Chapter 13:2: Law of balance
"There are no angels without demons" (Jarod, The pretender)
"So, you came here through the old gate in the basement?"
Hermione, Riku and Donatello nodded as response to the question asked by Edward. They were sitting in the kitchen of the house, each of them, with the exception of Alphonse, holding a large cup of tea between their hands, slowly sipping on the hot brew while going through the recent events.
"I found it lying half buried in the acres some years ago and figured I'd move it here and try to work out what it is. I've never made it do anything, so the fact that you did, is interesting."
"Did you know it was a gate?" Riku asked.
Edward shook his head. "No, I didn't know it, but I guessed it had to be something like it. Although, the thought about other worlds is a bit hard to take in…"
"So how about you?" Hermione cut in, not wanting to spend too much time brooding on the subject of other worlds. "You mentioned that you've encountered the heartless before."
Edward looked up, his golden eyes turning to her as he nodded.
"Yes. They started showing up about two weeks ago in Central City. We've lost a lot of people to them over the days, and Al and I went here as soon as we understood that those creatures showed in other places as well. This place is far from any military stations, so they're pretty much defenseless if anything or anyone would attack."
"And brother also needed to have Winry do some repairs on him," Alphonse filled in.
Edward gave his brother a stern look, but before he could say anything, Donatello cut in.
"Repairs? On what? Perhaps I can help with that?"
"Hardly, no offence, Donatello, but I rather have Winry be the only one to do this," Edward huffed and made a movement of his right hand as if to wave off the offered favor, then winced as a creaking sound was heard from his wrist.
Now all three outsiders looked at him with surprise and Alphonse placed a firm hand on his right shoulder and squeezed, causing his brother to yell out.
"Al! That HURTS!"
"You need the help, brother, let him have a look and Winry can fix it up later on. Maybe you should let him look at your knee too, you've been limping a bit since we got off the train," Alphonse said in a calm voice, seemingly unbothered by the steaming rage his brother did nothing to hide. "I believe you can trust them all."
Edward stared at his brother for a moment of silence, then sighed, all air seeming to leave him. He looked a lot more tired and worn out now that he was relaxing, than he'd done only a moment ago and Riku found himself feeling a bit sad for him. There was something in the weariness displayed in his golden eyes and the way he looked right now that reminded Riku of Sora and the way his friend had changed after their last adventure.
Within those eyes Riku could discern pain, regret, sorrow and fear similar to that which Sora's eyes had expressed the last time he'd seen him.
Meanwhile, Donatello reacted to the words Alphonse had said.
"His knee? I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but I'm a pretty good mechanic."
Edward gave him a weak smile. "Oh, but I don't need a doctor. I need a mechanic," he said and took his red coat off with some hardship, his right arm seeming stiff and not quite good. When he started working on unbuttoning his black shirt, they all spotted the shine of metal on his collarbone, or rather, where his collarbone should have been. Once the shirt was off, they saw the reason for the metallic sound when his wrist had been bent. His entire right arm was in fact a mechanical prosthetic made of shining steel-like metal.
Donatello let out a low whistle, staring at the mechanical arm. "Now that's some piece of work…"
"Then you should see my leg," Edward said with a slightly humored voice.
There was something mysterious about the silver-haired boy, Edward thought as he watched him talk with Alphonse, about three hours after they had met. There was something that made him instantly trust him, without really knowing him. Riku felt, well, in lack of better words, "safe". His friends were a bit odder than him, but they seemed ok as well. At least the turtle did. The witch was a chapter on her own and Edward didn't quite like her attitude, but he guessed he could stand it if need be. Donatello had helped him fix up his arm and leg only a couple of minutes earlier and now he moved them carefully, testing the flexibility. He was no Winry, but Donatello hadn't lied – he was quite the mechanic.
"So, if you don't mind me asking, how come you've got these prosthetics? I mean, you're pretty young to have lost body parts like this."
