-1Magic and Alchemy

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Chapter 2

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Screams woke Elisa.

She rolled out of bed, fumbled the combination lock off the trigger of her gun, and winced when the boy screamed in terror again. Fourteen years with the clan had taught her extreme caution; she snagged up an iron poker from beside her bed and with poker in one hand and gun in the other, she shouldered the bedroom door open.

It was well past noon; bright sunlight streamed through the loft's windows. They'd gone to bed just after dawn. The kid had fallen asleep in her car and again over her attempts to feed him a morning 'dinner.' He'd been utterly exhausted -- so tired, emotionally and physically, that the fear in his eyes had been overruled by his body's need for sleep.

He was still sleeping, she realized, if sitting up and screaming in a nightmare could be considered sleeping.

"Ed." She said, sharply, from a safe distance.

Another scream. He had his eyes screwed tight shut, and his fists balled. "MOMMMMMMMY! It wasn't you! I didn't kill you!"

"Ed. Ed, wake up."

She moved closer, warily -- she hadn't seen him use magic (or alchemy, as he'd insisted it was called) yet but Bluestone swore he was major league. Up there with Oberon, Elisa. He melted stone and made it flow like water. Caution seemed called for.

"Mommy!" He panted, "ALPHONSE! NO! NO! No, I'll save you ..."

"Ed!" Very cautiously, she put a hand on his shoulder. "Ed, wake up."

"Maes! No Maes! Don't die, Maes!"

Suddenly he jerked, lunged awake and away from her all in one motion. Those amber eyes blinked frantically, and he looked around wildly. One hand made a flapping motion in the air; his artificial arm remained motionless.

"Easy, Ed," Elisa said, soothingly. "You're okay."

He stared at her without comprehension for a moment, then tucked his good leg to his chest and said, "Bad dreams."

"Sounds like it."

He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand; she realized he'd been crying in his dream. Sympathetically, Elisa said, "You lost some family, didn't you?"

He wordlessly nodded.

"I have nightmares too, sometimes." Elisa said, quietly. "It's never easy losing people you love to violence."

He said nothing, though his eyes seemed to be screaming "What do you know!"

These days, Elisa knew all too well about losing coworkers, friends, and family.

"You want to try to sleep some more?"

"I wish I could avoid sleep for the rest of my life," Ed said, somewhat sourly. "Sorry about waking you."

From that comment I'm going to infer that he gets frequent nightmares. Poor kid. Elisa said, "It's okay. It was almost time to get up anyway. You hungry?"

He eyed her with interest -- she realized, belatedly, that she had the poker tucked under her arm and the gun still in one hand, finger resting against the trigger guard, muzzle pointed at the ceiling. With knowledge that no boy his age should have, he jerked his chin at the gun and said, "Were you expecting trouble?"

She glanced at the gun, then set the poker down. "Possibly."

"Maybe you should tell me what trouble you're expecting," Ed said, with a sour expression on his face. "I'd rather hate to be surprised."

"Uh." Elisa's brain went splut for a second at the kid's suggestion. Shit. That is actually a good suggestion. He doesn't know anything about this world and experience tells me that anyone with power of his level is going to meet up with some of this world's bad guys eventually. God forbid Demona hear of him.

Except -- he was sixteen at best. A kid. Her instincts were telling her to protect him from the harsh truths.

This is a kid who wakes up screaming 'I didn't kill you mommy!' and who has the eyes of battle-hardened warrior. And who uses thermonuclear level magic. He knows damn well there's bad crap in the world; he just wants to know what the particular hazards are in this world.

She couldn't help but think, Smart kid. He's a survivor.

"I'll fill you in tonight, when you meet the clan," she paused, and added, "do they have ... nonhuman creatures ... in Amestris?"

"You mean like chimeras?"

Chimeras. Human-animal hybrids in mythology. Elisa blinked. "Ah, do you have creatures that are like that in your home world?"

"Yeah. They're abominations," he shuddered. "The alchemy to create them -- it's a taboo."

