Beggar's Banquet Ch 14
ON THE ZIPLINE ABOVE THE JUNGLE CANOPY"Ohshitohshitohshitohshit….dear god, if you let me get off this zip line alive I swear to Jesus I'll never suck another dick as long as I live!" Eyes tightly screwed shut, Mays Hughes was biting his lip to ward off the nausea and mopping the cold sweat out of his eyes.
"Mon Dieu, Damballah doux, serpent d'arc-en-ciel--le Christ doux sur la croix--obtenez-moi le casser cette chose!!" Jean-Remy Havoc was silently invoking the Saints and his ancestors, making a concentrated effort not to think about the hundreds of feet of wide open sky between the soles of his hiking boots and the rocks below. His mother, Jeanne-Marie, kept her eyes riveted on the approaching base camp platform, shouting out encouragement to her son.
"WHOOOOAAAAAAHHHH! This is fuckin' awesome!" Edwin leaned in, eased up on his hand brake and swooped in close to Alphonse who was clearly relishing every moment of the zipline trek. Aunt Teddy, following behind, was laughing and breathless and Uncle Edward was shouting out directions from the lead with Taisa who was closing in on him.
"All right, listen up!" Ed barked as the family assembled on the 'rest stop' platform, three-quarters of the way to their destination. "I want each person to drink up and eat something—at this point your body needs at least one full bottle of water and we've got Cliff bars for everybody. I don't want anybody passing out up here. Especially you." He fixed his glare on his lover, whose blood sugar could be notoriously iffy from time to time.
"God, don't say 'cliff'" Mays rolled his eyes dramatically. "This has taken years off my life!"
"Don't be such a wuss," Taisa laughed, slapping his friend on the shoulder.
"Easy for you to say—you've done this before," Hughes grumbled before grinning back at Mustang. Flipping open his Swiss Army knife, he scrapped at a tiny sliver under the pad of his left thumb—then froze. "Alphonse…don't move!"
"Wha---"
Remy glanced up and paled. "Mon Dieu! What the hell…?"
Between the words Dieu and hell, Mays flicked his pocketknife and it landed point down into the wood less than an inch from Alphonse's left hand, neatly pinning the hideous insect that was about to bite him. Al looked down and grimaced. "Th-thanks, Mays. That wouldn't have killed me but it certainly would have hurt"
"What is it?" Ed demanded.
"Damon diadema. A whip spider. They hide under tree bark in parts of the canopy." Jeanne-Marie muttered a prayer under her breath. "Probably trying to warn us."
"Yeah. Warn us to get the hell off this platform and get out of here," Edwin shuddered. "What is it with you and spiders anyway?"
"Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky. And for me, the spiders in the bushes," she quoted sagely.
"Charlemagne," Alphonse nodded.
"By way of Indiana Jones. Appropriate as hell, considering the circumstances. And that was a damn fine throw," Ed added. "Not the first time I've seen you pull that trick. Ever win any prized at the fair?"
"He was the darts champion of our local league in college. Never had to pay for a beer his whole senior year," Teddy tossed Hughes an affectionate grin.
"Brother? Should we head on?" Alphonse asked between bites of Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch.
Ed brushed a few crumbs off his chest and stomped on his empty water bottle, stashing the flattened plastic in his daypack. "I'm good but let's put it to a vote."
Everyone agreed it was best to move on, especially Hughes, who muttered something along the lines of 'the sooner we get up there the sooner we can get out and get back on solid ground."
ON THE PATH TO THE LAIR OF EYES-OF-GOLD"Shut it up."
Envy looked up from the supine body of the young twink who'd just driven him up the twisting back path to the end of the zipline, along with Gluttony and an extremely pissed off Izumi Elric, who was half-apoplectic that her infant's body wasn't good for much more than pooping, peeing and screaming bloody murder at this moment. She couldn't fight back, couldn't protect herself, so she reasoned that shrieking could attract attention—and it was a small but satisfying victory when she spit up all over Envy's chest and overfilled a diaper so that it leaked down his skort.
"It stinks!"
"So do you, jerk—but at least we can do something about her." Jerking a sharp chin towards the diaper bag, Envy ordered his companion to dunk Izumi in a nearby stream run off and put a fresh diaper on her.
Get your hands off my behind, you freak! The water was cold on Izumi's backside and she hated like hell being manhandled by someone who could pop her in his mouth like a breath mint. She sucked in her breath before she went under and swore at him as best as she could as he scrubbed her bottom with a wipe before pulling out a fresh nappy from Izumi's bag. "What am I supposed to do with this?" Gluttony looked positively clueless when confronted with a folded square of soft, absorbent cotton and a sealed packet of diaper pins.
