A/N: Hey guys, KeyStar11 here! I'm here with my new Fullmetal Alchemist/Time Cat crossover, The Time Changer (tTC). I know a lot of you probably haven't even heard of the book Time Cat, but I will explain all concept thoroughly, to the best of my ability, so you can read this without knowing anything about it. I will only use one canon character from TC. This takes place FMA:B world. Now for some information;
- Post-FMA:B.
- Roy and Riza are going to be married. They adopted Edward and Alphonse (without changing their last names, per request), because the two were decided to be to young to be alone.
- Olivier is now Fuhrer {now called president; Amestris is a democracy now}. Everyone else has kept their ranks.
- Gareth is the only canon character from Time Cat.
- Roy, Riza, Ed and Al all live in Central City in their own house.
- Alphonse is a State Alchemist now (the Armored Alchemist {cliché, I know}).
- Roy is 30, Riza is 29, Edward is 16, and Alphonse is 15. :3
Disclaimer: KeyStar11 does not own or gain any profit from Time Cat or Fullmetal Alchemist. If she did, she'd be beautiful and rich. But for now she's just beautiful.
Alright, and so, we begin!
Gareth was a large, sleek black cat. His eyes were a deep, molten gold, a huge contrast against his oil-colored fur. The cat had only one marking on him entirely; a small white area on his chest, that sort of looked like a T with a loop over the top. The cat, all in all, looked like a secret - a mystery. He looked like a riddle that none could solve. None could figure out.
Sometimes, this was true.
Edward would often watch the coal-black cat, intrigued. Sometimes he would stop and pause and remember the day he had allowed Alphonse to have a cat; less than two weeks ago, it was. The cat had caught his attention ever since. He would notice, as he wrote his coded notes, that the cat would watch him mysteriously while he did so. Sometimes the feline would lash a paw out as if to catch the ballpoint pen he often wrote with, playfully, but almost lazily, as if it were an act. He acted like a cat; he would play when Alphonse would get the little feather on a string that he had gotten, and he would purr as he was petted. He would sleep most of the day, and spend the night awake.
Alphonse and Edward had grown close to the cat in the past two weeks that they'd owned him. The two alchemists, or, one alchemist and one former, the two brothers that stuck together through everything, didn't know what it was. Maybe it was that cat's secretive aura, much like their own. Maybe it was that strange fire of intellect behind the cat's molten gold eyes. Maybe it was the peculiar way the cat acted around the two Xerxesian boys. Either way, they loved the cat, and kept him, naming him Gareth.
Well, more or less. It was quite amusing, actually; when they had gotten them, the first thing Roy had asked on the drive home was, "What're you going to name him?" As the cat had sat eerily calm in Alphonse's lap, the amber-eyed young boy shrugged. "I'm not sure yet," he had said. Edward's automail mechanic (as well as crush, though the former Fullmetal Alchemist would never admit it) had been on the ride home as well; she wished to go with them when Edward had finally allowed his younger brother to go to the pet store; Roy, reluctantly, had agreed when Alphonse promised to take care of it.
Eagerly, the sixteen-year-old had looked at the black-furred cat, and said, "Let's name him...uh...uhhh..Black Devil! Yeah!" Of course, this had gotten an amused chuckle from Alphonse and a snort from Winry. "You can't name him Black Devil," the Rockbell girl had argued. "Hontestly, Edward, you have absolutely no style when it comes to names or designs." This had received a cut-off protest from the still rather short alchemist.
"How about...Blackie?" Alphonse had asked, stroking the cat's back; the person who had sold them the cat had told them that the cat would be fine with car rides, even without a cage. Edward seemed to scoff a little at this. Before long, the two brothers were in a [relatively friendly, sort of] argument about what to name the cat, and the feline in question had irritatingly put his black ears down and closed his eyes as if exasperated. Before long, when Roy decided it was a getting a little too loud for his small brown-and-black car, he had cut in. "Gareth," he had said, choosing a random, nice-sounding name.
Both Elrics had paused to look up at the Flame Alchemist, who had yet to look in their direction. "Huh?" they said simultaneously, blinking.
"Name him Gareth," the Colonel repeated. Winry smiled slightly; this seemed to irritate the older blonde and the elder Elric had frowned. "I like that name," she said. "It's...pretty." Alphonse nodded in agreement. Edward looked around; everyone in the car, except for Mustang of course, was looking at him with a victorious grin. He raised an eyebrow. "Ganging up on me, then? Fine, fine. Gareth it is." Winry and Alphonse had laughed at this reaction, even Roy had cracked a small grin, though none of the trio had noticed the grinning driver.
And now this Gareth was a regular character in their daily lives. And he was to the day, this day in fact.
Edward muttered profanities under his breath as he opened the door to his small-ish room, before slamming the door behind him, obviously in a huff. This had startled the poor sleeping cat on his bed, who's head snapped up and to the obviously irritated blonde.
It was less than a month since the battle with Father and the Homunculi, and things were just barely beginning to settle down. Edward and Alphonse had moved in with Roy (who had been cured of his blindness by Dr. Marcoh, who was now one of the most renowed docters in Amestris) and his fiancé, Riza Hawkeye. Not only that, but they had been adopted by the couple as well (much to Edward's chagrin).
