Wow. You people rock. Almost 200 views, and 12 reviews.
Okay, so the review count isn't that impressive, but you guys can fix that.
Anyway, onto less selfish matters, I have gotten a few questions as to the 50-something-year-before-acutal-canon-timeline. Rest assured, I am nowhere near confident enough to write something completely different like that. There is liberal use of the Time Skip. As will be seen next chapter. Sorry for all of you who were rooting for something else, maybe later. Or if I get bored. Now, since I've wasted enough of your time…
On with the story!
Albus Dumbledore took a few seconds to rip his gaze away from the man's eyes. Almost immediately as he did so, he began to mentally calculate the odds that he had been using some form of Legilimency on him. Doubtful, but possible.
The man, still standing in the circle, began to speak.
And absolute gibberish came out. It was nothing like any language or dialect Dumbledore had heard before. And if it was a language, odds are he would know it. He had learned several human languages, as well as Gobbledegook, and was starting to pick up Mermish. This was intriguing.
A tired but satisfied looking wizard approached him, pulling him away from his musings. Dumbledore vaguely recognized him as a new Order recruit. Ah! That was it! Young Barnabas Longbottom!
"Sir, we've got the main floors cleared, and most of the enemy have surrendered," he stated. "But there's something that the others found that has them in a fuss.. They wanted to talk to you as soon as possible."
Dumbledore sighed.
"Very well, I shall be there shortly." He'd have to leave this particular mystery for later.
Edward watched the two men converse. It didn't take a genius to figure out something weird was going on right now. First of all, nobody could understand him, even if he could somehow get what they said. He chalked that one up to the knowledge from the Gate. Knowledge enough to understand, but no skill to speak it.
Second was the strange clothes. Other world or not, he was sure that dresses couldn't be the standard clothing for men. That left either crazy people or cultists. Seeing as there were way too many of them for them all to be crazy, which left cultists, which was its own brand of crazy.
Finally were the weird lights. He'd seen them flashing through the dust after the blast, and was sure that none of the men had drawn a circle. They seemed to be using sticks of all things instead. New world, new rules, etc. He just wished he could've been dropped somewhere else than a battle zone.
He looked up as one of the men seemed to end a conversation.
"Very well, I shall be there shortly." He then twisted and disappeared –disappeared! - with a loud cracking sound.
"Wow. I haven't been around very long, but judging by the state of your mind right now, that isn't something that happens on a regular basis."
Edward was brought back to the present with the reminder of his guest. He began to animatedly explain exactly what he thought of Pride's blunt assessment.
"On a regular basis? A REGULAR BASIS?! That man just vanished! I'm assuming by his conversation that he was traveling, but that shouldn't be possible! Did he just deconstruct himself, or travel too fast for the eye to follow? If he did the first, wouldn't that count as human transmutation? And how would he reconstruct himself again? But if he traveled super-fast, then he wouldn't be able to react fast enough to turn, and he'd end up as a grease mark on some wall. Not to mention friction and wind resistance! I need some paper!"
His rant was watched in fear by the man who had just delivered the message. To every other observer in the room, the strange golden man was ranting to himself in the middle of the circle. As he was still covered in blood, and ignoring the several wands trained on him, he cut a very intimidating figure. Finally, one of the braver wizards spoke up.
"Stupefy!"
The red jet flew across the space between wand and man. A few seconds before impact and unconsciousness, the man changed.
His body didn't change. His face was still round, his height was the same, and his blonde hair was still in that silly looking braid. But everything subtly shifted, transforming him into a completely different figure. He straightened up, his stance now suitable for that of a king, or at least a great leader. The cast of his face altered, making him less angry and more coldly furious. And then, as he sidestepped the now-forgotten spell, everyone noticed the only physical change to his being.
His eyes were a deep, malicious shade of violet.
Pride had noticed the attack before Ed. This wasn't saying much, seeing as how the alchemist had worked himself into a frenzy. But he had also reacted faster.
Pride had pushed Ed into his mind to work on his theories, and come out, taken control, to save himself from the assault. Honestly, the kid might not even know the difference, as wrapped up as he was with Truth-knows-what.