Envy thrust hard again into the unresponsive body, which was not yet cold. "Goddamn it, isn't there a Pampers in there?"
Gluttony pawed through the bag. There was a sweet, warm smell—rather like honey and apricots—coming from a bottle labeled "Burt's Bees Baby Bee Lotion". Biting off the cap, he sucked it down and grimaced. "Nasty," he declared, chucking the bottle in the bushes. A squeeze bottle of the same brand of baby powder followed the lotion bottle into the bushes. Underneath that was an environmentally-responsible biodegradable disposable diaper. He jerked it up Izumi's tiny legs and hauled it over her bum, then wrapped her in a clean onesie that he left unsnapped. She was at least inoffensive to the nose, although the infant looked as if she would bite him if he even thought about any coochie-coo-type bullshit. "How much further?"
"Right around the corner. Shove a pacifier in her to keep her quiet so we can surprise them."
"She doesn't like it," Gluttony whined.
"I'd say break her neck, but we need her alive, for now anyway." Envy growled softly, shuddered and pulled out of his victim's body before stomping over to confront the whimpering child in Gluttony's arms. "Kid? I want you to watch very closely to what is about to happen to our driver over there. If you don't want the same, you'll shut the hell up, Mrs. Curtis…"
Envy dangled the infant by her armpits and turned her tiny face towards the corpse just as Gluttony took his first bite….
PORT NORMAN, ISLAND OF RANAMURTE"If you'll kindly excuse the vernacular, Mr.---?"
"—Please, call me Jack, Dr. Rogers—"
"—thank you. Jack, what the devil are you playing at?? How did you manage to—"
"---get the two of you out of jail in less than three hours when a rabid but beautiful DEA agent slaps the two of you in the slammer for suspicion of trafficking in hallucinogenic toad venom crystals?"
Dr Nigel Rogers slipped his arm around his uncle's shoulders. The dear old man was shivering and sipping from the silver flask of Napoleon brandy that the charming stranger had thrust into his trembling hands as soon as he ushered them in to the rented car. "It's not that we're not grateful, mate," the younger man began cautiously, " but other than seein' you chattin' up Hughsey on the plane over here, we don't know you from a sheep's backside, eh?"
The blue eyed Yank pulled over and shut off the engine, favoring them with a steady gaze that was as unnerving as it was charming. "Bottom line? I work for a research group with ties to the Elrics that go back before Edward and Alphonse came to the US. I know of them, but I've only met Alphonse once and he doesn't recall me. My predecessors in the UK were more familiar with their father. Hohenheim."
"Oi! Isn't he the bloke they call Eyes-Of-Gold around here?"
Their host nodded, eyes sparkling with mischief. "By all reports, Hohenheim was a very miserable son of a bitch. Lost his wife. Alienated his children—all three of them. Suspect that he was seeking answers thru the ingesting of mind altering chemicals, toad venom being the least toxic of the bunch."
"Three children?" Simon looked confused. "I'm sorry—as far as I knew Edward and Alphonse only had one another."
"Wellll…that's the problem, gentlemen." Jack—or whoever the hell he was—scratched his head and his grin faded. "There's a half-sibling out there who makes Charles Manson look like the poster boy for mental health. Wilhelm's been having a high old time dragging Edward through the mud lately. Rumors running wild that Ed was tied to the death of James Busbee McDonald, that old cocksu—I mean, that dreadfully confused bastion of American Morality. I've seen the autopsy reports. McDonald had the venom of a Dendrobates azureus on his hand, in his bloodstream—and more tellingly, on the door of his room and smeared on his pantsleg at thigh level. Most likely senario was that Busbee found a frog on the door, swatted it, wiped his hand on his pants and probably dosed himself with his nitroglycerine and was too stupid to remember to wash his hands."
"Look mate, that's all very well—but what has that got to do with us getting' sprung?" Nigel wanted to know.
"Firstly—because you need to know the background of why Ed's being harassed—which also may have to do with why you got arrested, why the press is at Hope Springs---and why a bunch of toad lovers are currently firing paint canisters through the windows and chaining themselves to the front gate of the damned resort. It's a diversion. The whole absurd senario. All a ploy to harass Edward and Alphonse to head up that damned mountain and try…try to leave."
The Drs. Rogers exchanged baffled looks. "Leave? My dear boy, there's hardly a way off the island on the top of that mountain. Don't be silly! Where could they possibly go?"
