All right! Here goes the first chapter in one of my favorite fanfictions. I'm not really sure exactly when this happens because SPOILER Hughes isn't dead, but I'm pretty sure it's beyond the point that SPOILER he was killed. Maybe I just re-wrote it. I don't know. Anyhow, enjoy it and make sure to review! And by the way the name Kaia is pronounced as Kai like in kayak and then uh. One more thing. This is more of an introductory chapter so yes it's a bit slow, but things should be moving right along by next chapter. Just wait to see if you like it. And I'm sad to say that I don't own FMA. Heh, that rhymed.
Chapter 1: The Girl
Edward Elric stood in an unoccupied lot behind one of the old warehouses. The silence surrounding him was deafening, especially with the knowledge that thousands of people lay sleeping around him. His younger brother, Alphonse, ran up to stand beside him. Mustang, still his superior, strode up to them in the otherwise empty space. A bit of powdery dirt stirred by his footsteps settled on a rickety wooden fence rotting on the perimeter of the lot, bent by the wear of time. A few minutes passed with no greetings or exchanges of any kind. The gate creaked on rusty hinges as a tall man pushed it open. He was entirely concealed by a heavy overcoat. He flipped the hood back to reveal his horrifyingly deformed body. It was Tucker, the half-human chimera. He spoke in a raspy whisper.
"Now Edward, you can open the gate. This girl has enough life force to allow it. You can grasp it and conduct the energy through your transmutation circle. There will be power to spare by using her." Tucker's glasses glinted, making him look slightly mad.
"But isn't sacrificing a baby the only way to have that much connection to the Gate?" Ed sounded skeptical. He glared contemptuously at the creature.
"Fullmetal, did you not read the file we compiled on her?" Mustang yelled, sending several startled crows flying.
"Mustang, it's two a.m. Don't you think you should be a bit quieter, just maybe?" Alphonse said gently. Mustang didn't reply, so it was clear that he had been subdued. That was just his personality to get surly when being proven incorrect.
"I read the file but what's it have to do with opening the Gate?" Ed hissed.
"So you didn't make the connection. The colonel didn't want to put it in print so there was no chance of the information being leaked. Think Ed. This girl doesn't fit in with society. She spends time meditating while others socialize. She has no class to fit in with, no friends. She is a constant disciple of the martial arts. She has been orphaned from birth with no knowledge of her parents. Since then she has lived in a foster home with seven other kids with little or no individual attention. She excels in academics so is shunned by most in her age category. She only participates enough to get an A, the highest grade marking, in her physical education class in order to conceal her physical talents from the judgmental eyes of her classmates. What do you think that kind of seclusion could do to a person?" Tucker hinted. Ed thought for a second.
"Well she seems to be getting along just fine. I mean she hasn't tried to kill herself or anything, so she must be somewhat normal. That must mean she has at least one friend." Ed shrugged.
"But she doesn't. That's the point. Ed, think what you would be like without your brother or Winry or anyone else who has ever accepted you. Add being helpless to change your life in any way and you have her situation. We have a theory. Every person, as they get older, loses their connection with the Gate. We think we know why that is now, thanks to that girl. When humans make connections to other things and other humans they lose part of their connection with the Gate. This girl has never made any connections," Tucker started.
"But you said she does martial arts! That's a connection!" Ed interrupted.
"That is true. But that only brings her closer to the Gate because fighting is the cause of death for many. Even though she never uses her arts against others there is still the fundamental principle of sending others back to the Gate with her practices. Since she has never made any connections taking her away from the Gate, the initial connection has grown with her life force. That is why her connection is so abnormally large now; she has not tried to make connections," Tucker finished.
"That's a lot of the word connection. I'm confused," Al muttered
"All right, sounds reasonable. I'll do it," Ed agreed after a moment of thought.
"Good." Mustang flashed a brief smirk as he wired Ed with an earpiece and a microphone that would relay Ed's messages back to them.
"I hope the Gate transmits radio waves," Mustang said as he hooked the mike on Ed's jacket.
