Part 1- Before the rainfall
Iaso beat the basketball into the cement for like the forty fifth time before finally tossing it up into the basketball hoop. "There, I have finally beat you!" he yelled, pointing a finger at me, as I rested my elbows against the top of the fence.
"Yeah, only took you a century," I muttered, swinging around to grab the basketball and tossed it up and down in my hands, waiting for Rena to get back.
"You are speaking to the prince of Xing, shut your mouth!" he yelled, pointing to his shirt, which me and Rena had vandalized and had cut out green felt so his black T-shirt now read ' you are speaking to the price of Xing'. He got us back, printing the word 'Humonculus' across our forehead in black permanent marker.
"And your speaking to the Elric girl, who is the best basketball player and alchemist," I shouted, copying his moves and pointing a finger at him, while entering the basketball court. "Speaking of alchemists, where is Rena?" I asked, adjusting my tank top I had on, another thing that Fan had vandalized, it had originally said 'Team Edward' from New Moon. Now it reads 'Team Edward Elric', I don't think dad found it funny.
"She left like five minutes ago, don't worry, I'm sure Sparky will be back soon," he said, scooping the ball from my hands, hands and throwing it into the battered hoop, backwards, and some how making it in, the net swooshing as the basketball came back down to earth because of gravity. "Besides, she's an assassin, didn't her mom give her gun at the age of four or something?"
"Five," I answered, looking up the street as if hoping to see Rena and her golden hair (done up in pigtails)and black eyes running towards us. " And her father gave her that glove for using flame alchemy, be careful or she might hurt you," I said, grabbing the blue and white basketball and dribbling it, then positioned my hands, jumped, and …missed?
MISSED?
"Haha, looks like the great Sam isn't that great of a basketball player after all." joked Iaso, grabbing the basketball again, and retreating to the free throw line.
Knives. The ones that aunt Mei had given me. They were in my pocket, and he wasn't out of range yet….
"Why are you guys here? I thought you were at the park, and I had to look for you for a whole two minutes!" Rena, AKA Sparky, cart wheeling into the court. Her blond hair clipped back like her mothers' (once and a lifetime seen thing), wearing a black tank top that had flames curling up at the bottom of it, and white shorts. You could see where her gun was attached to one of her belt loops and the white glove with the transmutation circle drawn on it, slipping slowly off her hand, until she pulled it back up so it would stay.
"Oh no, two whole minutes out of Sparky's life! How will she live?" Iaso said sarcastically, turning around so he wouldn't hear our girly chit-chat. That also meant he didn't see the knife I had thrown at him, unfortunately, he moved and it only cut off a piece of his hair before it clattered to the side of the fence, and fell down.
Sparky-I mean Rena- cocked an eyebrow, looked straight at him with her black eyes, waved her finger at him giving him the Oh-No-You-Didn't lip signal, well, at least until Iaso copied her moves and she straight up gave him the finger.
"Mom says you can come over, Sam, and she already called Winry, and she says yes, and Iaso-" she paused, looking over towards the boy who was currently shoving pebbles up his nose, and shrugged "Dad says if you ever touch me, he'll personally burn you to death, and you should consider it an honor."
"Of course I do, I have always considered being burned to death an honor."
"Good, I'll remember to mention that to dad," Rena said, suddenly snapping her fingers, which emitted a spark like a firework, and nothing else. "That sucks, still sparks."
"Thus the name Sparky," I said, pulling some chalk out of my pocket, and letting it slide through my fingers and down into the ground. White chalk. Transumation circle.
"Guys, I have the best idea to prove that I am the best alchemist," I said, waving my hands to them, so that we all joined our hands around each others neck to make a small circle.
Rena's house is nice. It always smells like coffee... I'm not really sure why. Anyways, sometimes I just wish we had each other's life, on one hand I have a loud family, everyone is always screaming and yelling and trying to ignore each other. On Rena's hand she's an only child, has a dog (that's it, really), and her parent's adore her.
"Ok, Rena, we'll be back in the morning hopefully, Sam you're welcome to stay, , if you need anything call your older brother, Sam, Full Metal's coming with us," Mustang- Rena's father- said, kissing the top of her head, while Hawk Eye followed him out the door.