The charming, albeit enigmatic man behind the wheel stared at them for several moments, then shook his head. "I'll leave those explanations to Edward. The second reason I got you out is because I saw you shoved into the squad car—and ten minutes later, Dr. Nigel, I saw you walking out of the front gates with a small, squalling bundle in your arms, accompanied by a revoltingly corpulent gentleman dragging a diaper bag that I saw hanging off the arm of Trisha Elric when she registered her daughter at the nursery."
"Now, wait one damn minute—"
"I know it wasn't you. You were being finger printed and probed up the ass right about that time. "
"Then who the hell—"
"One of Wilhelm Elric's associates."
"Sir, if you believe someone has kidnaped Miss Tricia's daughter, then you have a responsibilty---"
"To tell the authorities? What—that a man who was about to become engaged to the gang in cell block F had run off with a child while the family was away up on a mountain practicing whatever voodoo those Resembool folks get into? No. I suspect the kid is a bargaining chip. She's useless dead. They won't harm her. Edward, on the other hand—his life isn't worth tuppence if Wilhelm gets a shot at him. Now," Jack turned back to the wheel. "What I'm trying to do is first get you and Ms Watanabe as far off the grounds of Hope Springs as I can. If what Hughes told me is the truth, you are all three very important to the Elrics---that makes you excellent hostages. Theres a small guesthouse about ten miles down the road. Ms. Watanabe is already there." He flipped them a cell phone. "Go ahead and call her. Speed dial 37."
Simon punched in the code. Ai had been waiting for him to call. "Go with Jack-san. He knows. He's trying to help Edo-sama and Arufonsu."
"Ms. Watanabe, are you saying you belive this nonsense?" Simon was taken aback, having always assumed that Ai was one of the most sensible people surrounding the Elric brothers.
"Simon-sama, I spent my girlhood as a miko in a Shinto temple. Edo-sama and Aru-sama have not spoken to me of these things---but I have served this family for many years. My mouth is closed in respect but my eyes are always open. This is a good family, and they have things to do and people to protect. Jack-san understands. You must come so Roy-sama will not worry about you."
Watanabe Ai had spent countless hours dusting bookshelves, picking up piles of notes and inadvertantly overhearing high decible, one-sided conversations about alchemy whenever Edo-sama called his niece from Tokyo. She'd vaccumed in offices with diagrams of arrays pinned to the wall, re-shelved books by authors with names like Paracelsus, Israel Regardie and Manly P. Hall, as well as old cracked volumes in Hebrew, German and Arabic. Whatever arcane philosophies the Elrics embraced, they were fine people. Ai trusted them. She cared about them. And, yes, she'd come to love Alphonse dearly, in spite of his youthful appearance. They didn't appear to be aging, at least as far as she could detect. That was somewhat unnerving. But when he spoke so softly to her this morning, smiling down with those lovely bronze eyes, a part of her she had laid discretely aside began to stir.
She had no incense to offer, but there were flowers outside and a white ceramic mug made an offering cup . The water might be straight from the tap but a prayer offered to the kami with a sincere heart would be heard. Lighting a tiny fire in an ash tray from bits of cardboard from a book of matches, the former priestess began to chant feverishly, chanting for the safety of her chosen family, for little Izumi and for the spirits of the ancestors watching over the Elrics.
She said the prayers.
She didn't expect the ancestors to answer her personally.
"Gutenmorgen, Fräulein Ai. Mein Name ist Alfons Heiderich…"
THE LAIR OF EYES-OF-GOLDSometimes, during the rare flashes of what could potentially pass for mild intelligence, Gluttony concluded that he didn't really like Envy. Envy always associated killing with sex. That was wrong. Killing was about eating. Killing made food. Envy didn't make sense, and what didn't make sense made Gluttony uneasy. "Envy?" he ventured as they crouched in the bushes near the opening of Hohenheim's old stomping grounds. "Why don't you just let me eat him?"
Envy bounced a rock off his companion's forehead. "The pipsqueak's not afraid of dying, idiot. So death's no threat." Envy had killed Edward once. He had fucked him once, too, and was colossally insulted when Ed just lay there in his chains, laughing at him. "Is that all you've got?" Ed snorted in disgust. "Now I know the real reason they call you Envy!"
"No," he continued, gazing down at the angry wriggling armful of Elric in his arms that he had been forced to gag to drown out her screaming. "Best way to deal with the pipsqueak is to kill someone he loves—like that dimwitted brother of his, or Mustang. I'd let you snack on this filthy little drooler, except that she's going to be useful. But she doesn't knock off the whining right now I'll just chuck her off the rocks and we can use the one that looks like…my father. One sacrifice is as good as another, mmmmmmnnn?"