"Okay. Well, my friends that you're going to meet tonight are not chimeras but they are not human, either. I just want to make sure that you're not surprised when you meet them. They can be a bit scary and some people think they're monsters when they first see them." She paused, considered that statement, and added, "Actually, we do have chimeras too ..."

"I've seen scary." Ed snorted, interrupting her. "You're telling me that you don't want me to judge them on appearance. That I can do. I prefer judging people on their actions."

Smart, smart kid. Elisa blinked at this statement. As wary and scared as he was, she hadn't actually been expecting that sort of a comment from him. She'd been expecting terror and paranoia, to tell the truth.

He ran a hand over his sleep-mussed hair, eyed her for a moment, then said, "Care if I take a shower?"

"Bathroom's yours. I'm afraid the only shampoo is girly, though." She shrugged apologetically. "I'm not used to having guests, really."

Ed smiled, the first actual smile she'd seen out of him -- though it was a wan, tired smile that didn't actually meet his eyes. "Listen, Elisa, I've spent the last few years in the middle of a war. Perfumed shampoo is not a problem as long as it gets the dirt out."

With effort, and a rather large amount of dignity, he heaved himself to his feet and hopped along the couch, then the wall, to her bathroom and disappeared inside.

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"Remember what I said about them being friends," Elisa said, sounding somewhat nervous, as she led the way onto an elevator. Ed glanced at her, wondering if she thought he was stupid. He'd been warned to expect nonhumans and that they might be scary. He wasn't supposed to hit them with any alchemy except in actual self defense. Check. He got that.

Besides, one of them -- Lexington -- was supposed to be able to fix his automail.

Ed hopped after her, the hopping somewhat easier now that she'd scrounged up a crutch for him. It was slow going -- but he refused to be carried like a child. Her partner, Bluestone, had offered and he'd shot that idea down in a hurry. Bluestone, hands in his pockets, was walking slowly after him.

"Really, remember they're friends. You're going to see some stuff you've lively never seen before in a few moments." Bluestone said, earnestly.

Try me, Ed thought, with the blackest of humor.

The man had a black eye, but had said nothing about the fight the night before. He had filled Ed in on a rather elaborate conspiracy theory involving aliens, a secret society, and the paper money this country used for currency on the drive over from Elisa's apartment. Elisa had caught his eye halfway through Bluestone's long discourse and rolled her eyes with great emphasis -- apparently, she didn't put much weight on her partner's theories.

The clan -- her friends -- lived at the very top of the building.

Ed leaned against the elevator railing as it rose rapidly upwards, wobbling a bit. His knee and hip were aching from the effort of standing on one leg.

"You okay, kid?" Bluestone asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Who are you calling shorter than grass in the desert?" He jerked free of the touch. He would have elaborated on the short inference, but the elevator doors opened at that point.

They were in the castle. It was a castle, Elisa had said -- transported stone by stone from across an ocean by a billionaire. (Bluestone had muttered, sotto voice, evil, just before she'd said "billionaire" and Elisa had snorted a rather sarcastic sounding laugh and said, "Well, nobody's perfect.")

The great hall of the castle was empty; streams of light from the setting sun shone horizontally in.

"They're outside," Elisa said, "We're a few minutes early, but there were a few things I wanted to tell you ..."

At that instant, gunfire rattled outside -- a machine gun, he thought. Then there was the unmistakable wail of incoming artillery -- Ed had heard that sound enough times that ducking was a spinal reflex. He hit the deck behind a heavy couch, knowing there was no time to even transmute some protection. The two cops remained standing as a thunderous explosion rattled the building.

They staggered, exchanged twin looks of incredulous disbelief, then, as Edward tried to scramble to his feet, Elisa shoved him back down and yelled, "STAY HERE!" She bolted for the doorway with her gun already drawn. Bluestone was hot on her heels.

"Shit!" He levered himself back to his feet and followed as fast as he could, which, even with the crutch, wasn't nearly fast enough.

"STOP!" Elisa bellowed, from outside, as another explosion blew. He heard her desperate wail, "GOLIATH! NO! DON'T!"

Profuse swearing, from Bluestone.