And today was not one of the boy's best days ever. He'd woken up at four-thirty - in the morning, mind you - with a nightmare and a killer headache, got into an argument with Alphonse and Roy (and not a friendly one, mind you), spilt his coffee on some of his alchemy notes {he still studied alchemy, though he could not use it}, and burnt himself with the coffee. To sum things up, he wasn't having the best day in the world.
He snatched up a random book from his surprisingly small bookshelf and plopped himself down on the side of his bed leaning down and opening the book, desperate to get his mind off things. However, strangely, he couldn't focus. He figured this was just because of the fact of what had been going on lately. He sighed, before feeling the bed raise slightly as the cat stood up and walked slowly over to him before laying down beside his head. He closed his eyes for a minute. "I wish I was like the cats in the legends, with nine lives. It'd be so helpful," he muttered.
"I wish I did, too, completely, at least.."
The voice frightened him and he immediately opened his eyes and dropped the book. He looked around frantically for the voice; it had come from his right, he was certain. The only thing there was the cat, sitting with golden eyes on him, his tail curled around his coal-black paws with that strange aura around him again.
The golden-haired teenager's left eye twitched. "You can...talk?" The teen was a bit wary due to the fact with Envy; however, this cat didn't have neither Envy's voice nor sadistic air about him. More of like that you would see in an elder of a village of sorts. Edward also contemplated the cat being a form of a human-based chimera; obviously not, the voice wasn't warped, the cat wasn't in pain. He wasn't genetically altered at all, and he spoke too human to really be a chimera. "And you said 'completely'. What do you mean?"
The cat nodded at the first question; an insanely human gesture that brought a lump in Edward's throat as it reminded him of a certain brown-haired girl and her white-furred, huge dog - and her father, a murderer if anything. He swallowed it and pushed the dark memory to the back of his mind. He couldn't think about that right now, there were bigger things on hand.
"I suppose you could say I have nine lives, with a difference. I'll tell you a secret; I basically can, with one change - I can visit."
"Visit?" the golden-eyed 16-year-old echoed, his face scrunched up in an expression of sheer confusion. Edward swore he saw the cat's whiskers twitch in amusement. No one, especially not a weird life-visiting cat, laughed at the Fullmetal Alchemist! ...Then again...
"Yes, I can visit nine different lives. Anywhere, anytime, any country, any century," Gareth confirmed, closing his eyes with another brisk nod. Edward's face of confusion eased up a bit, though he still didn't understand. Where was the exchange? How in the hell did this even work?
"Can all cats do that?" he finally asked, deciding to leave the mechanics to another time. He'd ask later, that's for sure. The coal-black cat nodded once more. "Where do you think cats go when you've looked all over and can't find them? And -"
"I've never owned a cat, so I don't really know about them disappearing. But...anyway, so you've gone to different countries?"
The cat yawned - I'm not that boring! Ed thought in a huff at this - and shook his head. "No, I've been waiting, perhaps for a special occasion, I suppose you could say. I never saw much in just going as a tourist, to just look around places." Edward nodded; he understood. He never went to a place simply to act as a tourist and walk around, seeing the sights and such. "I suppose you're right."
Suddenly, the blonde's lips twitched upwards and mentally, he grinned. It never hurt anyone to do a bit of time traveling, did it?
...Well, of course, he didn't exactly know the answer to that question, but he assumed it never did(well, he had never seen a cat get hurt doing it).
And it never hurt anyone to learn a bit about the past, did it?
...He knew the answer to that one, thankfully. He sweatdropped slightly.
"...Do you think a special occasion might be coming up soon? I was wondering."
The cat seemed to think for a second. "Yes, perhaps."
Edward's mental grin became physical now, golden eyes lighting up. "Listen, Gary -" he began.
The black cat's whiskers twitched again. "Gareth," he corrected.
"- Nuance. Listen, Gareth, if there was a special occasion, and there was someone who reeeally liked you, and you reeeally liked them, wanted to go, would you take them?"
The black cat paused, his tail curled over his forelegs and twitching occasionally. His eyes were half lidded and his whiskers drawn back, much like his pointy black ears. He looked very much like an owl in these few minutes, Edward observed. Finally, the cat spoke again. "Yes, I suppose I could."
"Would you take me?"
The cat went silent, back to looking like an owl before speaking again after a hesitation. "I could take you with me," the orange-eyed cat began, "but I have to warn you of this. You'd be on your own, and you wouldn't have any kind of protection. Neither of us would. Of course, I'd obviously help you in every way I can, and we'll be able to talk to each other, though only when no one else is around, or within earshot. And, aside from that, whatever happens, happens. You couldn't change your mind in the middle..."
Edward nodded, about to speak when the black cat began again, obviously forgetting something. "Oh, that's right! There's something else; whatever you do, do not be separated from me. Otherwise, you'd never see home again (What the hell? Edward thought.). Now, if you accept to these conditions, you may come."
The boy's grin did not falter as he spoke. "Yes, I accept!"
It was almost as if the cat smiled. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Think carefully.."
Edward nodded again, obviously not 'thinking carefully' but was plenty sure for both statements. The cat's golden eyes stared into Edward's own equally golden ones. "Very well," the cat said. "Now, look into my eyes..."
Edward obliged, and the dark-furred cat closed his right eye in a long, slow wink.