"Ed—did you move this stone upright? Wasn't it down on the ground when we were here before?" Far as the Elric party could determine, nobody had been in Hohenheim's cavern since Ed last left it. The monitoring equipment was dusty but humming along as it should. Al had been by every three years to change the extended life batteries. The stone had been flat in the dirt but now balanced on it's rim, just as the larger stone at Orlando 5 had done.
"Okay—stay back, people. Don't know what the hell is going on, but this thing has been tampered with—and it's alive. Edwin!"
"Sir?"
"Get your digicam up and turn on the Ivory. I need you do document this for Denny. "
"Brother, this stone has already changed color. It's gone transparent, just like the stone did when Teddy and I were dragged through in Orlando." Indeed, the intricately carved stone disc had turned the color of muddy sea water and there were faint ghosts of movement from the other side. "Denny could hear the Colonel from the other side—we documented that. Should we try hailing them?"
Ed nodded. "I'll…." He flushed, cutting off his words.
Taisa's hand closed warmly over Ed's. "Call Alfons," his lover encouraged. "If anybody on the other side has your best interests at heart, it would be him."
Edward caught Taisa by the front of his shirt, pulled him close and kissed him swiftly. "He likes you too."
"I know. He told me."
A shadow loomed over them, accompanied by an odor like foul breath and rotten meat.
"But I don't like you at all. You killed Lust!"
Don't eat the Pipsqueak. That was the warning Gluttony had gotten from Envy.
He didn't say a damn thing about not eating the Pipsqueak's lover.
"Hey, Gluttony!" Envy waved from the mouth of the cave, Izumi Elric shoved under one arm like a football on Superbowl Sunday. "If you think eating Americans is great, you're gonna love eating JAPANESE!"
Gluttony dove forward, tongue dragging the dirt, teeth gleaming obscenely.
Taisa Roy Mustang jumped out of reach, back against the Portal, just as a sunburnt hand broke through the shimmering green surface and latched onto his shoulder, hauling him backwards through the surface of the stone…
STATE MUSEUM OF ALCHEMY, CENTRAL AMESTRISDucking back under the barrier ropes, Josh took a deep breath and poked the lazulite stone into a crevice in the middle of the stone. The ladder beneath him shifted.
His right arm slid inside the stone, right up to his armpit.
Struggling for balance, he grabbed frantically for support.
His fingers found something warm and firm—a shoulder. They spasmed and gripped instinctively as the ladder began to rock dangerously.
It wasn't the nine foot drop that knocked the wind out of him. It was being flattened by the stranger who landed on top of him…the stranger who came out of the stone…
"CRAPSHITFUCK!!!!" Josh Tringham was flat on his back. His ribs were bruised, his nose was bleeding and there was an…ass…shoved in his face. Not female, to his great disappointment, although it did seem distinctly high, tight and well shaped…for a guy, that is. And since the ass was in his face, it was safe to assume that the other end of the stranger was located somewhere in the vicinity of his…
"Where the hell am I?" came the voice from his crotch.
"S-s-s-State Museum of Al-Alchemy. In Central," Josh added, giving the taut buttocks a shove and getting a knee in his ear as the strange man fumbled himself upright, inadvertently pressing his crotch against the horrified teen's forehead.
"CENTRAL??!?? NANDA KUSO!" The man shot to his feet, cursing swiftly under his breath in a language that sounded somewhat like Xingian. "Who are you?" A hand grabbed his shirt collar, jerking the boy roughly to his feet.
"Josh. Josh Tringham." The younger man shook his sandy hair out of his eyes—and then froze. The eyes. That spike of hair, just like on the statue. That—that smirk. Holy freakin' shit, it's—
"Josh Tringham?" The man shook his hand briefly before a massive, epicene tongue poked through the stone and licked the side of Mustang's head. "Roy Mustang. Pleased to meet you. Now---RUN LIKE FUCK!!!"
"Run like fuck!" That was the order. And when a legend from your nation's past drops out of the air, squashes you flat, shoves his face into your junk, plants his ass in your face and then orders you to get off your butt and move, damn it, chances are you're going to do what he tells you unless you're a complete 'tard. That, at any rate, was how Josh Tringham had it figured, and when that tongue poked out of the stone, dripping with odiferous slime, and started lapping obscenely at Mustang's rumpled black hair, all Josh could do was stammer "Yessir!" and haul ass behind him.
"What kind of lockdown can you put on that hall?" Mustang demanded as they slammed the doors of the Exhibition Hall behind them.
Josh stabbed a coded sequence into the key pad beside the entrance then wiped his forehead with relief. "That'll hold him, Sir."
