A/N: WHOO! My first multi-chaptered story, OH YEAH! -throws a party- And I really do like this story. I think it's cool. Most of it just follows the anime, but a whole bunch of chapters are gonna be mine. Because what kind of story would it be if I just followed the anime the entire time? Nothing I'd want to read, let me tell you. So here it is, the first chapter of "A Girl Named William"!
And I apologize for this chapter being so short. The first few are going to be much the same, because I found good cliffhanger places to end them. I've never been good at cliffies, so when I found that I could actually do one, I was all, "OMG COOL!" And stopped it right there. So yeah, the shortness. Bear with me.
Once again, MANY MUCH MOOSEN thanks to my bestest friend and beta, Mal! Who will now be co-starring in the freak conversations that are taking the place of the disclaimer in this story. Fear her.
Mal: Say it.
Orange: No.
Mal: Say it. -prods with a leafy twig-
Orange: NO!
Mal: Say it, dammit! Or they'll sue your ass!
Orange: Fine, fine. -sigh- I'm your biatch.
Mal: Not THAT, dumbass! -smacks forehead- The freaking disclaimer!
Orange: Oh, that. (pause) Do I have to?
Mal: Goddammit, YES!
Orange: -sigh- I don't own FullMetal Alchemist.
Mal: See? Now was that so hard?
Orange: -quivers in a corner- YES! -sob-
Mal: But she does own Will. Even though you don't really meet her yet in this chapter…
Orange: Yay for girls with boy names!
Mal: Will is a retarded name for a girl…
Orange: WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Mal: -eep- Nothing! (loser…)
Orange: THAT'S IT! C'MERE, YOU! -tackles Mal-
Will: Oo Oookaaay… Uh… Well, since those two freaks are momentarily incapacitated-
Orange: STOP MOVING SO I CAN HIT YOU, DAMMIT!
Mal: AAIIIIEEEEE!
Will: Ahem, as I was saying… -sidesteps to avoid being skewered by a spork- Erm… -ducks a random potato projectile- Aw, hell. Just get on with the damn fanfic already, before these two morons kill each other.
Orange: MAY THE SPORKS BE WITH YOU! AAARGH! -is smacked with a sponge-
"Wow… Where is everybody?"
Edward and Alphonse Elric strolled down the empty city streets, looking around for any signs of life. The streets were bare, houses and stores empty.
"Where could they all be?" Ed wondered aloud. Al shrugged as best he could, what with his being a soul inside a giant suit of armor and all, feeling just as puzzled as his brother. They'd come to the small city in search of somewhere to stay the night, after their quest for the Philosopher's Stone had left them at a dead end.
"Maybe they're all asleep, or something…"
"In the middle of the day?" Ed gave his sibling a disbelieving look. "I don't think so… There must be something going on here."
"Hey," Al said, pointing off the main road toward a small side street in between a group of houses, "I think I hear voices coming from over there."
"Hmm. Guess we should go see what's going on." They headed off onto the small pathway, following the faint voices and shouts that grew in number as they got closer to the town square. The clumps of houses got smaller, and the screams started getting louder and louder. Finally, they broke through the rim of houses and emerged into the heart of the city.
"Whoa…"
The entire city center was packed with people, seemingly the entire population, all shouting and yelling roughly. Ed stood on his tiptoes, trying to see over the heads of the crowd. He spotted a cart lying to the side, and happily climbed on top, finally able to see what all the commotion was about. Everyone seemed focused on a small platform situated in the center of the circle. The platform had a long wooden post in the center, with a rope attached to the end of it, tied in a loop… What? Ed suddenly realized what was going on in this strange little town.
"It's… a hanging!" Ed's jaw dropped. They were actually going to hang someone? He thought people had stopped being hung years ago. And they had still only been used for hardcore thieves or murderers. Surely no one could deserve this punishment. Even murderers were now taken care of by the military; they didn't allow public executions anymore… Ed wondered just what kind of town they had wandered into.
"I wonder what the poor person did to deserve being hung," Al wondered sadly.
Ed shook his head. "Whatever they did, no one deserves to be killed like that."
