Chapter 29
Shit Hit the Fan
"This… this isn't happening…" Ed got up from the chair and started to pace the room. "Implanted memories! They're not… they're my memories. They're mine." Ed stopped pacing and started hyperventilating. "I was there. I know I was. It was real. It happened and it happened to me." He fell to his knees. "Right?" He looked to Link, a lost and hurt look on his face.
"I… I don't know," Link whispered. He hated seeing Ed like this, but he was had no way of corroborating the woman's story. And just the mention of Ganondorf was enough to make him flinch.
"She said…" Ed hugged himself. "She said something about this… Ganondorf guy, right? We… we've got to… find him."
"No!" Link flinched. "No. I don't want to."
"But he… he can confirm…"
"I can't, Ed," Link whimpered. "I… I just can't."
"What, do you know him, or something?"
Link looked down at his feet, but he didn't answer. "Why can't we just find the woman in the video?"
"She said she's been captured by Ganondorf. We find one, we'll probably find the other, right?"
"I guess, but…" Link fidgeted. Alma butted her nose into his hands. "What about Alma?" Link asked. "She's still a puppy. We can't bring her out there. She's not trained for that."
Ed looked through the closed blinds and into the rest of the office. The reporters had stopped circling Bullock to hound Gordon in the press room downstairs, which meant, other than trying to keep a handle on the attacking monsters, Bullock was free.
"We'll give her to Bullock," Ed said. "He's good with dogs. He likes Alma."
"But he won't let us leave."
"What can he do to stop us? He's even more of an old man than Gordon."
"Aw, he's not old, he's just scruffy," Link smiled.
"Come on, let's go," Ed scooped Alma into his arms and went to unlock the door.
"Wait, Ed!" Link scampered after him. "I don't want to! I want to stay here! Commissioner Gordon'll get mad."
"Who gives a rat's ass?" Ed snapped, faltering when he realized he picked that phrase up from Gordon. "Besides, it's not like he can stop us. I… I have to know, Link. This is my entire life. It… it can't be fake."
Ed didn't wait for Link to agree with him. He grabbed Link's coat and dragged him over to Bullock, who was shuffling frantically through papers and barking orders at anyone who came near him. He barely even stopped to say hello to them.
"Boys, what are you doing here? Jim wants you in his office," Bullock said.
"Something came up," Ed said. He shoved Alma onto Bullock. "Watch her."
"Now wait a minute," Bullock moved to stop them. "You're not supposed…" his phone started ringing. They slipped away while he was distracted. "Wait, boys!" Bullock started to pursue, but he had to answer the phone. In a time like this, it was bad practice for them to go unanswered. And he still had an armful of puppy. "Boys!"
"There's a pile of papers on Gordon's desk for Batman!" Ed called to Bullock as they ended the corner for the elevator.
"Oh, dammit," Bullock sighed, answering the phone.
Ed snickered to himself as they waited for the elevator to take them down to the parking garage.
"Ed, that wasn't very nice," Link frowned.
"He'll get over it," Ed shrugged.
"If… if the video was true… that means Ganondorf made you," Link whispered. "Does… that make him your father?"
"If it does at least that means I can still resent my old man," Ed snapped. "But the video might not even be true."
The elevator dinged and Ed stormed out. Link followed him, though he didn't know where Ed was going.
"Why would she fake it?" Link asked.
"Maybe she's in cahoots with Ganondorf," Ed said. "And… and they know I can stop them so they're trying to freak me out; gaslight me to slow me down."
"But you can't stop Ganondorf," Link insisted. "And she didn't look like a bad guy. And… and I bet she's friends with Batman, too, so she has to be a good guy, right?"
"How do you know I can't stop Ganondorf," Ed scoffed. "I'm the Fullmetal Alchemist; I'm amazing."
Link rolled his eyes. "Sure, but not even Superman or Wonder Woman can beat Ganondorf. No one can, he's invincible and all powerful and he has a massive demon horde at his beck and call."
"So, what? This is the end of the world as we know it? Just because some ass with an army said so?"
"He's more of a pig than an ass," Link corrected. "And he'll probably win."
"Yeah, well, I'm not going down without a fight or without answers," Ed puffed out his chest and stalked over to Gordon's car. He pulled out his keys, transmuted his car key into an exact replica of Gordon's and unlocked the car. "Come on, we're gonna get to the bottom of this."