His companion wasn't impressed. "'Until he figures out how to chew a hole in the wall. Damn, Ed! Didn't you plan for this?"
Ed??? Before Josh could respond to this jaw-dropping newsflash, his companion grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Is this really Amestris?"
"Y-yes. You're in the Alchemy Museum."
The man shoved his hand into the inside of his shirt and held up an envelope. "You need to get me to President Riza Hawkeye. According to Alphonse the first thing I have to do is provide my credentials so nobody tries to shoot or arrest me. Then I've got to---" There was a deafening belch on the other side of the door, accompanied by what sounded like the crunching of one of the Xingian Springs water kiosks in the main viewing area. Mustang grinned wryly and shook his head. "On second thought, maybe we need to get this little crisis under control." He glanced around, not especially frightened but hardly at ease. "Ed," he whispered, half to himself, half to a lover on the other side of the Gate, " don't do anything stupid—or is that too much to hope for?"
"Sir? Hate to break it to you, but Riza Hawkeye's been dead and gone since 1957. We've got a new president this year, President Priyanand. He's Isballan," he added, as if conveying news of great importance.
"What year?" Mustang demanded sharply.
"Two thousand one," Josh answered soberly. Recognizing that his companion would hardly know his way around, Josh gestured for Mustang to follow him down the stairs and then guided him to the right-hand gallery—the one hosting "Mustang: the Man and His Time". As soon as they passed the velvet ropes in the waiting area, the man beside him stopped dead in his tracks with a whispered exclamation. "Oh, god….Teddy…"
They had paused before a portrait of a bespectacled woman in red, brown hair falling over one shoulder, holding what appeared to be the wooden flute she'd brought back from Amestris. "That's the Spiral Alchemist. They did it from a picture Kain Fuery took of her. She was Alphonse Elric's daughter and the niece of Fullmetal. She's your disciple…right?"
"Spiral Alchemist?!?" Mustang stared at the kid as if he'd taken leave of his senses. "Disciple? Teddy?? That's ridiculous. I didn't train her—she trained me!"
Holy shit! "S-she taught you alchemy, Sir?"
Mustang looked annoyed. "Of course she did—do you think Ed and I could work together without killing each other?"
So that meant that Hohenheim wasn't the eldest of the clan! Clearly the history books had it all wrong. "I had no idea she was so old."
"And she'd knock the crap out of you if she heard you say that," Mustang snapped. "Why is her picture in a museum?"
Tringham was completely baffled by this. How could the Colonel have no memories of his one alchemic disciple or question the fitness of her portrait hanging here? Maybe when he fell out of the stone he'd jarred his senses loose or something. "Hey, are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine, damn it. And as soon as we figure out how to take out that monster I'm getting the hell out of here and going back home. No offense, kid, but everybody I care about is on the other side of that rock, not to mention that I'm getting married tomorrow night and Ed's going to think I'm backing out on---"
"Ed? As in Edward Elric?"
"Who the hell else would I be marrying?" He was starting to get angry now. "Ed and I have been planning this for months, but when Envy and Gluttony came after us—never mind. Now," he demanded, "any ideas where we can get our hands on some weapons?"
"Uhhh, that's why I brought you down here. I thought you'd want some of your stuff."
"Stuff??"
"Yeah. Gloves and shit. And your ring." Punching up the code, the security lights flashed from red to green and Taisa heard a faint click. "C'mon, sir," Tringham gestured for him to follow as he unhooked the velvet rope that barricaded them from the entrance.
The door hissed softly shut behind them. Tringham switched on the lights. Taisa sucked in his breath softly. "Oh. Shit." When he and his mother had moved to London to live in Uncle Simon's wonderful old house at No.11 Mecklenburgh Square (once the home of the famous lesbian scholar and historian Jane Ellen Harrison who wrote extensively about the Cult of the Great Mother in ancient Greece) in Bloomsbury, Taisa had complained bitterly about the cold, damp air and how homesick he was for Japan. "Home is what you carry inside you," Hikari told him quietly. "Home is wherever we are together. Anything else is just a house."