"You know what you're supposed to do?" Tucker asked, ignoring Mustang's comment.
"Yeah. Shadow her for a day then make contact and bring her back here," Ed recited dutifully, and not without a little sarcasm at their paranoia.
"No violence Fullmetal. Contact us if something goes wrong. And make sure to take notes on her behavior!" Mustang commanded, snapping back to his usual arrogant superiority after a brief lapse into worry.
"Yeah, sure. How am I supposed to find her? Do I get a picture or should I just guess and end up grabbing the wrong one?" Ed was being slightly sarcastic again, as he always was when he got nervous.
"You would be able to find her even without a picture if you took a moment away from admiring yourself and opened your eyes for a change. Just look for the girl who goes around by herself all day, but just to make it easy for you we did get a couple pictures. We have a school photo and the one casual they used for the yearbook. Both were required or she wouldn't have gotten them taken. The casual was taken without her knowing." Mustang handed him two photos with his snide comment. The school photo featured plain blue backdrop and only showed her torso and head. A typical school picture.
"Uniform school?" Ed asked while studying the picture.
"Yeah. It's a college-prep school called Proser's Academy for the Gifted. Fancy title to go along with the uniform," Mustang answered. In the picture the girl was wearing a hunter green shirt that looked a bit too small, so probably a hand-me-down. There was a white insignia on the left breast pocket. It was a sunrise surrounded by the school's name. The girl had a fake and skeptical smile on that clearly showed she thought the photo was completely trivial. She wore no makeup like normal girls her age and hadn't tried to tease her hair into the latest styles. That wasn't to say she was ugly. The first thing anyone would notice was her hair. It went past the picture's edge so you couldn't say how long it was. It was a brilliant blonde color, so bright it almost hurt to look at in the cheesy lighting of the picture. She had a slender face and plump curving lips. Then came the eyes. Ed was stunned. Never before had he seen such a crystal clear blue. They were the color of the bluest sky, the clearest water, the, he could describe it so many different ways. To say the least they were transfixing, amazing, spectacular, yet somehow seemed out of place on her face. It should have fit right in. Blond hair and blue eyes were a pretty common combination. He ignored the feeling. He was probably just nervous. Ed shook his head to dislodge the nagging thoughts. The girl was unlike any other he had seen. She was pretty and didn't need beauty products to show it. He took a deep breath and moved on to the next picture.
He wasn't prepared for what he saw. The hair length mystery was solved. It rippled just past her waist in natural waves. There were those astonishing eyes again but this time her expression was one of pure concentration. She looked to be shouting something as she viciously attacked the air. In this snapshot she was wearing a bleached pleated skirt that looked about two sizes too small and a lumpy gray sweater that practically fell off her shoulders. She was airborne and looked to be in perfect form to attack with what looked like a high kick aimed towards the head. Ed could have guessed that the photo was taken without her knowledge without Mustang telling him so. The information in the file indicated that she didn't want to expose herself like that. He slipped the photos into the right pocket of his large red overcoat.
"So do we have a name?" Ed asked while turning his attention back to Mustang.
"Yes. Such a beautiful name. The girl's parents must have been very original. They named her Kaia. A beautiful name for a beautiful young lady," Tucker answered for Mustang. It was a more emotional and wordy description than what Mustang would have given.
"Kaia, huh. Well, Kaia's life is about to get a lot different. We'll just have to see how she responds to me pulling her to another dimension." Ed was fingering the pictures while he spoke. Tucker silently handed him the file. Ed tucked it into his overcoat and turned his back to the group. He pulled a piece of paper out of his left pants pocket. Drawn on it was a complex transmutation circle with miniscule details. Ed laid it on the ground and clapped his hands together, the activation for his alchemy.
"Remember to relay everything she does to us. And don't be seen!" Mustang reminded rather forcefully as Ed laid his hands on the paper.
"What's her current location?" Ed made no response to Mustang's statement.
