ward that will prevent any Alchemists or people with Alchemically charged items from entering this room.”

“You do that and you’ll be keeping out friends as well as enemies,” she stated.

“Not necessarily,” Edward replied with a grin. “It’ll keep out the Alchemists who were not a part of the Ward’s construction. I recalled reading that the maker of the Ward is the only one who could pass through it unaffected. If that is the case then if a group of people are in on the Ward’s construction then logically all members of that group should be rendered immune.”

“That makes sense,” she agreed. “But I haven’t done Warding in a long while. I think you should do a little fact checking before you start casting any circles.”

“I know where I saw those books in the library,” Alphonse said. “I could get them for you Ed. But you have to promise to let us help you do this.” Edward agreed and Alphonse continued, “There is something else you need to know. We found out why the White-Haired Man wants Tenshi.”

Edward’s curiosity was piqued. “Why?”

“He is one of the Seven Divine Virtues,” Alphonse explained. “According to the Princess if you get the Seven Divines together you can unseal The Gate and access all the power from the other side.”

Edward’s eyes widened in shock. He knew full well what sort of power that represented. “Shit,” he breathed.

“Um, and one more thing,” Alphonse added a little nervously. “Tenshi isn’t the only Divine. The Princess is one also and so am I.”

“WHAT?”

Edward’s shocked question drew all eyes onto him. It startled Tenshi, who had been awake and listening to all the conversations going on around him, and the little Alchemist cast a wide-eyed look at Edward.

“Edo-Sempai what’s wrong?” Tenshi asked.

Edward turned towards Tenshi and said in as calm a voice as he could muster under the circumstances, “We now know the White-Haired Man came after you. You, the Princess and my brother are part of a group known as the Seven Divine Virtues. And that’s all I can tell you because that’s all I know!”

“Maybe you should let me explain it,” the Princess suggested and Edward was more than happy to let her take the floor. She caught the Colonel’s eye and motioned for him and his colleagues to approach. When they were all close enough to her so that she could speak in a normal tone of voice Katarin began to explain, “The White-Haired Man is after Tenshi, Alphonse and myself because we are three of the Seven Divine Virtues. When the Virtues are assembled a circle can be cast that will allow The Gate to be unsealed in such a way that only its power to fuel Alchemy is unleashed. The person who succeeds in doing this would have the powers of a god. Your White-Haired Man obviously did his homework if he is attempting to gather the Virtues to do the Ritual of The Unsealing.”

Mustang glared at Edward and stated hotly, “Why didn’t you tell me your brother was a Divine Virtue?”

“Because I didn’t know until two seconds ago you fucking moron!” Edward shot back.

“I’m a…what?” Tenshi asked in a small voice.

The Princess ignored the angry glares Mustang and Edward were flashing at each other and said gently to Tenshi, “You are the Divine Virtue Hope, the Key Holder.”

“How do you know this?”

“The White-Haired Man identified you and that mark on the small of your back confirms it,” she said indicating the black tattoo similar to her own that was etched upon his fair skin right above his tailbone.

Tenshi flushed pink when he realized his hospital gown was leaving a lot more of him exposed than he liked and he quickly buried himself beneath the blanket. The Colonel had caught a glimpse of Tenshi before he covered himself and had to quickly push aside the thoughts the sight of his beautiful body brought to mind. Mustang looked away from Tenshi and refocused his attention back on the Princess and Edward.

“Who or what are these Divine Virtues?” Mustang wanted to know.

“Every generation seven people are born with the Virtue mark,” the Princess said showing him the mark she herself bore. “Who they are and how they are chosen is not really known but each Virtue is said to embody an aspect of the Divine.”

Her speaking about the Divine brought back memories of his days in Iserlohnn. The teachings of the Divine were interwoven with his lessons in Alchemy for in Iserlohnn it was believed that those who could perform Alchemy had a link to the Divine and that was the reason they could wield its power. Alchemy was seen as proof that a Divine power did exist and Alchemists were the ones chosen to bring the power of the Divine to the people. Whatever connection he may have had to the Divine force that watched over Iserlohnn was probably beaten out of him by too many years of fighting in senseless wars that had nothing to do with protecting the innocent or serving the public good. What was the final nail in the coffin was Ishbal. After that battle, Roy Mustang could no longer think of himself as a son of Iserlohnn…

“So if Tenshi is Hope, what are you and Al?” Mustang asked.