With the passing of time and the deepening of love, Taisa had concluded that any place he and Edward shared was home, whether it be a posh penthouse for gajin business travelers in Tokyo or a tiny room in a run down Victorian boarding house shared with Teddy and Hughes in Berkeley. Now his lover was on the other side of the Gateway—and if he couldn't find a way back he'd never see Edward again. Amestris was a foreign land, however familiar it looked and smelled and sounded—and as soon as they figured out how to kill the ravenous monster that was tearing up the Gatestone gallery he would find some way to force his way back through and go home…
However, as soon as he stepped into the gallery and saw his old uniform on a beautifully detailed wax dummy of his previous self, the lights in front of his eyes began to swirl and fade. He didn't feel his knees strike the floor as he buckled, one hand pressed against the glass case that held his own likeness. "…home," he whispered hoarsely. "Fullmetal? I'm home…"
RANAMURTE ISLAND, EARTHSIDE OF THE GATE"NOOOOO!" Edward dove frantically after his lover, fingers snatching at Mustang's boot heels. Taisa slid through the surface of the stone as easily as a hot knife through butter, Gluttony diving in after him, roaring in frustration, tongue flapping wetly around one corner of his mouth as if he could already savor the younger man's bones snapping crisply between his teeth. But before he could breach the stone itself, an obscene cackle made the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention. "Hello, Pipsqueak!"
"Ohhh, fuck!" Ed swore under his breath as he turned—and froze. Izumi…oh god, he's got Izumi…
"How long have you been planning this, Envy?" Alphonse demanded, fighting to keep his voice even. "You're pretty well equipped for this to be coincidence." Envy had thrown coils of rope at Edwin and Teddy, ordering them to tie up the Havocs and Hughes. Maes had been surprised that Teddy had gone straight to him and even more surprised when she leaned in and kissed him deeply.
"Sill have that knife?" she whispered urgently.
"Yeah."
"This is pretty loose. If you see a shot, take it."
"Yeah," he answered, kissing her for real this time. "Tell Gracia I—"
"GET BACK HERE!" Envy snarled, "I don't want to hold this brat any longer than I have to. It's disgusting. It leaks."
"She peed on you? Way to go, Teacher!" Ed smirked. "Now cut the crap and let her go. I'm the one you want." Ed was smiling now, arms open wide in invitation. "Still think you can beat my ass, freak?"
"Let her go, Envy." Alphonse was doubling up his fist and looking determined. "If it's a fight you want, Brother and I are ready."
There was something about Envy's smile that turned Edwin's stomach, looking at the four Elrics as if he were some great green-haired feline confronted with a quartet of mice. "Fight? Who said anything about fighting? This is my farewell party. I'm leaving Earth—"
"—good riddance," Ed snorted.
"—and this is my little…going away party. And guess what?" A straight razor flicked out of his pocket and hovered by Izumi's tender neck. "Your mother is going to be the entertainment. Tie her up, Ed."
"So…Hohenheim's little whore. It's your fault he never returned to Dante. And if you hadn't fucked him, we'd never have had the Pipsqueak and the Tin Man. And in the end, you let Ed kill you, stupid bitch!. Worst of all," he gave Izumi a shake that made her whimper, " you're breeding more Elrics—and you've let Izumi Curtis back in the flesh again. So here's the question—what would you do to get the brat back?"
"Anything."
"Then…do me. And if you bite me---" the razor skimmed off a few silken black strands from Izumi's head, "my razor bites her, got it?"
Teddy nodded. She tossed a quick glance at her husband. "Il ne change rien, ma petite ange." It changes nothing, he told her. "I will take her place if you choose," Havoc offered. "I am certain I can give you greater satisfaction. Her mouth is…rather small for you, no?"
Envy gazed down at his father's reborn widow and chuckled nastily. "I believe you're right, Lieutenant Havoc. Well then, I'll just have to give her a smaller serving of meat---I know….let's go back to your childhood, shall we?"
"Wha—what do you mean?" Teddy asked nervously.
"This is getting tiresome," Ed grumbled. "Look—you wanna fuck me again, take your best shot. Fuck me, fight me, whatever. You're wasting time with her and the kid, Envy." He was sweating now, sick at his stomach. If he could just goad Envy into turning on him, maybe he'd drop Izumi and Teddy could---
"I could see everything from the Gate, you know. Everything. I saw your brother jerking off with a Playboy he swiped from under your dad's bed—"
"Al!" Ed forced himself to tease his brother, hoping to distract his captor. "So that's what you were doing when Winry went to the bike drags, you horny bastard!"
"And your sister used to sixty-nine her boyfriends so she'd be a virgin on her wedding night—and Al, that wasn't strep throat she had in her senior year—it was the clap—"
"Ho hum, old news. Now, c'mon, freak! Forget the stroll down memory lane. Let's get to it!"
Envy's features began to shimmer and blur. "Now this kid was a dirty little girl. She got her period when she was 12, and she was so scared, because she thought she'd hurt herself. You see, Alphonse, your baby was a hot little slut like her mom, always looking at the boys. And one day when she was almost in junior high she found a bunch of old pictures in the attic. One of them was of a beautiful young man with flowing golden hair hanging all over his shoulders. It was taken in Munich—"
Teddy paled. "Don't—please!"