Another explosion.

Single sharp reports from a handgun.

"NO!!!!!!!!!!" Elisa's wail sounded utterly desperate. He heard the incoming whine of another mortar, and Elisa and Bluestone dove through the doorway as Ed flattened himself to the ground. A second explosion tore through the building.

Just how well attached is this castle to the skyscraper beneath it? Edward worried, as the building swayed and shuddered for a good long moment after the thunderous sound had died away.

"This thing might collapse!" Elisa shouted, apparently thinking along similar lines. He was more worried about the castle falling off the skyscraper than the building itself going down.

The attack stopped as quickly as it had started.

Gravel trickled to the floor from high above, a steady rattle of small pebbles. The building groaned. Hot metal ticked. Somewhere, a siren wailed.

"Generally speaking," he growled at Elisa and Bluestone, "Smart people do not try to keep the state alchemist from the battle. Generally speaking, they want me AT the battle. I could have done a hell of a lot more out there with my bare hands than you could have with that thing." He glared at Elisa's handgun, which she was still holding.

Elisa said, in a low voice, in a tone that made him look hard at her -- because it was a tone of utter and absolute horror, "Goliath ..."

"It was an assassination, Elisa." Bluestone's voice held a note similar. "DAMN it."

Elisa suddenly leaped to her feet and ran back outside, into a courtyard. Bluestone shouted, "Elisa! Wait!"

He started to follow. Edward snapped, "Take me!"

Being carried seemed the most expedient way to get to the scene of the fight. Hopping was slow.

Bluestone scooped him up and lumbered after Elisa, who had slid to a halt in the middle of a courtyard, next to a pile of rubble. Her face was blank. She stood, staring down at the bits and pieces -- bits and pieces of a statue, one of several tangled in amid the stone blocks of a fallen wall. They were shattered.

"Elisa, I'm sorry." Bluestone set Edward down -- he had the sudden sense that he'd been simply forgotten. He balanced against what was left of a bullet-scarred planter. The man walked up to his partner with heavy, slow steps. "Elisa?"

Elisa sank to her knees beside the statue. She still looked ... blank. Her eyes were very distant. She was shaking, Ed realized, but there wasn't any expression at all on her face. She tucked her knees to her chest and stared at the pile of broken stone.

"Elisa?" Bluestone crouched beside her. "I'm sorry."

She must have some sort of strong sentimental attachment to the statues, Edward realized. Odd. Maybe religious significance or something?

He realized he didn't know a damn thing about these people. Didn't have a clue who attacked the castle much less who the good guys or the bad guys were -- though his money was on Elisa and Bluestone being on the side of the light. Damn, I need more information about the situation.

Well, statues he could fix, anyway. He picked the head of one up off the ground by his feet -- a beaked face. The stone was warm in his hands. It would be simple to put them back together.

The look on Elisa's face was breaking his heart. He'd seen similar expressions on the faces of survivors of war. Hysterical grief would come later. Bluestone didn't look much better; he had tears streaming down his face.

Edward clapped his hands, slammed them against the ground, summoned alchemic energy, and watched with a grin as the bits and pieces of the statues rose from the ground and melded back together. Easy. Piece of cake. He felt how they should be and put everything back the way it was.

"No!" A warning voice, unfamiliar, behind him. "Don't! Wait! There's something you don't understand ..."

The familiar green and gold of alchemic magic suddenly went wrong.

SHIT!

He felt the soul-searing rush of wrong power as the Gate of Truth rose before him. The energy flared red and terrible. The gate opened started to creak open.

What did I do? He thought in wild confusion.

He was being pulled in. Confusion turned to terror. Somehow, someway, he'd done a transmutation on a living being, brought something back from the dead ... souls howled around him ... tearing at his skin.

"NO!"

Power that wasn't Alchemy wailed around him. Wild, feral, untamed, ruled by no laws he understood or could identify. Immensely strong.

"Begone ye gate, you'll not open today and take this child away!" A voice screamed at the portal.

The magic howled, mixing and swirling with the alchemy. Magic. That's not Alchemy.