Edward looked at Donatello in search for hidden agendas, but he realized rather quickly that the turtle was honestly curious.
"It's called an auto-mail, and I rather not speak of it, actually," Edward replied with a sigh, pulling his pants up after the leg-repairs and Donatello nodded his understanding.
"No worries, I was just curious."
Edward was about to put his black shirt back on, when there was a knock on the door.
All of the gathered looked up in surprise and as Edward rushed the buttoning of his shirt he waved for the others to keep still and silent in the background. Heartless didn't knock on doors, but they didn't expect company and for some reason Edward and Alphonse seemed to be a bit on edge, as if they were hiding from someone, so Riku decided to do as told without a fuzz, making Hermione and Donatello follow his example with a meaningful look at them.
Edward walked up to the door and opened it slowly. Outside stood a tall, black-haired man dressed in a dark blue military uniform of sorts.
"I thought I might find you here, Full Metal."
With a low muttering, Edward stepped back from the door, showing the visitor inside with an exaggerated motion of his arm.
"I didn't catch that," the tall, black-haired man said with a crooked smile, his sharp eyes turning to Edward.
"I said," Edward replied with a voice filled with despise, "that the lieutenant colonel is way far from his post, being out here and all. What, may I ask, brought you here?"
The visitor raised a thin eyebrow and gazed into the room.
"You've never used that many nice words in a single sentence before, Full Metal. Who's here?"
With a heavy sigh, Edward told Alphonse to get the others from their hiding places.
"My, my," the visitor said, his eyes going from the three strangers to Edward. "Seems you're starting to get friends. Watch it, or you'll turn soft." Edward let out a growling muttering, but the black-haired man only smiled welcomingly to the others.
"Hello, I'm a friend of the Elric brothers. The name's Roy Mustang."
Riku looked at Edward and Alphonse, and as they didn't object, he reached out his hand to Roy, who took it in a friendly, but firm shake.
"I'm Riku, and these are my friends, Donatello," he gestured towards the turtle, "and Hermione," he turned to the witch. "We're only here as a stop on the road to somewhere else and the brothers were kind enough to let us rest here."
Roy observed Riku with piercing eyes, then took another quick look at Donatello.
"Your friend here, Donatello, was it?" The turtle nodded silently, observing the colonel with wary eyes. "You've got an interesting appearance. How come?"
"Chemically forced mutation," Donatello replied cooly. "Got a problem with that?"
Roy shook his head, still smiling. "No, just curious. Never seen anyone like you and most people similar to you have been the results of banned alchemy procedures in attempts to create chimeras. Seeing as you're not a chimera, there's no need for me to question you further."
Edward picked this moment to interrupt and stepped forward, a grim expression on his face.
"Now, colonel, would you mind telling me why you're here, if you're not here to arrest me and drag me back to Central?"
Riku, Donatello and Hermione looked at one another in surprise. Arrest?
Roy Mustang took his time answering, staring down at the golden haired youngling before him.
"Who said I wouldn't do that?" he said after a while and Edward froze, Alphonse coming up next to him almost instantly.
"B-but you can't! Winry and her grandmother are missing and we need to find them for brother's repairs and… and…"
"The shadows are here too, colonel. I'm investigating their origin and took the opportunity to look by here while I was at it. Now it seems my mechanic isn't home and I assure you I will be getting back to Central in due time," Edward said, interrupting his brother's stuttering tries to excuse their present location. "Is that all right with you, sir?"
Roy looked at him with his eyes half closed, not buying his explanation for one bit. Then, he shrugged and sat down on a chair he pulled out from the table.
"All right. I can't see the harm in investigating the outer rims as well," he said, smiling like a fox as he let his eyes set on Riku.
Edward stared at the colonel in disbelief.
"Ok, what's happened and stop looking so darn smug you bastard!"