"She thought he was some cousin of yours, because she couldn't see the fake arm—"
"All right, that's enough," Alphonse shouted. "Leave my daughter alone!"
"And she got allllll flushed and excited. She stole the picture and took it to her room and looked at it for days…and then one night she swiped a flashlight, locked her bedroom door— and climbed under the covers—"
"God damn you!" Ed made a move towards the monster but the razor was quicker. A tiny thread of scarlet appeared on Izumi's throat.
"—and she put her hand inside her pretty little flowered panties and found that the pretty blonde boy had made her all wet for the first time and that if she put her finger in while she looked at his picture it made it feel soooooo goooood…."
"Don't let him fuck with your head, kiddo!" Ed shot Teddy a desperate look.
"Mischief, it's all right, honey—" Alphonse's eyes shifted desperately from his child to his granddaughter, hoping to see the slightest opening that would allow him to rip Envy's head off with his bare hands without endangering either of them.
"So how about that, Pipsqueak? You made your father's whore come for the first time ever in this life. So it only seems fair that she returns the favor."
To his horror, Edward watched, dry mouthed, as Envy solidified into the form of the same eighteen year old Edward Elric that had been the lover of Alfons Heiderich in Germany…who had posed playfully for his lover's camera during a memorable hiking trip to the alps, shirt half open, hair unbound and smiling in invitation…
THE MUSTANG GALLERY, AMESTRISWhen Edward Elric's spirit had passed through the Gateway to be reunited with the Colonel a year before, he'd been reunited with his mother and his teacher. Alphonse had had a heartbreaking reunion with his dead wife, Winry.
Taisa Roy Mustang was nearly decapitated. A masked warrior, small and graceful, swept towards him, sword outstretched. " 下来，我的儿子! " ("Get down, my son!") she shouted, swinging towards Gluttony. " 我以前杀害了您。 我再将杀害您! " ("I have killed him before—I will kill him again!")
A moment later he had fallen through the stone, landing squarely on top of a slender blond teenager who at least seemed to know how to get the hell around this place. His head had been somewhat lucid as they fled down the stairs and in and out of the galleries, but now his head was reeling again and for an instant he saw the masked warrior again. This time she spoke in Japanese. "Take back what was your own, child. If you won't fight, you'll never see your loved ones again. Remember who you are."
Another figure appeared beside her. Squat, dumpy and clad in a low cut evening dress, she flicked a cigarette in his direction. "Listen up, Roy-Boy. I didn't make you but you're still mine, got it? There's nothing in this world—or any other world, damn it—that I wouldn't do for you. Now make me proud, kid."
Then the old woman slapped him hard over the head with her jeweled purse. "Now, WAKE UP, kid! You got amnesia or something?"
Taisa shook his head and the world shifted into focus, more sharply than it had since he was born. Rising to his feet, he ordered his companion to unlock the case. "It should fit," he observed coolly, stripping the blue officer's uniform off the Colonel Mustang dummy and laying it to one side. "I'm as trim as I ever was."
"Get my gloves. Right pocket. Any chalk around here?"
Tringham was getting annoyed, being brusquely ordered around. Get my gloves. Find my boots. My pocket watch. My gun. "I suppose you want me to wipe your ass for you, sir?" he snapped, handing over the gloves he had fetched from the discarded pile of clothing. A small green object, flat and circular and trimmed in gold fell out of the middle finger. Josh leaned over to retrieve it."
"Give me that! Now!" Mustang snatched it away, looking furious. "That's too dangerous for a kid to play with."
"What the hell is it, then?" Josh demanded.
"A retanjutsu stone. Not a philosopher's stone, but an alchemically charged jade. My mother—my natural mother—left it to me."
"Your mother was an alchemist?"
"My natural mother, yes. She died. I was orphaned. I had no family here—I'm half-Xingian, you know. A very kind woman named Chris Mustang took me in and adopted me. She ran a lucrative business, a saloon and brothel. It was an educational experience, being raised with a dozen 'sisters'. My foster mother was also one of the most important underground operatives in the rebellion against King Bradley. The whole place was bugged, trap doors and secret exits everywhere. I had the run of the place as a boy."
"Yeah? So how'd you become an alchemist?"
"Natural aptitude from both parents. I played a prank and decided to try my hand at alchemy after serving drinks to a State Alchemist who was a paying customer. "
"You…you served…drinks…in a whore house??"