And so he had sidestepped the bolt of light, and sent a lance of inky black shadows back at the offending man, who for some reason looked very regretful of his previous actions. Then, feet away from a bloody death, the man was saved by the same barrier that had stopped Edward from leaving the circle earlier. As it was, Pride had made his point. And the man who he'd nearly scared to death had fallen back on his backside in a puddle of blood. Hilarious.
Of course, now, every person in the room had a stick pointed directly at him. Sticks which, he now knew, can and would cause him bodily harm. Oh, and Elric had finally noticed who was in charge.
"Hey! Let me out! I never gave you permission to steal my body! I swear, I'm gonna kick your ass when I finally get out of here!"
Despite the dire circumstances, Pride couldn't help but quip back. It was too good.
"Oh, really? How were you going to dodge that one? Were you going to shout it away? Because that's the only thing I saw you doing."
Silence.
"And how would you even hurt me anyway?" he mused. "I share a body with you. If you beat yourself up, I'd be sitting back and enjoying the show."
"…Shut up." And with that, Pride started laughing.
Dumbledore didn't know what to make of the various papers scattered before him. Wards that looked like their sole intent was to sap the power of the occupants, Magical constructs that looked like they were meant to be bound to a person, and strangest of all, millions upon millions of rune circles.
Half of these projects didn't even make sense. If you bound a wizard to any sort of useful ward or enchantment, they wouldn't last a week. The large-scale projects these men were considering would practically immolate a wizard in seconds. It would take a superhuman to power these for a day. Then, one of the others in the room found something.
"Ha! Here are their research logs!" he exclaimed. "Look here- Month 7, Day 23. Today we finished the schematics for the last of the wards. It'll be worth it when the pay for this finally comes in. I heard we'd be living like kings after we won the war… Blah, blah blah. Then he goes on to describe the final details, and what his buddies are up to. "Larius and his team have gotten about halfway through the summoning array. Glad I don't have that job, looks like a pain to draw. I know one thing, though. I don't want to be anywhere near there when they actually summon this thing. Apparently, it's going to be some demon that would kill us all if they messed this up. Here's hoping they don't. This is the best assignment I've gotten for the whole war."
The man trailed off as Dumbledore flew out of the room. He was halfway up the stairs before common sense got to him, and he Apparated back to the main chamber. The one with the runic circle, and the man with the golden eyes.
As soon as he got there, someone ran up to him.
"Dumbledore, sir! Something's wrong! The thing in the circle started yelling, so Jenkins threw a stunner at it. Then it changed, and threw some kind of Dark spell back at him! The circle seems to have him contained, but they're all panicking in there, and it's just standing there laughing!"
Dumbledore sighed. He walked past the panicking Auror, into the room, and looked down into the circle. Sure enough, the man-no, demon- was still in the circle. And just like reported, it was laughing. As if it had heard the funniest joke in years. Dumbledore tried one last attempt to communicate.
"Can you understand me? I apologize for Auror Jenkins' actions, he was out of line. Please tell us what you want." The laughing stopped as the being looked up at him.
It obviously got the gist of what he had said, but didn't seem to feel like communicating in any known language. Dumbledore sighed. Nothing for it. None of the notes seemed to say anything about getting rid of a demon. They hadn't even considered the event. It seemed they just wanted it here to stay. Which left killing it, or hiding it away.
Killing a demon was certainly not going to be easy, even if it was confined. Destructive spellfire could destroy more of the runes, and then who knew what could happen. Also, he was reluctant to take another life, even if it was that of a demon's. Hiding it, binding it… That was much more appealing. And less morally reprehensible.
Pride watched uneasily as the man-Dumbledore-sighed again and raised his arm. The arm with the stick. Instantly, he was on guard. Those were the weapons, he'd learned, and he was cornered and limited in dodging room. Then, the Dumbledore man spoke.
"On my mark!"
Shit.
"STUPEFY!" The cry rang out from every corner of the room at once, and Pride had nowhere to go. He was caught, transfixed for a moment as many of the red jets found their target. Then he was forced back into the cage of his host's mind, and Edward was free again, only to be bound up with ropes, immobilized, and pulled up into the air.
