No, Really, She Fell From The Sky
a Fullmetal Alchemist/Sailor Moon crossover
It was a Tuesday. Things happened on a Tuesday. Trains were delayed, the military cafeteria in Central served a watery meat loaf, and Ed always lost something. This time, he lost the lock of his suitcase, causing it to burst open and dump all his journals and various equipment on the road.
Ed swore, even though it was a Tuesday, and things happened on a Tuesday. For Ed did not believe in superstition, or luck, or anything like that. Neither did Al, supposedly, but he did allow himself a small chuckle before helping pick up various pairs of striped boxers.
Al heard it before he felt anything. Ed felt it before he could figure out what was happening. In any case, there was a whoosh, like an air-tight can being twisted open, and the sky flickered. There was no other word for it, as the wind kicked up and a cloud blew down, ripping open and showering violent sparks down on them.
Ed clapped his hands and transmuted his automail into his trademark blade, and Al backed away from the sparks, taking slow, tense steps.
A girl fell, literally fell, from the sky, screaming, and landed directly on top of Edward, knocking him to the ground.
-
Whoever or whatever it was that was on his back was heavy. And Ed knew heavy. This was nigh-on automail heavy.
So he did the sensible thing, and yelled for Al to "GET IT OFF HIM RIGHT NOW!!", which Al did, thoughtfully pinning the girl's arms behind her back. But, perplexingly, her head flopped forwards onto her chest, and her legs seemed to buckle.
"She fainted," Al said, disbelievingly.
Ed took his first good look at the girl. Her long blonde pigtails went nearly to her ankles, and her dress was possibly the shortest kind he had ever seen, with the blue skirt ending somewhere far above her knees. She wore white gloves up to her elbows, and knee-high red boots with a considerable heel. Her earrings and tiara were decorated with tiny crescent moon shapes.
He looked up at Al. "Hey Al, do you think she's related to Psiren?" he asked seriously.
The girl gave a whimper, and slowly opened her eyes - wide, blue, and terrified.
Edward winced. "Definitely related," he muttered.
"Where am I?" the girl whispered faintly, suddenly realizing that she couldn't move her arms. She looked up, becoming even more terrified at the sight of Alphonse's imposing figure, and shrieked. "HEEEEEEELP!! TUXEDO MASKSAILORMARSLUNAARTEMISSAILORVENUSANYONECOMEONPLEASEHELPMEEE--"
"Calm down," Ed said sharply, gesturing with his blade arm.
Let it not be said that weapons don't talk.
"We're not going to hurt you," Alphonse added hurriedly, hoping to stay another ear-splitting shriek. It was almost as if her screams had... echoed.
The girl sniffled. "Who are you?"
"That's what I'd like to know!" Edward exclaimed, fully aggravated at this point. "You just-- just fell out of the sky!"
"I don't remember that part," the girl said doubtfully. "I remember falling into some sort of Dark Nega-Matter thing, but I definitely didn't fall up. So I don't see how I could have come down from the sky--"
"YOU LANDED ON ME," Ed bellowed. "YOU FELL FROM THE SKY."
"Brother," Al said soothingly. "Let's be rational." He looked down at the girl in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. "I'm Alphonse, and that's Edward."
The girl seemed to be much calmer at this point. She was looking around in a fairly interested yet bewildered manner. "I don't see the city," she said, in an almost conversational tone, apart from her trembling voice. "I guess this is the countryside? I've never been to the country before."
"It's the middle of nowhere, yes," Ed said. "So you came from a city, you say?"
"Duh," said the girl, through a watery smile. "Tokyo, of course. It's only the biggest city pretty much anywhere, and it's beautiful and crowded and my boyfriend lives there and OH D-DARIEN--" and she began to sob again, deep gulping sobs, which again seemed to mysteriously get louder.
"I've never heard of Tokiyo," Al said doubtfully.
"Maybe it's in Xing?" Ed suggested, beginning to be interested despite himself.
"I'm going to put you down, now," Al told the girl. "So you can calm down."
She sat on the ground and sobbed for a few more moments, and then grew quiet.
Ed had his foot on his overturned suitcase, and had adopted the Colonel's thinking pose, which usually Al would tease him about but being distracted at the moment...
Al kneeled down in front of the girl, and kindly asked, "Are you okay now?"
The girl nodded, reaching up to smooth at her bangs.
They weren't quite sure what happened next -- one second she was crouching down, the next she was meters away, and in the process of throwing her tiara at them.
"MOON TIARA MAGIC!" the girl yelled, and her tiara began to glow gold, looking sort of like a discus, and Ed could only gape at it as it flew towards them and knocked off Al's helmet.
"Hey!" Al said, reaching down for his head.
The girl's tiara came circling back into her hands, and she stared forlornly at the sight of the headless man in armor.
Edward transmuted his blade back into his usual arm, and advanced towards her, expression serious.
"Let's start over," he suggested, scowling, as Al managed to put his helmet back.
-
This time, she was tied up securely. The tiara-discus was back on her forehead.
"I thought you were demons or something!" Serena insisted. "From the Negaverse. Or somewhere else."
"WE'RE HUMAN," Ed growled.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Serena asked timidly, addressing Alphonse. "I didn't mean to- to--"
"Oh, it'll take a lot more than just knocking off my head to stop me," Al said cheerily.
"So you say you come from Tokiyo?" Ed asked. "And what are you, exactly? Alchemist?"
"What?" Serena repeated, confused. "Um. I'm kind of a superhero."