"Brother…"
"Shut up, Al! I've got the right to know why he's bothered to follow me here if he doesn't mean to punish me for leaving my post!" Edward went on stepping up to where Roy Mustang was sitting leisurely leaning back on the chair's back support. "Spill it you sly son of a b-"
"Shush, Full Metal. Watch the temper," the colonel snapped in a cool voice. "I simply followed to make sure you arrived here without trouble. The shadows are spreading and I suspected you would want to make sure that this place was secured. Nothing seems to have any effect on them. They won't be flattened, blown up, drowned, choked, crushed or burned. They just keep coming back and the numbers are growing. And, to add to this, I received a message from base just before I got here, telling me there had been a strange outburst of energy in this village only a few hours ago. Know anything about it?"
Edward stood silent for a moment, trying to figure out just what he should focus on out of what the colonel had just told him. The fact that he implied a worry for Edward's safety traveling here, or the question concerning the mysterious energy.
"Excuse me, but I think that might have been our doing," Donatello suddenly said, stepping forward.
Mustang turned to look at him with growing interest. "Hoh? How come?"
But before Donatello could do his explanation, Riku stepped in, not wanting the revelation of other worlds and travels between them to be too wide spread. Instead, he called for the Way to Dawn, bringing forth the original form of his keyblade in order to make the weapon seem more strange and fierce than the Cat's Eye.
The colonel blinked, surprised and somewhat interested.
"I'm a keyblade wielder. Just what it means I won't go into explaining right now, but as I produce the blade, I use an inner energy which burst out and often makes measuring equipment go a little wild. Is that a satisfying answer, sir?"
Roy Mustang looked from the blade to its wielder with great disbelief, then caught the strength in the stare of Riku's turquoise eyes and nodded.
"For now, I guess," he said. "You know of how to fight the shadows?"
Riku smiled in understanding.
"As a matter of fact, that's what I do best."
Edward seemed to be on the verge of a verbal outburst, when the door to the house opened without a warning. All of them turned towards the opening, the colonel getting on his feet in one smooth movement that to Riku looked like a well practiced ability to instantly get ready for battle.
But in the doorway stood no heartless. Instead, there was a tall, fit young woman with slightly muscular arms, her long blond hair gathered in a high pony tail at the back of her head. She was wearing a shoulder-less tank top and carpenter's jean trousers with a pocket at her chest where an oily rag was sticking out. Her large dark blue eyes took in the gathered and stopped on Edward, who seemed more than surprised to see her.
"Winry…" he mumbled, and the girl seemed close to tears.
"Ed!" she called out and ran the few steps parting them, throwing herself at him, arms around his neck as they fell to the floor with the shocked boy at the bottom. Surprised and somewhat disturbed by her actions, Edward tried, with blushing cheeks, to pry her off of him so that they could talk properly.
"Winry, what…?" Alphonse said, coming up to them and lifting her up from his brother to let him up on his feet.
"They came into the house… I tried to… they took grandma!" she yelled out with tears flowing freely down her cheeks. "Ed, I was so scared! What are they?"
Edward's expression had grown dark as she spoke and he turned his hands in to fists, clenching and un-clenching them repeatedly.
"The shadow creatures came here?"
Winry nodded.
"And they got the old lady?"
Another nod from Winry.
"What about you?" Riku asked and they all turned to look at him askance.
"What do you mean?" Winry asked, sniveling and drying her eyes with the back of her hands.
"Yeah, what do you mean?" Edward repeated her question, the tone of protectiveness not slipping Riku by un-noticed.
"How did you escape?" He set his eyes on hers, noticing something strange in the midst of the blue which set him on edge.
"I… they let me go…" she answered with a growing worry in her voice.
"They what?" Hermione asked, getting her wand out from inside of her robes as she noticed Riku's tensing grip on the keyblade.
"The heartless let me go…" Winry repeated, her eyes revealing her fear as she realized something was wrong, then they turned blank from all emotion, the blue washed with yellow as she threw herself back at Edward who still stood close to her.