"How?" Link asked. "We don't know where to start."
"I bet if we can get into one of the holes in the sky, we can get to where the monsters are coming from, right?"
"Well, sure, but we can't fly."
"We don't have to, we just have to get really high up."
"The helicopters are on the roof."
"We're gonna go to the top of Wayne Tower. It's the tallest building in Gotham and there's a rip right over it. I'll use my alchemy to get us the rest of the way."
"What about getting down once we're on the other side?"
"I'll use my alchemy for that, too."
"What if your alchemy doesn't work on the other side?"
"I… I don't know, I'll think of something."
"While we're falling to our deaths from hundreds of feet in the air?"
"You don't know it's even that far of a drop!"
"And you don't even know if you can get us that high from Wayne Tower!"
"Then stay here if you're that uncertain!"
"Maybe I will," Link snapped.
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
In a huff, Link returned to the elevator, arms crossed and face red. He hated it when Ed got cocky and bullheaded like this. If he tried to face Ganondorf, he'd be killed. Link's heart skipped a beat. He was so upset with Ed he forgot that that was exactly where Ed was headed.
"Ed, wait!" Link ran after the car. Since the speed limit in the garage was five miles and Ed didn't want to get caught before he even made it out the door, Link caught him easily enough.
Ed rolled down the window and shot Link a glare.
"I don't want to go but I can't let you go alone," Link explained. "He'll kill you."
"Fine," Ed leaned over and unlocked the passenger seat door.
Link got in, "This is a bad idea."
"You're only saying that because you're scared," Ed snapped.
"What happened the last time your little brother said that and you went through with it anyway?"
Ed flinched. His grip on the wheel tightened to much his knuckles popped. "That's low, Link," he snarled. "Especially for you."
"No, it's not," Link snapped. "It's the truth. If you want answers, you have to either try really hard to see if you have memories that don't fit or if the memories you do have have something off about them. Or you'll have to find the woman in the video and ask her yourself, but she's being kept prisoner by Ganondorf."
"If she's his prisoner, why did she call herself my mom?" Ed hissed. Link didn't think it was possible for him to grip the steering wheel even tighter. "If… if the video is true and she's my mother and Ganondorf is my father… if he… if he hurt her…" Ed took a few deep, shaky breaths, but it didn't calm him down. "He… I'm gonna kill him."
Ed stepped on the gas and sped out of the garage. Link clenched his fists and shivered in his seat. The odds of Ed actually making it to Ganondorf this early in an invasion were slim, and that was putting it kindly, but just the possibility of seeing Ganondorf, face to face or otherwise, shook Link to his very core.
He tried to breathe, but all he could see was Ganondorf's angry, twisted face looming over him and all he could feel was the pain. The pain was crippling. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't cry out for help. Even if he could, no one would come. He was alone.
He started to cry.
Ed didn't notice his little brother's distress. He had tunnel vision, pointed directly at Ganondorf. He needed to know if the video was true. He already knew the answer, deep down. What he was really looking for was an escape, something to punch, to keep his mind away from deciphering the truth on his own.
When he found a group of lizard men terrorizing a group of people trying to get home, he stopped the car. There was no need to park, mass chaos had rid the street of both cars and pedestrians. Ed rushed out of the car, clapped his hands together, and shot spikes out of the ground, impaling the monsters, killing them instantly. The panicked civilians ran from their hiding place and into the nearest unlocked building, locking the door behind them.
Ed was not satisfied. He got back into the car and slammed the door, breathing heavily. Link was curled up into a ball, hiding his head and sobbing, his breath heavy and labored. Ed's tunnel vision slowly dissipated, and he noticed his little brother's distress.
"Link?" Ed asked gingerly. "Hey, kid," he reached over and gently shook Link's shoulder.
Link curled up tighter and cried out in fear, "Don't hurt me!"
"Kid, it's me," Ed said, growing scared. "It's… it's Ed." Ed's voice faltered. He wasn't even sure of that anymore. "It's your big brother, kid. I won't hurt you, remember?"
"He's gonna get me, Ed," Link cried, uncovering his head and hugging his knees to his chest. "Don't let him get me."
"Did… did Ganondorf hurt you?" Ed asked.
