Annoyed at the repeated knocking, Izumi wiped her hands on a dish rag and left Alphonse to his enthusiastic attempt at making macaroni.
Unfortunately, the young man was far more skilled at Alchemy than he was at cooking, so she was somewhat irate as she went to open the door. Sensing the imminent danger, Wrath took a step backwards as the door swung open violently, sending the young officer assigned to escort him flying off to one side.
Izumi tried to discern what was going on as Wrath stared at the ground, pointedly avoiding looking at her. The officer pushed himself to his feet slowly, "I apologize for the interruption, but is this your son? He gave his name as being a one 'Wrath Curtis' and listed this address as his home when he was apprehended for thievery."
The boy continued to avoid her gaze, but Izumi took hold of his chin and forced him to look at her, the heavy silence hanging in the air causing no small amount of discomfort for the soldier, "Excuse me, but is he your son, Mrs. Curtis?"
Izumi broke her gaze away from the homuculus, "Yes, this is my son. Thank you for bringing him."
Noticeably relieved, the officer made a hasty retreat, leaving Wrath and Izumi standing facing each other even as Al started to yell in the background and the smoke alarm blared happily.
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Wrath looked at his plate of macaroni cautiously, poking at the black flecked noodles with his fork, "Are you sure this is edible?"
Alphonse nodded enthusiastically, "Oh yes, I had to use a little alchemy, but everything there was originally food!"
The homuculus picked up some on his fork, "Originally?"
He was forcing his hand to move towards his mouth when Izumi entered the room with two mugs of steaming unidentifiable liquid, "Hey Al, we need to have a little chat, so how about you go outside and practice your alchemy for a little bit"
The blond pouted, "But my macaroni..."
"If you practice a lot, I'll teach you a new kind of alchemy trick..."
A breeze washed through the room as Al bolted out the door as fast as his small legs could carry him.
Izumi watched the door close and set down a mug in front of Wrath, "There's nothing he won't do to learn a new alchemy trick."
Wrath was silent.
"I saw you talking to Al a moment ago, so why are you all introverted now?"
"Leave me alone."
Izumi sipped her drink, "If you think you can just show up on my doorstep and then think I'll tolerate you being rude, your in for a nasty surprise."
"I'm here because I had to give them an address or go to jail. I'll be gone tomorrows."
"That's what you think. I took responsibility for you, so you're going to stay here."
Looking dazed for a moment, Wrath ran for the front door, but when he got to the front of the house there was a distinct lack of door. Hating his own weakness, the boy ran in search of a window.
Izumi was still sipping her drink when Wrath eventually slunk back into the room, "You're taking advantage of me, just because I can't use alchemy."
"Yes I am, which is not only my right but my responsibility as a parent."
"You are NOT my mother!"
Izumi's eye's hardened, "So you thought I was lying when I said to that military man I was your parent?"
Wrath clenched his fists, "Why can't everyone just leave me alone!"
She reached forward and grabbed his hand, pulling it to her stomach, "Here's why, right here."
Wrath was taken aback for a moment, but calmed down and hmphed, crossing his arms, "Maybe you can keep me here, but I don't have to do what you say."
"I gave up far too much for your sake to allow you to waste away into nothing just because of your self-pity. You're going to stay here as long as it takes for you to at least learn some basic social skills."
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It was in this way that Wrath first came to live in the Curtis household.
For the first few weeks, the only person he interacted with at all was Al. When he wasn't with the blond boy, he was hiding somewhere in the house, and ate by sneaking into the kitchen late at night.
Izumi had re-alchemized the door long ago, but the homunculus couldn't quite bring himself to leave, a little voice in his head always telling him that he could leave the next day if he really wanted to.
By the end of the first month, the boy had started showing up for the occasional meal, though he ate little and spoke to no one, and by the end of the sixth week, he had begun to help with the occasional chore.
But during his eighth week, something rather unexpected happened.
The day began relatively normally, with Wrath following Al to a rocky beach where the two would practice alchemy. Or rather, Al would practice and Wrath would watch and study the alchemic reactions. On this particular morning they were going to attempt create a ten foot glass statue by alchemizing sand. They had spent over an hour arguing over what it would be a statue of, and had finally decided on a glass fountain.
Al and Wrath drew a alchemy array ten feet in diameter, careful to keep the whole array above the waterline.