"There's a picture in the file. If she sticks to her routine she should be taking the seventeen mile jog to school right now," Tucker replied. Ed grunted and Alphonse fished the file out of Ed's overcoat and found the picture. He held it up for Ed to see. There was that girl again. This time her hair was tied up in a ponytail and she was wearing a blue shirt and khaki pleated skirt for her uniform. Unlike the other two pictures she looked genuinely happy. So she did have a good side. Good to know.
Ed concentrated on the pictured scenery and the girl. At first nothing happened. Then he felt a gentle tug at his mind. Suddenly warmth and joy and sadness and hatred and every other human emotion flooded in. But most of all was the power. It was enormous, gargantuan, never-before imagined. It was too much. He had to get rid of it. Ed let the power flow out of his fingers and into the sheet of the paper inscribed with the transmutation circle. The Gate appeared. Truth sat off to the side, but he merely nodded towards the Gate and turned to walk away. It seemed he was fine with Ed's travel. The Gate swung open and innumerable yellow eyes watched him. Ed took the file and the photo back from Al. He was nearing unconsciousness, but he managed to rise and stare back into the Gate.
"Take me to the girl named Kaia," Ed commanded. Numerous tentacle-like arms sprang out of the Gate and scrabbling hands grabbed hold of him. He didn't panic. This was normal. They drew him in and launched him into a journey through time, space, and dimensions.
"Remember to leave a gap for our communications! You'll be able to with her power!" Mustang called. He was right. Kaia's power was welling up inside him again, fighting to be free. It was too much. Ed barely had enough time to ensure that a gap would be left when everything went black.
The next thing he knew he was lying facedown in the grass and there was an annoyingly unidentified buzzing in his ear. Then he heard the soft hum of whispers around him. Where was he? It sounded like many voices, but he couldn't single out individuals let alone decipher what they were saying. That insistent buzzing sound in his ear persisted. Then he became aware of the fact that his head was throbbing painfully. It was as if someone had slammed it over and over into a cement wall. Then he remembered. The throbbing, the buzzing, the voices, it all made sense now. He sat up abruptly and almost passed out again. There were quite a few people clustered around him. He swayed and found that his tongue wouldn't obey him at first. He wondered how long he had been out. Then everything focused. His head cleared and he found the power throbbing within him retreating. The pain and fuzziness was going along with it. He stood just in time to see Kaia walking up to the entrance to the school. She was probing her temples and was wearing a slightly confused expression. She had obviously sensed him tapping her power.
Ed stumbled backwards into the trees surrounding the school's field and ran. He could feel the stares of the students on his back as he made his escape. Nothing made sense, even for him. One question at a time. Ed slowed to a halt. Why was he still in his body? He was still wearing his clothes and had all that he had entered the Gate with. His soul should have been transferred to his likeness on this side of the Gate, but it wasn't.
"Hey Tucker?" Ed said into the mouthpiece.
"What is it Fullmetal?" Mustang replied. Oh well, Ed would take who he could get.
"Any idea what's going on here? I'm still in my body and not the one that lives here." Ed said, not expecting an answer.
"What did you expect Fullmetal? This girl has so much. So much that it knocked you out almost immediately. You should have seen yourself. You went all white and started shaking and-"
"Colonel! Could we please keep to the mission? I'm worried about brother being over there by himself," Al interrupted Mustang's tirade.
"Fine. As I was saying, she is able to do never-before imagined things with ease, even through a shrimp like you. She'll be valuable to us. Just stick to the assignment," Mustang answered. Insults aside, that was a complete answer for him. Ed accepted his reply as true and concentrated on finding Kaia again.
He ran back through the trees and considered glancing at the photos in his pocket once more as he clambered into some bushes near the school's entrance, but he didn't need the pictures. The girl's face would be forever engraved in his mind's eye. He snuck around to the side of the school after consulting the file to find that her first period class was in a modular around that side. The file also said that she always waited outside the classroom door, out of sight from the teacher, until the bell rang. He saw her and immediately ducked behind another modular. He crawled along the ground and under the stairs to start his observations.
How was it? Now things are about to get interesting. Stay tuned for the next chapter in which we have initial contact. Review as well.