"She's possessed!" Riku called out in a warning, but it was too late. With an unexpected strength, she moved around with Edward in her grasp and took a hold on his mechanical right arm as she did so, and pulled it loose with one powerful jerk and tossing it to the floor.
Edward screamed from the pain coursing through him as the nervous system connected to the arm went berserk from the sudden release.
"If you want him in one piece you better not come closer," Winry said with a hollow voice, her blank eyes darting from Riku to Roy Mustang and Alphonse, who were the three standing the closest to them.
"Winry, what the hell?!" Edward pressed out through clenched teeth.
"The heartless have taken her over," Riku explained in a stressed manner. "There's a heartless controlling her from within, using her body to get an advantage over us."
"Heartless?" the colonel asked, a bit confused by the term.
"The shadow creatures," Hermione explained to him. "They are called heartless, because they are what is left when a human's soul, or heart, is taken by the darkness."
"You know this, how?"
"Riku," Hermione said. "He fights them using the keyblade. He knows them."
This short explanation seemed to suffice at the moment, because the colonel didn't ask anything more and returned his attention to Winry and her hostage. Using his one remaining hand, Edward was grabbing at the arm slung around his throat, fighting for air as he tried to squirm out of the mechanic's grip. She turned her blank, yellow shimmering eyes to him, looking down into his eyes as he looked up at her.
"Winry, why …are you…doing… this?" he asked in huffed out words and she smiled, a sad expression entering her features.
"I want to fix you, Ed. I want you with me, see? Wouldn't it be nice? No repairs needing to be done, no travels needed to find the answer?"
Riku felt his heart drop at those words. They were frighteningly close to the words Maleficent had fed him with as she turned him over to her darkness. Tempting, tricky words touching his inner self and reacting to his higher wishes.
"Edward! Don't listen to her!" he called out, seeing with horrifying clarity that the golden haired boy was starting to relax in her grip, thinking over the suggestion as she slowly reached down to his chest with her free hand.
"Don't mind him. It's so simple really, Ed. No more pain, no more fear. All that is needed is just a small operation, one thing goes and all other things come back as they were."
"No!" Riku called out and moved forward in the instant that Winry's hand turned night black and pierced Edward's chest in a lightning fast movement, causing his body to jerk oddly in her grasp. He screamed from the sudden pain, trying with all his might to break free, but he was stuck in her firm grip.
With a smooth movement, Riku aimed his keyblade towards Winry's black arm. Knowing the other keyblade had stronger magical powers than the present one, he changed the keychain in mid-strike, and the Cat's Eye flashed into existence, the silvery metal shining from within as he released his magic into it within the blink of an eye.
This better work! he thought as he let the weapon sweep down. "HEAL!" he called out the spell, seeing the green light explode from the blade the very instant that it hit the transformed arm. He had used the healing spell mainly to keep Edward safe from the attack simultaneously as he dealt the heartless inside Winry a tough blow of magic that would strengthen Winry's own defences and theoretically make it harder for the heartless to control her.
Winry gave out a shrill scream and let go of her prey in a reflex movement, the black arm retreating to her body as its original form and color came back. Alphonse was surprisingly swift on his feet, reaching his brother and scooping his writhing and twitching body up from the floor and into his own big arms.
"I'll carry him to a safer spot, you try and save Winry!" Alphonse said as Riku turned his eyes to him. Riku nodded and together with Donatello, Hermione and Roy he went after the now fleeing girl.
As soon as they got out of the house, heartless were upon them in large numbers. They took up a large area around the house and prevented them from reaching Winry, who kept running away from them.
"Fuck!" Riku swore out loud, cursing his short hesitation before he'd gone after her.
"Oh, let me clear the road, key wielder," Roy Mustang said, stepping in front of him and raising his hands out before him.
"No offence, but you won't stand a…"
"Watch and learn," Roy interrupted Riku in his objection, then snapped his white-gloved fingers. The air before them suddenly erupted in flames. It was an inferno set loose on the hordes of shadows opposing them and all of the heartless were caught in the fire, writhing in the sudden and unexpected attack, turning into ashes within seconds and thus, clearing a path.