The homunculus took a step back and Al placed his hands on the edge of the circle. It was by no means the most complex transformation Al had attempted, but it was on a larger scale and was really two reactions in one. He would have to alchemize the sand into glass and then form the fountain.
Al started the reaction and Wrath felt a strange feeling settle in his stomach, as he always did in the presence of alchemy. The reaction went well at first, the sand rippling and changing to become translucent before slowly raising into the air and taking shape.
Then something went wrong.
Al started to lose control and backed slowly away as the mound of semi-glass convulsed. Both suspected an explosion was pending, and Wrath felt sure that Al was still too close to the quickly degenerating reaction. Acting on instinct, he jumped straight at the writhing mass and, much to Al's horror, drove his arm into it up to his elbow.
To Al it seemed nothing short of a miracle, because the reaction immediately stabilized and within only a few seconds, a perfect glass fountain was formed, "Wrath-kun... how is that possible?"
"I'm not sure, but I'd appreciate a little help here."
Looking closer and seeing that Wrath's left forearm was encased in the glass, the blond boy rushed to scratch a small circle in the glass next to Wrath's arm and free the immobile appendage.
The homuculus flexed his left hand and wiggled his fingers experimentally, "Everything looks to be in working order, you ok, Al?"
There was enthusiastic nodding, "Yes, thanks to you. But how did you do that?"
Wrath examined his hands, "I'm not sure... It just felt natural."
"Natural?"
"Yeah, I didn't even really think about it, I just did it."
Despite being young, Al was a scientist above all else, and Wrath found himself being carefully scrutinized. After a couple minutes of awkwardness, the blond boy started to draw another circle in the sand.
Wrath looked on curiously, "What are you doing?"
"We are going to do some experimenting."
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As the sun reached it's highest point in the sky, Izumi started to get impatient.
She had made it absolutely clear to both boys that they were to be home no later than 11:30 AM, and as it was now approaching noon, she was simmering just short of full blown rage.
Their lunch had gone cold, and although she could easily re-heat it with alchemy, it was the principle of the matter.
Apart from blind devotion and servitude, she really didn't ask much of her students, so the least they could do was show up on time for lunch.
She set off to find them, trying to decide exactly how she was going to inflict sufficient pain on them.
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Al placed his hand son the circle, "Ready?"
Across from him, on the other side of the huge array, Wrath did likewise, "Yeah."
"Okay, I'm starting the reaction."
This time, Al knew he wasn't going to be able to control the reaction, and was, in fact, counting on the fact that he wouldn't be able to control it.
Only a few seconds in, he felt the energy spiraling out of control, "Take it, Wrath!"
The homunculus was happy to oblige. Finally being able to alchemize again, even if he needed someone else's help, was the greatest moment of Wrath's life. The energy coursed through his veins and made him feel more alive than ever before.
All the alchemy he had studied with Al had been science, but what he was feeling right then had nothing to do with being scientific. To Wrath, alchemy was a natural as breathing and as instinctual as walking. He reached out his hand and a windstorm spun up as the air was churned by some invisible force. He brought his hand down in a Karate chop and the ground fissured.
He was about to try a third motion when the reaction suddenly stopped and Al collapsed.
Wrath stood perplexed for a moment or two, then ran to check on the Elric boy.
At the entrance to the beach, Izumi was leaning against a light post, 'Even if it was only for a couple seconds... a reaction of that level... he controlled the alchemical energy like it was an extension of his body...'
She watched as the homuculus lifted a softly snoring Al onto his back and made his way towards towards the house. 'Not Ed... Not Al... Not I or Hoenheim or even Dante could dream of having that level of alchemical affinity. It's downright...' she shuddered softly, 'inhuman.'
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The more Izumi thought about it, the more sense things seemed to make.
Wrath lacked the internal gate that all humans had, therefore rendering him incapable of using alchemy, but the gate had nothing to do with control, it only provided the energy, so even without it Wrath would be able to control someone else's alchemy. In fact, she knew that the other homuculus had shown alchemy-like powers at times, so they had to be able to control it.
The problem earlier had stemmed from the fact that Wrath was inefficient with his alchemy and consumed a lot more energy than Al could produce, rendering the boy unconscious by way of energy drain after just a few seconds.