There was a sudden palpable increase in tension and excitement in the crowd, and Ed looked up, intrigued. A wooden cart was being pulled through the raging crowd, with a lone figure standing on top. His face was turned away, so Ed couldn't see, but he looked pretty young, a teenager. What could possibly possess these crazy people in order to drive them to hang a young kid? Ed was outraged.
"AL! We have to do something about this. That guy's only around my age, we have to stop them from killing him!" Ed screamed at his younger brother over the shouts of the crowd. Al just stared at the boy on the cart who had turned to face the audience.
"Big brother… That's not a guy."
"Huh?" Ed turned toward the platform, and promptly fell off the cart in surprise.
A young girl, no older than Ed, was being pushed off of the cart and closer to the noose. A long case, seemingly holding a sword, was tossed onto the stand next to the man who was in charge of pulling the rope. Ed heard something vague about "Be careful with that, you idiot! That was handmade in-" before she was roughly pushed to the center. She stood on the platform with her hands tied behind her back, struggling wildly and being held in place by two large men while another tried to slip the noose over her head. As she kicked and writhed in their grasp, she screamed and cursed at the crowd as loud as she could.
"DAMN YOU ALL! I TOLD YOU, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, DAMMIT, I WASN'T EVEN-" She was silenced by one of the men managing to slip a gag over her mouth, but not before she bit a few of his fingers. Her eyes glared daggers, shining violet and dangerous in the midday sun, pulling against the noose that was snug around her neck.
After recovering from his cart-falling accident, Ed started trying to push his way through the crowd, ramming people left and right. The right seemed more effective, he found, because auto-mail slamming into one's side sure is a convincing way to say "MOVE IT!" He didn't get very far, though. The audience was quite thick, and people were adamant on staying in their places. Even Al couldn't get much farther than his brother; the people didn't seem as intimidated by his giant-armor-ness as most were.
The hangman raised his arm to the cheering audience, and rested his other hand on the lever that would open up the trap door underneath the convicted girl. As she saw the hand wrap around the lever, her violet eyes widened, as if realizing that this was actually happening. Ed saw her take a deep breath as the lever was tugged, and she plunged downwards, the noose pulling tight around her windpipe.
"NO!" Ed yelled, violently thrashing around in the crowd, trying in vain to reach the girl before she suffocated. Amazingly, her neck hadn't been broken when the rope caught, so she was now hanging there helplessly, unable to breathe. The rope was longer than usual, so her feet just barely grazed the ground, and she suddenly stopped wiggling, eyes once again widening, but this time there was something else shining in them. She slowly swung herself back and forth, dragging her feet on the dusty ground. Ed watched, helpless, as she turned a light shade of blue, still swinging herself around and around.
"Al! What's she doing? Can you see?" Ed jumped up and down, but was still unable to see over the heads of the crowd.
Al leaned forward, careful not to accidentally squish anyone. "Uh… she's… making a transmutation circle?" His voice was filled with surprise.
"WHAT? How can she do that? She's hanging from a rope by her neck, dammit! She can't possibly believe she can actually-"
He was interrupted by a blinding, electric blue light that shone from the ground below the suffocating girl. When it died down, the crowd erupted into gasps.
"What? What happened? Did it work? What's going on?" Ed tried, once again, to see what was happening below the platform, this time by climbing up on Al's back. Unfortunately, due to his… ahem, small stature, he slipped off and landed on his butt on the ground.
Al didn't answer right away, but stood staring in the direction of the platform. After a moment, he finally spoke, voice laden with surprise and awe.
"Nii-san… She's gone!"
A/N: Well, there ya have it! The first chapter! The second should be uploaded shortly, but REVIEWS are always welcome! Just press the little button down there and tell me what you thought. Didja like it, hate it, think it's stupid, too short, grammatically incorrect, whatever! Even just a "This chapterwas funny! I liked it a lot!" will make me sing with joy. Okay, so maybe I won't really sing. But I'll be happy. Even though this chapter wasn't really funny yet... It's more of the "general" part playing here. But the funny stuff is coming. Oh yeah, Will is like a humor bomb waiting to be set off... Oo Okay, that was a really stupid metaphor. Just ignore me. >