As soon as the fire stopped, Roy gave Riku a shove in the back.
"After her! I'll keep these ones busy!"
Riku motioned for Hermione and Donatello to follow him and rushed through the ashes, renewed heartless slowly rising out of the blackened ground as they passed.
She'd achieved a strong lead on them, but both Donatello and Riku were fast runners and Hermione used a well needed spell to attain more speed and keep up with the others. Within a few minutes they were able to almost reach her as she ran up a small hill towards the burned ruins of what looked to have been a house once upon a time.
"There's no use running, Winry!" Riku called out to her as she stopped by the black remains of what once might have been a front entrance. "The darkness is inside you and the only way to get it away is to face the light!"
A wicked smile was on her lips as Winry turned around to face them.
"Who said she wants to get it away?" a hollow voice said through her mouth. "She likes the power. She wants to use it to attain her dreams, to complete the broken ones."
"Darkness can't heal or build lasting things!" Riku objected as he walked up to her, Donatello moving to the side in a wide circle movement to get behind Winry. Hermione, while catching her breath, moved the other way to create a clear line between her wand and the taken girl.
Winry smirked, the empty eyes now almost golden, similar to Edwards'.
"Who are you to tell her, key wielder? You know nothing of what powers the darkness possess! Your puny weapon is nothing against the true force of darkness which I can give the girl! And if you want to kill me, go ahead! I'll take her with me, and we'll see who's the hero then!" the heartless being hissed with a cackling laughter in the background of its words. It was a strange thing, to see Winry move her lips and act, and still know that she wasn't the one acting. To know that the enemy in front of him couldn't be killed without harming the girl still trapped in its grasp, unless the creature controlling her was lured out of her body somehow.
Riku bit down hard on his lower lip as he forced himself to think through the taunting words that had been spoken and find a solution to this stand-still. He had one chance, but he had hoped not to be forced into it. But the more he thought about it, it turned out to be the only chance he had of both defeating the creature and saving the girl. But it might cost him the trust of his friends.
With a grunt he lowered the keyblade to let its tip touch the ground and looked Winry straight in the eyes. He had to try.
"You say I don't know about darkness?"
"A hero of the blade never looks upon the darkness with knowledge, don't you try to tell me anything else," the creature cackled and Winry's lips smiled wider as her eyes turned a more solid yellow.
Riku let out a short laugh.
"Heh. How wrong you are," he said, choosing his words with care. He needed to scare the thing, but he didn't want it to flee. "Whoever said I was a hero?"
The creature hesitated, uncertainty apparent in Winry's eyes as she looked at him. The cackling laughter had stopped and the wolfish grin was gone.
"What are you playing at, key wielder?" it asked. "You fear the darkness, don't you?"
Riku smiled grimly and let go of the keyblade, the weapon disappearing the moment it fell to the ground.
"Do I fear it?" he asked rhetorically and took a step towards the girl. "No. I can't be afraid of myself, can I?"
That's when he released the power he'd been building up since he started this mocking conversation. An aura of blackest black suddenly flowed out from his body, a cloud of purple-edged black smoke erupting from it. He could see his friends flinch as they saw it, but he ignored the sting it caused him in his chest. All that mattered now was to keep control of his powers.
Winry stared at him in horror and fascination.
"This is impossible!" the creature hissed, backing away from Riku with hesitating steps.
"You want to try your power against mine, heartless?" Riku boomed out and he looked down at the cowering girl with hard eyes. "Do you really think you could stand a chance against me? I, who have controlled the likes of you long before you ever became aware of what you are? Don't make me laugh." His voice, boosted by the powers he'd released, echoed through the silent surroundings, sending invisible shivers down his own spine as he heard it, but he kept his eyes cold, staring at the creature inside of the frightened girl's eyes.
"Master," the creature suddenly hissed with its hollow voice as it recognized the power behind Riku's threat. "What would you have me do?"