He knew instinctively that this was something else, something other. It surrounded him, pulled him back, held him safe. The gate closed.

Silence.

Sobbing, from Elisa.

He blinked, amazed to be still alive. "What in the hell caused that?"

"What in the hell was that?" A voice echoed him.

He looked up to see a man with dark hair and a goatee frowning at him, intensely. Past the man, sitting on the ground, was a figure about his size -- a man with long blond hair and pointy ears. Chimera? Maybe. The man met his eyes, shook his head, and said, "Now that was a rush. Let's do it again why don't we?"

"Owen, are you okay?" The man turned back to the pointy-eared guy.

Owen stood up -- then abruptly melted into a taller figure, with short blond hair and thick glasses. The dark haired man didn't seem at all surprised by this. Edward twitched. Homunculi!

The homunculi said, "I'll survive. That was rather intense. Also, I think the folks on the other side of that gate are in for a surprise."

"What ... I don't understand why the gate opened." Homunculi, shit, shit, shit ... that's a homunculi, he shapeshifted ...

"It's generally considered unwise to try to bring back the dead using alchemy," Owen said, scowling at him. "You're terribly powerful not to know that. Somebody neglected your training."

"Dead?" He said. "But ..." He paused, stung beyond measure, switched gears, and snarled, "And believe me, I know far more than I ever want to about human transmutations! I wasn't transmuting humans! I'm not that stupid!"

"Not human, but close enough." Owen was utterly unruffled by Edward's display of temper. He pointed behind Edward.

He twisted around to see the dying light of the sun touching the statues he'd just resurrected. Resurrected seemed to be the operative word, because as the sun slid below the horizon the statues ... moved.

Exploded, shards of stone spraying in all directions.

Roared, loudly.

Eyes glowed.

Wings flexed.

Claws.

Fangs.

Tails.

Monsters.

He watched, too stunned to do anything else, as the statues came to life.

Well, that explains a few things, he thought, with absolute astonishment. His foot slid out from underneath him and he hit the ground with a painful thump. They just transmuted from stone to flesh. That ... shouldn't be possible.

There were seven of them, ranging in size from not much taller than Ed to a muscle-bound hulk who would have made the Strong Arm Alchemist look like a ninety-eight pound weakling. It was the latter creature that Elisa embraced, arms going around his neck. She was crying now; he could hear the sobs.

"Elisa? What happened?" The creature had a strong voice, warm, resonant. Edward blinked in surprise at that voice; it was calm, concerned, and clearly articulate. Not the voice of a monster at all.

She buried her face in his neck, clearly upset beyond words. Goliath wrapped his arms and wings around her, lifting her off the ground, and just held her. Edward held his breath, shocked at the casual intimacy with a creature that had claws and fangs like that.

Goliath murmured, "What has created the upset here?"

"Uh. You were attacked. Dead. Smashed." Bluestone spoke up. There was an unspoken sir in his words.

"Smashed?" One of the other gargoyles said. Shorter, but not short except in comparison to Goliath. Brick colored skin, and the beaked head that Edward had been holding a moment ago.

"I don't feel smashed!" That came from one almost as big as Goliath.

Goliath blinked. Set Elisa down. He asked Elisa, "Is this true?"

"Yes, sir," That was Owen, who spoke when Elisa remained in stunned silence. Owen's "sir" definitely wasn't unspoken, and Edward wondered if it was an actual military address or just polite speech. There was a lot he needed to learn here. Owen continued, with a nod in Edward's direction, "But the young alchemist here reacted very quickly and put your bodies back together, before your souls could cross over. The result was ... well, it was fortunate I was here, because that is not generally an advised use of alchemy. Magic handles such matters much better."

Goaded, Edward snapped, "I didn't know they were alive or I wouldn't have done it."

Elisa said, with a low laugh that spoke incredible, disbelieving relief more than anything else, "Well, I'm for damn sure glad you did."

Goliath growled, "Sorcery."

"Alchemy, actually. It's a science from another world, akin yet different to our own. And it has been awhile since I've seen an alchemist on this side." Owen adjusted his glasses. "You're a long way from home, young man."