Al had woken up half an hour later just feeling a little tired, and the boys had gone to play again, leaving Izumi to consider her options. It was one thing to allow Wrath to live with them when he was just a harmless little boy, and quite another when he had the potential to cause widespread destruction.
Her two options were to either try to restrict his power or teach him to control it. She would much rather do the latter, but if Wrath for some reason ever reverted to the semi-insane state he had lived in among the homuculus...
She finally just sighed and decided to give it a try. Even if Wrath did go crazy again some day, a crazy person who can control themselves is better than a sane person who can't.
The next day, Wrath's official training as an alchemist began.
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Wrath trained with Al and Izumi for a full year, and in the coarse of that year learned as much as he could about alchemy and it's applications.
It was quickly apparent that Wrath himself was only able to perform simple transmutations, but could control them instinctualy. The best analogy Izumi ever came up with to explain this phenomenon was that of a man-made river.
If you tell a person to dig a new river that doesn't have water in it yet, they can make it with as many twists and turns as they want, but if you have a fast flowing river and want to divert it down another path, you can only divert it in simple ways, and only in a couple directions.
What this boiled down to was that if he was given enough power, Wrath might be able to topple a mountain with his alchemy, but he couldn't fix a radio.
Al, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. Mastering even the most complex reactions with relative ease, he lacked the raw power his brother had always wielded so extravagantly.
As time passed, Wrath showed more and more interest in the alchemy of the Ishvarites, which was very similar to his own, and he had resolved to seek out a practitioner of the great art. Unfortunately, there was one more hurdle he would have to overcome, one that Izumi had been considering for quite some time now.
Wrath had become incredibly skilled at taking control of alchemy, but that wouldn't do much good if someone just pulled a gun and shot him. Powerful as his abilities were, they were only good if someone was attacking him with alchemy, and so he had no way to attack first.
In order to solve this problem, Izumi had been using her connections to get all the available material on the various homunculus. The fact that the other homuculus had used abilities similar to alchemy implied that Wrath probably could as well. The only question was: how?
The answer, when she did finally figure it out, seemed in retrospect to be incredibly obvious.
It was the red stone.
Red stone stores within itself a huge amount of power, which alchemists can draw on during reactions. In addition to this, however, is the fact that red stone constantly emanates very small amounts of alchemic energy. The amount is so small that it would be completely ignored by most alchemists, but Izumi was betting that homuculus drew on that power, which might be just enough for them to alchemize their own bodies.
Wrath had never needed to learn to draw on that power, since Ed's arm and leg let him use normal alchemy, and with Dante gone, Izumi would have to teach him even though she herself didn't fully understand it.
The final two months of training were devoted almost exclusively to harnessing the power of Wrath's red stone, a task which the boy detested, even if it was necessary.
As his year of training came to a close, Wrath was all to aware of how little he knew, but he was determined to travel to Ishvar and meet a master of the great art.
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The next few years of Wrath's life were spent working among the Ishvar. They weren't particularly trusting after everything they had been put through, and the first user of the art who had seen Wrath had responded by running around and screaming about him being a false human.
Many of the Ishvarites thought being a homuculus was a good enough reason to kill him right then, with no questions asked, but the leader of the tribe had declared that Wrath might prove himself by working as a part of the community.
So thats what he did.
For a long time.
A very long time.
Two and a half years, in fact.
At first he was scorned and even spit on, but he just kept working and ever so slowly, he gained acceptance. Finally, on a blistering summer day, the old tattooed man watched him dig a new well, and approached him near the end of the day.
"Working hard?"
"It's not like I have anything else to do around here."
"A bit piquant today, are we?"
"My automail has sand in it, and I get cranky when my automail has sand in it."
"If you'd like, I could flush it out for you. Come by my tent later tonight."
The man wandered off, and Wrath suddenly looked up at where he had been standing, "I'll be there."
That night, Wrath got his automail cleaned and received his first lesson in the great art.
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For another two years Wrath trained in the great art. He rarely thought about it, but he had lived among the Ishvar longer than with any other group of people. He had gained the respect of the tribe, and had even been allowed to lead a prayer to Ishvara.
The adults never quite managed to accept the great art, or Wrath's unnatural abilities, but the children were fascinated with him. He had learned enough to harness the power of his red stone, and many nights he would be surround by young Ishvarites who wanted to watch him alchemize rock into his hand.
