Chapter One
"Is the camera working?" Izumi asked when she saw that Al had a rather puzzled look on his face.
"I don't think so. It's not recording," Al responded, tapping the camera a few times. "I think we ran the battery down last night. I forgot to charge it again."
Izumi sighed and rubbed her forehead. She then looked at the large transmutation circle that had been drawn on the floor. It was large, about twelve feet each direction, with a rather intricate design. Seemingly endless loops danced across the circle, some springing out of the circle before disappearing into the maze again.
"I see you changed it again," she said, noticing a few extra lines where a larger one had been removed.
"Yeah. I have most of it right, and I can usually feel which part of the circle needs adjusting," he replied, still tinkering with the camera. "Dammit! I wish Winry was here. She'd have this thing dancing for us."
Izumi glanced back up at her younger friend. "Might as well start without it. We'll probably fail again. We're getting close, though, so we might want to get another one if that one continues to malfunction."
"So go ahead and start the experiment?" Al said, peering up from the wires.
"Yeah, might as well. I think we ran out of plants, so we'll have to do something else."
"I saw an old hammer in that box over there. I don't think Mason would use it anymore. At least not as much as he would have the knife or the gun."
"I think the brain model was his too," Izumi said.
"I didn't know he was into that kind of stuff. Well, just use the hammer. We'll start using planks if we need to."
Izumi rushed over to a box that lined the wall and pulled out the rusted old hammer. She placed it in the center of the circle, where a smaller circle had been drawn just for the purpose of housing their experimental items. Alphonse left the camera and walked to the edge of the circle.
Both he and Izumi placed their hands at the edge of the circle, causing it to light up with bright yellow light. The light began at the outer edge of the circle, seeping inward like water. When it hit the inner circle, the old hammer was levitated off the ground, engulfed in a golden column. Alphonse and Izumi had seen this before. It had happened like this for the last dozen attempts they had made. The hammer began to spin around on its vertical axis, floating higher into the column.
The transmutation circle in front of the camera lit up, the light traveling from the inner circle to the outer circle. Izumi and Alphonse glanced sharply at it.
"It's going!" Izumi announced.
The hammer flashed brightly and vanished from their circle, and the light slowly began to recede. When the light reached the outer rim, the other transmutation circle gave birth to a column of light akin to the first one. It flashed brightly, and was followed by a slight explosion.
"Dammit!" Alphonse yelled. "Dammit!"
Izumi glanced at the second transmutation circle. "We're closer."
"That one line. That one line is all I need to alter to get the experiments to go through."
"Let's have lunch and think it over. We're almost at a breakthrough. It can't elude us forever."
Izumi knew this experiment was wearing down on her student's patience. It wasn't something he could abandon for another experiment. This was the one experiment that he had been preparing so long for, and now that they were so close to the end of it, he was that much closer to his last nerve. The project was taunting him now.
He had to find his brother. This experiment had no failure. He would work on it until it he died.
She glanced back at the circles as they ascended the stairs, Alphonse first so she could lock the door behind them. Failure wasn't an option. Alphonse had stayed up many nights over this. He had been working on it for six years, ever since his four year training with her had officially ended. Now, they had paired up in order to find a way to bring his brother back. He was twenty now, technically twenty-four if they counted the years he had been with his brother. But he didn't remember them, so they didn't count them. Six years. Six years of his life he had been completely obsessed with this project.
She had been merely an amplifier, someone to add power to his own transmutations. The circle was his, the research was his. Most of the project was his. She played a very minor role, for a couple reasons. One, she wanted Alphonse to get the credit for bringing Edward back. Two, she wanted him to gain the knowledge of process, the knowledge of trial and error. And three, she knew he could do it.
Alphonse Elric, brother to Edward Elric and son of Hohenheim of Light.
There was no doubt in her mind that he could do it.
Edward would be back soon.
She left the room and cut the lights off at the top of the stairs. The door closed with a creak and a calack.
No one had noticed that the camera was still on.