The homunculi knows about my world. I must get it alone and wring some information out of it, Ed thought, savagely.

"Naught but trouble comes from magic." Goliath stepped closer to Edward. He loomed, for a second, then offered Edward a hand up.

"Well, then, it's a good thing alchemy isn't magic." Edward said, taking the gargoyle's hand. His fingers were warm, dry, and callused. Goliath pulled him to his feet easily. It was a casual courtesy, but one that he found unexpectedly set him at ease. These creatures were not human, but they were clearly people.

"You're injured." Goliath had noted Edward's difficulty in standing.

"Not technically," Ed sighed. He leaned his hip against the planter again, reached over, lifted his damaged right arm up and pulled his sleeve back, displaying the metal. "I kinda need a mechanic."

"You're a robot!" That came from the shortest of the gargoyles, who hurried closer for a better look. "Cool!"

"I'm not a robot." Ed pushed his sleeve back into place.

"He's a cyborg. And maybe a Child of Oberon," Bluestone offered, helpfully.

"Bluestone," Elisa said, with what sounded like patience sorely tested to the limit, "Cyborgs and Children of Oberon are mutually exclusive concepts. Think about it. He's human. -- Sorry, Ed."

The dark haired man said, in a tone of amusement, "Elisa? Goliath? You guys might want to scram. I think your colleagues will be showing up soon to investigate the attack and it would probably be expedient for the clan to be elsewhere."

"Sir, we may want to make it look as if they were killed for the police report," Owen suggested. "At least until we know who the attackers were."

Smart homunculi, Edward thought, and decided not to kill him for the moment, until he knew more. And, Homunculi using magic. Now that's something you don't encounter on a regular basis back home.

"I can take care of that," Edward volunteered, quickly grasping what they had in mind. If the ... assassins ... had official connections, it would probably be wise to make sure said assassins thought they'd succeeded the first time to prevent a repeat attempt. "Do you just need some stone shards that look like them?"

"Please." Owen nodded. "If you would do the honors, that would be useful."

Ed quickly transmuted some of the non-statuary rubble into bits and pieces of gargoyle statues, scattered artistically around the courtyard.

"Okay, that's very cool," the brick-red gargoyle with a beaked face said. He bent over and picked up a head much like his own. "But creepy!"

The only female shuddered delicately. "Looks like a graveyard, now. Let's get out of here."

Elisa turned to the dark-haired man, "Xanatos, we'll go to the Labryinth. Can you handle the media?"

"Easily." Xanatos said. "I'll let them bring cameras up. This should make prime time news."

"Undoubtedly."

"Do we tell the cops the truth?" One of the gargoyles -- the red one with the white hair -- said.

Elisa shook her head, "No, Brooklyn. Not until we know more about where the attack came from. I hate to say it, but I don't trust everyone on the force to keep things quiet about you guys, uh, surviving. Umm, Bluestone, you want to stay behind and tell Maria what really happened and ask her to keep a lid on it for now?"

"Yeah. I'll meet you at your apartment in the morning."

It wasn't until the brick red gargoyle -- Brooklyn -- moved towards him with wings lifting off his shoulders that Edward realized that the wings were actually functional and they intended to fly away. Or at least glide; he did a quick calculation of mass to surface area in his head and came up with the conclusion that flapping flight was unlikely but they could definitely ride thermals.

"Oh no," Ed would have backed away if he had the mobility to do so. "You've got to be kidding me."

Brooklyn stopped and frowned at him. "You can trust us. You saved our lives."

"No way! This is crazy!" Edward protested.

"Look, you can't weigh anything. I can carry you, easy. You're just a little guy ..." Brooklyn said, in a tone of voice that was probably supposed to be reassuring.

"Who are you calling little ...!"

"Little and chicken," came from the smallest, bald, gargoyle, cutting Edward's rant off neatly. And then he clucked like a chicken.

Fuming, Edward snapped, "Fine. Carry me. But if you drop me, I'm transmuting you into a lawn gnome."

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