As was the predictable result, one day a young girl claimed she wanted to learn the great art whether or not it went against the teachings, and the older generations were livid until Wrath was given a chance to speak.
That same day, he gathered the whole tribe together with the promise that he was going to tell a story, and when everyone was sitting around him, he began to recite the story of his life, beginning with his mother.
As the Ishvarite's hung on every word, Wrath momentarily pondered whether Izumi might not appreciate being a part of what would almost certainly become an Ishvar legend, but she wasn't likely to ever set foot in this part of the world, so he figured he was okay.
By the time he finished his improvised autobiography, it was long past the time when the children would have normally gone to bed, but no one had spoken up to complain. The brutal life of the homuculus was something completely foreign to a peaceful group like the Ishvar, and Wrath had watched as the people became more and more wide eyed with every passing moment.
Many of them would later tell him that they hadn't even slept that night.
Things were a bit tense for a few weeks after that, but there were no more children interested in alchemy, a fact for which all the clan elders were thankful.
It was as his fifth year in Ishvar drew to a close that Wrath started to consider leaving, but he wasn't entirely sure where he was planning on going. He had mostly lost contact with Izumi, and although he still considered himself on good terms with his mother, he had no particular desire to become a butcher.
Which left the question: What did he want to do?
There weren't many careers in alchemy for someone who was so limited in the transmutations they could do, and he had never known anything but alchemy. When he had been young, he had wanted to escape from civilization, and now that he was getting older, he wanted to return to civilization, but wasn't sure how.
All this, however, would soon become moot, as the decision was about to be taken out of his hands. News started to arrive from other villages and cities that the military was traveling around doing inspections.
It was a relatively simple inspection, just to confirm that health and safety standards were being met everywhere, but Wrath would have to be far, far away before any soldiers arrived.
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Interestingly, the homuculus found that little had changed on the road from Ishvar to Dublith. He used the same roads, took the same trains, and stayed in the same hotels as he had when traveling the opposite way all those years ago. The journey took him the same amount of time, and before he knew it, he was standing at the outskirts of the city.
Making good time by moving along rooftops, Wrath soon landed silently in Izumi's back yard. It was late, but he tested the handle of the door anyway. It was locked, so he melded his hand into the door. Feeling around on the inside, he flicked open the latch and then withdrew his hand. He turned the handle slowly and pushed the door open, taking a step in.
A shape suddenly appeared in the darkness and Wrath looked up as a metal pipe smashed into the door frame two inches above his head.
There was a yelp, and the metal pipe clattered to the floor.
"It's just me, Alphonse. How's your hand?"
"Up until a couple seconds ago, it was doing very well."
"Hows the door frame?"
Al's voice sounded strained, "I'm still mostly concerned with my hand."
"Better your hand than my face."
"It's a good thing you're so short then."
Izumi stormed into the room, "What the hell is going on at 3AM that makes this much noise?"
Wrath sighed, "I was trying to be quiet, but Al tried to smash my face in."
Al flexed his hand, pleased to see it still worked, "I thought he was a robber or something."
"Alright," Izumi said slowly, "Wrath, don't break into the house late at night. Al, don't swing metal pipes when you can't see what you're going to hit. Got it?"
The boys nodded.
"Good. Now Al, go make some hot chocolate. I'm going to take his chance to talk to my son, since he never bothered to visit his mother."
"I wasn't really in a position where I could just leave for a few weeks. Entering into Ishvar society is a long term commitment."
"Excuses!"
"Either way, I learned a lot, and that was my goal."
"It's strange... You still look the same, so it's so unsettling to see you act this mature."
"Enough about me. Tell what's been going on here while I've been gone. Apart from Al growing two feet taller, I mean."
"Well... While we're on the topic of Al, he's been showing quite an interest in miss Rockbell recently"
Faster than seemed possible, Al was back in the room and waving his arms in front of Wrath's face, "Really, master is just joking, isn't that right?"
Izumi crossed her arms, "I don't joke."
Wrath looked at Al's shell shocked face and shook his head, "How about that hot chocolate, huh?"
The Elric eeped and ran back into the kitchen while the homuculus glared at his mother, "You shouldn't tease him so much, he takes everything so seriously."
"Exactly. He could stand to lighten up a bit."
"What say we leave Al alone and get back to what you've been doing these past few years. Letters can only tell so much, you know."