His last sight was the regretful face of Dumbledore before the final spell was spoken.
"Somnus."
As that last word was spoken, Dumbledore lowered the Elder Wand.
"Clear out the runes," he commanded. "We need to move it before it wakes up."
The markings in question were eradicated in moments as wizards eager to see the demon gone vanished the last remnants of the experiment. Dumbledore took a moment to marvel at how they all jumped to his word. He wasn't even technically in charge of this mission. Just here as the leader of the Order, to assist the actual Auror force. And yet they all obeyed him without question. Amazing what stopping a Dark Lord could do for you.
He retrieved his train of thought once more before he had to dwell to much on it, and spoke up again.
"I shall take charge of the disposal of the demon. Any protests?"
The head of the DMLE, an unpleasant, overbearing man, shoved his way forward.
"Yes, Albus. There is a problem. This is a demon we're talking about. As in summoned from another plane of existence, class XXXXX, first-time-we've-seen-one-since-Merlin DEMON. It needs to be taken to the ministry, where we can hand it off the Department of Mysteries-"
"So they can poke it and prod it and keep the class quintuple-X being directly underneath the rest of the Ministry?" Dumbledore interrupted with a twinkle in his eyes. He'd been practicing it, and hoped to get it down by the time he was old enough to fit the whole grandfather image. He continued.
"I do hope you are aware that the Unknown Entities Sector of the Department sits a few hundred meters from the entrance to the Auror's Offices," he said. The look on the Head Auror's face clearly showed he was not aware of that fact.
"Meanwhile, I happen to have a way to resolve this quickly. We put the demon" -here he gestured to the being, which was still slumbering peacefully in midair- "somewhere where nobody will ever find it, and nobody will ever release it. I have the perfect idea where."
The odious bureaucrat backed off.
"Fine. Just don't blame me if this goes pear-shaped. I have enough on my doorstep, what with the massive headache cleaning up after the war's going to be."
Dumbledore twinkled some more.
"I wouldn't dream of it."
The Mirror of Erised had a long and convoluted history. It had changed hands many times over the course of its existence, due to its owners repeatedly forgetting to eat in favor of staring into their dreams made reality. This happened as often as a buyer realizing how bad it was for their general wellbeing, and passed it off to some other fool. As it was, the Mirror's origins were long forgotten, obscured by the mists of time. Its current owner, however, had a different use for it.
Dumbledore had long ago realized what a useful hiding place the Mirror was. All he had to do was turn the area behind the glass into a pocket dimension, charm the glass itself to be immaterial for a little while, and presto! It was a treasure chest that couldn't be looted unless one knew exactly what they were looking for, and would trap all the rest in an endless loop of daydreams until he came and found them. Of course, he very rarely needed to resort to such drastic measures, but this was one of the exceptions.
He now stood before the Mirror, not looking directly at it for fear of what he could see. The still-prone form of the demon floated behind him, thanks to numerous reapplications of Sleeping Charms. Now all he had to do was put the demon inside, and that was that. Anyone wanting to remove it would then have to desire setting an unimaginably powerful entity on themselves above all else. Foolproof.
He tapped the glass with his wand, uttering a long and complex Transfiguration spell. It shimmered, then became opaque. A few flicks of his wand was all it took to send the demon through, and then a few more taps and it was done. Sealed away. If only dealing with Gellert had been so easy.
And so Ed and Pride are locked away for the rest of eternity. The end.
Yeah, no.
In response to a few choice reviews:
This fic is based off of the manga, where Ed originally successfully trades with Truth and goes home. This obviously doesn't happen here, but that is the version of FMA I used for this story.
Yes, Pride is different. Like it, hate it, I don't care. In my mind, he's basically a new person than the old Pride, as that one didn't make it. He is a reflection of Edward's own personality, which is basically a self-confident smart ass without any of those pesky morals that hold his host back.
This is, in fact, my first story. It sounds a lot like others because I took my favorite bits from other stories and added them all up, then threw in my own plot. I am heavily influenced by certain stories, including but not limited to Amaranthine, by Gift of the Dragons, and others that I read but can't remember right now.
Anyway, as this AN is getting longer than some of the scenes, bye for now!
-Ambiguity