"When you're of age, look me up. My martinis are exceptional—not too dry, and I never bruise the gin." He tugged at his collar and adjusted his aiguillette. "Anyway, after I blew up the privy she gave me a good whacking, then found me the best teacher money could buy. Granted, he was half insane and eventually killed himself after doing something…despicable…to his daughter, Riza—"
Josh's jaw dropped to his knees. "P-President Hawkeye??"
"A few years older. Didn't think much of me then, considering my origins. He tattooed his notes all over her back. Disgraceful. She asked me to burn them off, but it would have killed her. When she was elected I told her there was no need for worries of invasion. 'Get the equations and arrays copied off your back by your senior alchemists and you've got the most dangerous weapons you need—and pray you don't have to use them. Speaking of dangerous weapons…" He pulled the gloves on smartly and tapped to fingers together. A finger of scarlet leapt about a foot in the air. "Rather like riding a bicycle, that," he smirked.
"You forgot your watch. And this." It was a small leather box containing a plain gold ring with a plain red stone. "Wasn't this the stone you used when you blew up all those cities and killed all those Ishballan people during the war?"
Mustang froze, the color draining out of his cheeks. "I…the…war? I…seem to remember something about…it's not too clear to me now."
"Yeah, don't you remember?" Josh was warming to the subject. "You were just about nineteen and a new major in the army. They sent you to Ishbal with Kimblee and Grande and Armstrong and Marcoh, and you five pretty much blew that country off the map. For years people hated you---shit, some people think you're still a mass murderer, but since you wrote your memoirs and helped with the peace initiative, and since everybody knew you were just following Bradley's orders and you killed the man with your bare hands, they—"
"SHUT UP! That's an order!"
"Hey, old man—I am not some fuckin' dog of the military! If you can make crispy critters out of Ishballan babies, the least you can do is torch that fuck upstairs so we can get out of here alive.!"
"Best way out?"
"This way, through the Elric exhibit," Josh muttered sourly.
They turned down the corridor and Mustang stopped abruptly. "Oh…Maes…"
It was a handsome portrait, accompanied by a display case of personal possessions, including a battered camera and a stack of photographs featuring a lovely young woman and a giggling little girl. Mustang pulled back his fist and slammed it into the glass, shattering it. Alarms began to screech as he reached inside and pulled out the blue uniform hat. "Yes…you didn't forget, did you?" Tucked inside was a tattered, crumbling photograph of two young men, one serious, the other grinning goofily and tipping his hat to the camera.
Tringham brazened it out and just asked. "You were lovers, right? You and Hughes."
"Yes."
"Did Kimblee catch you?"
"How did you know--?"
"Found the letter when I was going through your things. Where he said—"
"I remember what he said," Roy answered quietly. "I don't intend to discuss it with you."
"Well," Josh shot back, "want to discuss Edward Elric?"
"Edward," Roy answered proudly, "waited for me on the other side for the better part of his lifetime. And I don't intend to keep him waiting any longer."
When they reached the Elric gallery, Mustang paused for a long time before the wax replicas of Edward and Alphonse Elric. "Pathetic," he commented at last. "You've got the likeness but not the expression."
Edward's mannequin was posed with his arm outstretched, transmuted into a blade, teeth bared, looking fierce and cocky. "So—what's missing?" Tringham wanted to know.
Mustang's expression began thoughtful. "The kindness in his eyes," he said softly. "All that anger, that ferocity—he was trying to hard to hide the truth from all of you here."
"And that was--?"
"He was a sad, scared, lonely little boy who never meant to hurt his brother. He made a mistake that he has never forgiven himself for. All he wanted was his mother—and that wanting became an obsession. So he dressed in red, carried on like an arrogant, infallible boy-genius, cussed and shouted and had a chip on his shoulder as big as the whole damn world…when all he really wanted to do, at the end of it, was be safe at home with his mother and brother."
Taisa turned and wiped his eyes after a long moment. "My husband…Fullmetal. Don't ask me to explain him. And in the end, he got his wish. His mom came back, the one you call the Spiral Alchemist. His brother is with him, even now. And in time, he found me again. If I don't come back…Ed's going to get desperate again. I'm not going to let him be hurt any more. I'm going home, Josh. You started this mess. You triggered the Gatestone You're going to finish it. You're going to get that blood key—and you are going to send me home."
There was a crash in the stairwell in the corridor outside the Elric gallery, followed by a hungry bellow.
Taisa Roy Mustang pulled the ring with the red stone out of his pocket and jammed it on his gloved finger. "Well, Edward," he told the vacant-eyed mannequin, "I guess it's time for the Alchemy Exam…"
…………….TO BE CONTINUED…………….