“I am Commitment the Gate Keeper and Al I think might be Faith,” the Princess responded.

“So now we need to find Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude and Justice,” the Colonel concluded.

“Exactly.”

“They could be anywhere,” Edward interjected. “How the hell are we supposed to find them when odds are THEY don’t even know who THEY are!”

Mustang looked at the Princess and asked, “What are the odds that these people we need to find are aware of who they are?”

“Hard to say,” she told him. “I knew I was a Virtue because Obaba explained what this mark on me meant. But Tenshi and Al had no idea until it was pointed out to them.”

“So what do we do? Scour all of Amestris until we find these people?” Edward said. “That could take YEARS!”

“There has to be a more efficient way of locating the missing Virtues,” the Colonel said. “Al, you and Ed are Central’s two best researchers but only one of you can go to the library right now. Could you see what you can find out about the Divines?”

Alphonse nodded. “Sure I can-“

“And while you’re there grab anything you can find on creating Wards,” Edward told him.

“And anything about this strange White-Haired Man would be useful as well,” suggested Hughes.

Alphonse hung his head. He was going to be in the library all day if he had to look up all this stuff.

“And don’t go there by yourself,” Edward said. “That creep is after you too. And I can’t watch your back if I’m stuck in this bed.”

“You have to stay in bed. You’re hurt,” Alphonse told him.

Edward tried to hide his anger and frustration but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “Just promise me you won’t go anywhere alone, okay?”

“Sure Ed. I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll protect you,” Armstrong promised in that booming voice of his. Alphonse winced and Edward cringed. “And I’ll help you with your research. Come with me!”

Edward gritted his teeth to hold back the urge to make a comment that would probably get him bashed in the face. Armstrong meant well but he was so pompous and annoying at times Edward couldn’t stand it. Al followed Major Armstrong out of the room and Edward knew his little brother was NOT looking forward to being stuck in a library all day with Armstrong. If Edward could have traded places with him he would have but his condition made that impossible. Poor Al would just have to suffer through a day of listening to the Major drone on about his great family and their wondrous traditions.

“He gets to you too, huh, Ed?” Hughes remarked low and aside to Edward.

Edward grinned. He liked Hughes. The guy was a top intelligence officer but even with all the responsibilities he had he still managed to find time to check in on him and Al. He was also an expert at blind fighting and no one was better than him with a knife. He was bright, cunning and dangerous and exactly the type of person Edward wanted to have around right now.

“Any chance your department might have some record somewhere of the White-Haired Man?” Edward asked him.

Hughes pondered that idea for a moment before replying, “Maybe. I’ll have my people look into it.”

“Thanks,” Edward said meaning it.

“No problem Ed,” Hughes responded smiling at him. “This is going to take a group effort. Which means you won’t be doing anything solo again until this mess gets cleaned up.”

Edward made no reply. He glanced over at Tenshi, who was watching the proceedings from his safe burrow beneath the blanket, and said, “You can come out. We’re all friends here.”

He slowly emerged sitting up and allowing the blanket to fall to his waist. He was no longer receiving an IV but the doctor had kept the connection through which they had been medicating him available. The IV needle was still embedded in a vein in Tenshi’s chest and held in place by a clear bandage. He noticed Edward had his IV in his chest as well and he was being given blood as well as drugs to fight infection. He also noticed Edward was naked except for his boxers and he tried not to stare at his Sempai’s hard muscular body. As much as he loved Edward and secretly yearned for his touch, he knew Edward’s love for him was more heartfelt and spiritual as opposed to lust-fueled.

Tenshi didn’t like people to see him unclothed. With all four of his limbs constructed of Auto-mail he looked more robotic than human. However, as he gazed around the room at the people his Sempai had referred to as his friends he noticed that not one of them seemed to find his appearance at all odd. They accepted him as he was, for who he was, which was something he knew Edward had been trying to teach him since he arrived at Central. True friends care about what lies within your heart, Edward had said. Always remember that….

The little Alchemist smiled slightly and he nervously fingered the blanket at his waist while listening as the Colonel outlined their next course of action.
====================================
More to come (as long as my connections holds up!)