"Quick, grab the stuff!" I shouted, when the door clicked shut. I leaped over one of the chairs and grabbed the blanket, flashlight, matches, lantern, and the various minerals that we had stolen from the store cupboards. Rena followed more slowly, taking the lantern out of my hand and swallowing all the popcorn in her mouth. She immediately washed it down with a swing of water from her pink glass that was resting on the counter. I guess even Rena can't handle that much salt.
"This is dangerous. You know your father lost his arm and leg doing this," Rena said, fear filling her voice.
"Correction, he lost his leg, he lost his arm transmuting my uncles body into a suit of armor," I said, flicking the flashlight on. It stuttered to light with a flicker before showing up a bright orange. "Crap, almost out of batteries, all we got is matches and it's supposed to rain tonight."
"So can we cut this and just play a game or something?" Rena asked, carefully slipping the white glove off her hand and into her pocket; it would be useless in rain. I think her number one fear is rain because one time she hid under like five blankets to block the sound, and made me hide too, let me tell you, it is HOT.
"No, of course not, and come on, I bet Iaso is waiting right now for us," I said grabbing her light blue shirt that was made out of the softest material ever. Only children are so lucky. I opened the door, flinging it wide open, and dragging her out into the fresh, cold, night air. The stars twinkled above us and the moon looked a eerie white as if telling us not to do this. I felt something cold run down my back, and just tried to ignore it, thinking it was nerves.
Then I remembered who was with me. My best friend. The flame alchemist daughter. An only child. The girl who just put an ice cube down my shirt. Rena.
"Hey, stop that!" I said, trying to fish the ice cube out of my shirt and swatting Rena's hand away, while she was snickering at me jumping around. "Not funny," I said, grabbing the slippery little bugger and flinging it at Rena, who melted it with a small flicker of sparks.
"Nice try, next time try better," she said, practicing flickering her fingers over and over. Finally a small flame popped up. "Haha, got it!" She shouted, shoving the flame right in my face, almost burning off my eyelashes.
"Hey Sparky, mind putting out the light before you kill me?" I asked, brushing her hands away slightly. "And stick to guns, they're more your forte," I said, weaving my way through the yard to the road. I turned my neck sharply just in time to see Rena die the flame down, looking depressed.
"Hey girls, need an escort through the dark?" Iaso said, leaning against a tree lazily, watching me and Rena approach slowly. His eyes flickered to the hand in which Rena had the glove on. "Spark- Rena, is it safe for you to have the glove on? It's supposed to rain."
"I don't need you telling me what to do," Rena said, flipping one pigtail over her shoulder and flouncing ahead of me and Iaso. When Rena gets like this you should just leave her alone, or she'll melt you down to molten lava.
"Sparky, try not to get to much of a hot head," joked Iaso, narrowly dodging the fireball that Rena just learned to produce, watching as it singed his clothes. "Hey, just because you're the furers' daughter does not give you permission to singe the prince of Xing's clothes!"
Rena gave him the finger, "Like I care, Eliza Samuel this wasn't my idea so you better hurry this up." I pouted, jutting out my lower lip and crossing my arms. How dare she use my real name, Eliza Samuel- sounds like a guy name, except with enough class and charm to be mine.
"Come on, I'm not waiting for it to rain," Iaso said, pointing up ahead towards Rena and then to the sky showing the swirling black clouds above us.
"Whatever, we're almost at the park anyways," I muttered, ducking my head below a branch so I wouldn't be clobbered. "After that, you can go back to Xing, Rena will be my bodyguard, and I should be the next furer by… oh, next year or so."
"What if something goes wrong? Did you ever take that into account?" asked Rena, standing in the dried mud, waiting for us to catch up, then immediately falling into step with us.
"If it does, I want you to promise to kill me right away. I don't want to be ashamed," I said, pointing to the gun safely strapped to Rena's side. Rena touched it softly then jerked her hand away roughly. "No, no matter what you will stand proud and tall no matter what happens to you. Do you got me Sam?" She picked me up by my collar, almost strangling me, then let go after her heroic speech.
"Well lady, and prince of Xing, we have arrived at our destination," I whispered, looking at the broken down basketball court only Me, Iaso, Rena, and a couple of seniors go to. "Who's ready to break a law?"