Link sniffled, shivering harder.
"He did, didn't he? He's the one who hurt you." Ed looked at the steering wheel and clenched his fists. "It seems like he's hurt everyone I care about, huh? Even… even me…" Ed frowned. He realized he nearly dragged his little brother into a suicide mission to track down an abuser he was trying to get away from. "Dammit!" Ed shouted, slamming the wheel and honking the horn. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" He hit it three more times.
Link flinched each time.
"I… I keep hurting you," Ed whimpered. "Why do I keep hurting you?"
Link sniffled quietly.
"I'm so goddamn selfish!" Ed shouted, honking the horn once more. "We… we should go back, shouldn't we?" Ed asked Link.
Link was still too shaken to answer.
"I'm taking us back. You can give Alma a big puppy hug. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" He looked at Link and felt his heart clench in pain. Link was pale as a sheet, the only color came from outside the car, glistening off the tear stains on each cheek. "I think that'll make you feel better." He turned the car around and drove back to the GCPD.
The impromptu press conference was almost as exhausting as fighting with Ed. Despite not having physically exerted himself to answer the bombardment of questions to which he had no real answers too, Gordon's whole body ached. He figured he should go back to his office and pop a few of the pills his doctor had prescribed him for his heart condition, but what he really wanted was a cigarette. But then again, he wouldn't need the pills at all if he never smoked in the first place.
"Damn," Gordon sighed. Thinking of his office reminded him of his two charges who were currently grounded in said office. He didn't want them to see him taking pills, not that they were nefarious. They weren't even addictive. But he didn't want them to worry about his health.
When he got to his office, all thoughts of his heart pills were out of his mind. He found the door to his office wide open and Bullock trying to juggle his phone in one hand and keep Alma under control with the other.
"Harvey, where the hell are they?" Gordon barked.
"Jim!" Bullock flinched. "They… um…" he pointed to Gordon's office with his phone, quickly brought the phone back to his ear, then pointed to the elevator with a squirming puppy, who slipped right out his hands and scampered over to Gordon, yipping happily and wagging her big, fluffy tail in excitement. She was at the age where her little collie ears were lost in her growing collie fluff.
"I asked you to watch them," Gordon sighed.
"I was!" Bullock excused, finally hanging up the phone. "But then they put that stupid dog in my lap and left and I tried to stop them but the phone and the dog and…" Bullock's phone rang again and he made the most distressed sound that Gordon had ever heard come out of a grown man.
"Answer it," Gordon sighed.
"Oh, the boys said there was a fax for Batman? Don't know what that was about," Bullock said as he answered the phone. "Those boys are a handful, Jim. I have no idea how you handle them on your own."
"Honestly, neither to I," Gordon sighed. "Edward on his own is almost too much, but Link is so quiet it's impossible to tell when something's wrong, especially with Edward taking up most of my energy. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I were twenty years younger, I can tell you that."
"I can't disagree with you there. Wouldn't mind shaving a few years off in the nice direction myself," he answered the phone. "Captain Bullock speaking."
Gordon went into his office, and sure enough, on the fax machine there was a giant stack of papers with a Batsignal on top. Gordon wondered who could possibly be sending a fax to Batman, but odder things had happened. With everything going on, he figured he should deal with the Batman issue before going after his wayward sons, but as a father, Ed and Link were foremost on his mind.
He moved the stack of papers from their precarious perch on the fax machine and onto his desk, where he noticed his computer was on and a flash drive he didn't recognize was docked into one of the ports. Curious, he woke his computer, and was shocked to find the image of the missing Leaguer on it, with the caption 'To Eddie from Mom'. Gordon guessed he should make his work and home computer passwords different.
He watched the video, from start to finish. His stomach twisted. He had to find Ed before he did something stupid. He was so shaken he fumbled with his desk phone. He dialed Ed's number as quickly as he could, but it rang to voice mail.
"Edward," Gordon said. He sighed. He didn't know what to say. Nothing came to mind that could be said over voice mail or text. "Please, come back. I… I saw the video." He took a shaky breath. "Just… please… please, don't do anything rash, son. If anything happened to you or your brother… please, come back." He hung up before he started to sound like a broken record.
Gordon leaned back in his chair and ran his hand over his face. "Why does everything have to happen at once?"
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