"Leave the girl."
One simple command and the creature obeyed. A shining heartless crest lit up on Winry's chest for a brief moment as the creature left her, then, she fell to the ground, not ready to suddenly be in control of her own limbs again, as the heartless creature that had controlled her suddenly left.
Black smoke hovered for a moment in front of Riku, then transformed into the shape of a female looking body wrapped in dark stripes, large and horrifying claws for hands on long, sinewy arms and a monstrous head with beast-like features and small, yellow glowing almond eyes directed towards him.
"Do you want release?" Riku asked, knowing he risked a lot as he did so.
"Can it ever be given?" asked the creature in return, its voice now deeper.
"If one choose so."
"I don't have the shards, the Crystal is still incomplete."
Riku almost lost his grip on the darkness at those words, for they revealed something to him that shook him in his very soul. He now knew without a doubt why the creature had obeyed him and it was only his years of practice in keeping control of himself that saved him.
"If you want release, I will give it," he said, choosing not to answer to the information given.
"Yes."
The creature closed its eyes and Riku produced the Cat's Eye once more and with the utmost effort, he managed to cage the darkness back inside of him again and let the light flow through him within an instant, pointing the keyblade at the heartless and feeling the healing powers of the light course through the weapon to form a beam of white that pierced the black creature with a soft tinkling sound. It opened its eyes to look upon him as the light enclosed it, and Riku felt a warm sense of gratitude flow towards him from the creature before it disappeared.
As soon as the light died out, Riku fell to his knees, exhausted by the strain the act had put on his body. It wasn't a thing one could do unpunished, to first engulf himself in darkness that he had kept locked away for so long, and then almost instantly overrun this darkness-infested body with light.
The keyblade vanished and he fell to stand on all fours, facing the black earth as a light rain started to fall, quickly drenching him and the others. He felt their eyes upon him before he heard them move closer and he feared the confrontation he would have to take after revealing himself as he had done. But he didn't want to look up just yet. He wanted to prolong the fragile moment of relief for as long as possible.
Suddenly he felt something he hadn't expected and froze, his eyes wide, as Winry let her arms enclose him from behind, pressing him close to her and forcing him to sit up straight with her behind him, hugging him to her.
"Thank you!" she whispered with tears in her voice. "Thank you, thank you, thank you…"
It took a moment for his mind to register her words through the shock.
"For what?" he asked, his voice raw and croaking after the use of darkness upon it.
"For saving Ed, and for saving me…for risking so much only to save me…"
And he could hear the knowledge of his pain in her voice, a knowledge that caused her to cry as she held onto him.
Riku only noticed he was crying himself when Donatello came towards him with a new understanding in his eyes. There were questions in his silence, but he waited to pronounce them until some other time, when the moment was more right. Now, he simply bent down and offered him his hand.
"You need to get out of the rain before you catch a cold," he said in a soft voice and Riku nodded, taking the offered hand and getting to his feet as Winry let go of him.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Donatello asked, gesturing to his eyes, and Riku nodded slowly, not caring to wipe away the tears.
"Like nothing else," he said.
Hermione took his free hand in her and started walking back towards the Rockbell house, Winry and Donatello following suit. As they got closer though, Winry couldn't keep her emotions in any longer and she rushed in front of them, and into the lit up house, calling with great worry to Edward, who greeted her with a tired smile, sitting next to his brother and a rather battered but alive colonel in the large couch in the living room.
It took some time to tell the Elric brothers and the colonel about what had happened, but Winry, Donatello and Hermione did their best while Riku rested. He noticed that all three left out the detail of as to how he had managed to free Winry of the creature and he was grateful for it. Not everyone would easily accept his actions as all good when told afterwards like this. Besides, it would be hard enough to explain his darkness to Donatello and Hermione, he sure didn't want to have to explain it to the others as well. And as the others talked, Riku slipped into a deep sleep filled with shadows and memories of a dark time he wished undone.