Edward and Alphonse exchanged a look and burst into raucous laughter.
"I'm Sailor Moon," Serena continued loudly. "Champion of Justice. Fighting for Love, and Against Evil!"
Ed wiped a stray tear, and smiled condescendingly. "Brilliant. You have to know Psiren."
The pigtailed girl bit her lip.
"I think I come from another dimension," she admitted.
Silence.
"Well, there's only one thing to do," said Ed, with a vague expression of glee on his face. "I'll just have to report you to the military."
"To WHERE?" Serena screeched, aghast.
It took some time to assure her that she was not being arrested. "Yet," Ed had muttered under his breath, and Al would have kicked him if the noise of metal on metal wouldn't have made so much noise.
-
"So your code name is Sailor Moon, is that it?" Ed questioned.
The girl shifted uncomfortably, her arms still tied behind her back. "Um, sure."
"Don't you think code names are a little formal?" Al said kindly, towering over her. "Do you have another name?"
The girl looked down at her feet. "It's kind of a secret," she said finally. "Even though you don't know where I'm from, I'd rather not tell you."
She suddenly looked up with a hopeful expression. "This isn't another planet, is it? Are we still on Earth?"
A brief moment of silence passed.
"Last time I checked, we are definitely still on Earth," Ed said finally.
The girl's face fell. "Oh."
She seemed to be fighting back more tears, and gave a pathetic sniff. Ed and Al exchanged another look.
"Should we take her back to Central with us, Brother?" Al asked.
"I guess we can't leave her out here," Edward said sadly.
"No, we can't," Alphonse said pointedly.
He crouched down in front of the girl, armor clanking.
"We'll take you with us, okay?" he said. "Maybe we'll be able to get you home."
The girl nodded, again sniffing pathetically. Even her too-long pigtails seemed droopy at this point.
"Aww, man," Ed sighed loudly, reaching up to scratch his head thoughtfully. "It's gonna be a pain to leave her tied up..."
He approached the girl, standing next to Al. "Hey, if we untie you, are you going to attack us again?" he demanded.
"I thought you were bad guys!" the girl said, pouting. "It was an honest mistake. I promise I won't attack you anymore," she said hastily, noticing Ed's rapidly darkening expression.
"Then let's get this show on the road!" Ed announced, clapping his hands together.
-
"You don't honestly expect me to go out there dressed like this, do you?" Serena whined.
"I don't suppose you could change?" Ed inquired in a rather acerbic tone.
"I would if I could," Serena retorted. "This isn't my ideal outfit, you know."
"So why wear it?" Ed shot back.
"Because!" Serena said. "It just.. this is what happens. Sometimes it changes. The sleeves get longer, but the skirt is just, well, short."
"And you are unable to change that.. why?" Ed gave her a very nasty look.
Serena stared back at him, and scowled. "I'm not responsible for what the Imperial Crystal does. It thinks I need an outfit change, fine. New scepter, great, different tiara, fine, whatever. But I can't change what it gives me."
"All right," Ed hissed. "Assuming that your ridiculous and completely unbelievable story is actually true--"
"Brother..." Alphonse clanked warningly.
"As I was saying," Ed said loudly. "Assuming that it's true, can't you change back to what you had on before you changed?"
Serena thought, hmmm-ed, and shut her eyes. Concentrating, she tried to think back to that morning. Her pretty new clothes, the ones even her stupid brother had said were okay, flickered in her mind. Change, she willed. I want to be Serena again.
"Well?" Ed demanded.
Serena opened her eyes, looked down at her feet, saw that they were still encased in her knee-high red boots and promptly burst into tears.
-
The trip out of the middle of nowhere took forever, and it took them even longer to actually reach the train station. For a self-proclaimed superhero, it was clear that the girl was not used to overly strenuous activity. She had fallen aslep the moment they'd sat down to wait at the train station.
"Brother," Al said in his sweetest little-brother voice. "Look at her."
Ed hmphed, but looked. The girl was asleep on the bench, snoring softly, her pigtails still as immaculate as before. Ed wished, momentarily, that his braid would have the same properties, but promptly chased that thought away.
"Brother," Al said. "Do you see how your coat fits her?"
Edward did. He saw that his coat, his very own red coat, was worn by the silly girl to cover up her ridiculously short skirt. He saw that the hem went nearly to her ankles. He did not see the point in this conversation, and told Al so.
"Ed," Alphonse said patiently. "She is shorter than you are."
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A SHRIMPY LITTLE-- what?" Ed said, momentarily thrown off track.
"By at least two whole centimeters," Al continued.
"Well," Ed said, after a few moments silence. "I guess she's alright."
-
Much, much later, the girl finally figured out that something about her girly locket contained some sort of magical power that might transport her home. By the time she'd fished the crystal out of it, she had already set off another lightshow and Ed and Al both threw themselves to the ground to avoid the following windstorm that kicked up. They tried to ignore the fact that her skirt was still way too short, since she didn't seem to care what might be showing.
They watched her go in silence. The girl bid them a tearful goodbye as she floated into the air and vanished in a beam of light. It was scientifically impossible. It was also a Tuesday, and sometimes things happened on a Tuesday. Not that either of them believed in superstition.
"So," Al said finally.
"Right," said Ed.
Wordlessly, they agreed to forget that anything ever happened.
-
-
author's notes: This is basically my ultimate crack OTP because -- are you ready? -- Ed and Sailor Moon are the same height. Roughly! I find this to be hilarious.