Alfons watched in horror as Edward, standing a good two stories above him, dropped to his knees, his tears flowed in hot rivers down his face as the blood of his father rained down in an explosion of red. For someone watching this scene it looked as if his father had been blown up from the inside out, when in actuality he'd been killed by something far worse, his own son. The son he had turned into a monster and then deserted, the son that now hung above them in the form of a great green serpent wrapped around the circular opening in the ceiling. Ed's half brother, who had built his entire existence around revenge and killings.
Alfons could not see the body of Edward's father, maybe the serpent had swallowed it, so now all that was left was the blood that was just now hitting the ground, splashing up and staining his pant legs like an abstract painter does to a canvas. He wasn't sure what to do or what to say as he stared up through the roof of the ten story building, through which there was a hole in the ceiling illuminating Alfons's rocket he had worked so hard on with the pale shape of the half moon behind a cloud. He had never been told what his rocket was going to be used for, he didn't understand either; he could only watch as his employer stood another story above Ed and laughed cruelly.
Why were they doing this to him? He thought. It was as much Ed's rocket as it was his, they'd worked on it together, came up with all the plans for it together, spent a good two years trying to figure out how to put it together, and now that it was done and ready to be one of the first rockets ever launched they would go and do something like this to him.
"No Dad, no you can't do this!" Edward had shouted just seconds before his father had said a final goodbye and prompted the beast to kill him by reaching up and trying to get it to close its mouth he was already in. And now Ed was repeating the same thing to himself in a mumbled voice as he clutched his face in his hands, tears running through his fingers.
Alfons could feel guilt bottling up inside him, it was only a few hours ago that he had pushed Ed down the stairs because Ed had warned him the people he was working for were bad news. He had been right, and now he had lost his father because of this, because of Alfons. All he wanted was to create a rocket that could fly into outer space, and, in the time that he had met Ed and now, his disease had been worsening, everyday, every time he coughed he could feel his inners working to keep down his own blood. He wasn't going to live for much longer, and he knew it, he just wanted to leave some proof that he actually lived in this world. Maybe that's why he had become so angry with Edward, because he was going to stop him, but looking back on it, he should have listened. Ed had been smiling just minutes before Alfons had left to come here, hadn't he? The big toothy grin that said I'll make the best of whatever this world throws at me.
But he was not smiling now he was looking towards the sky as if he could see his father's soul leaving them. His father had prompted the monster to kill him because he had gotten one last chance to see his oldest son, and Ed had followed Alfons here, this was his fault. The guilt inside him just kept growing.
"D-dad?" he heard Edward ask from above him, Edward staring but wasn't looking at anything, he seemed crushed by the world, "Dad, come back, please!" And he began to totter on the edge of the platform.
"Damn it!" Alfons thought, "He's going to fall!"
"Poor child," his employer Linda de Acheheart smiled, she stood about a story above Ed, but still in view of Alfons. "Something wrong?" she taunted as Ed shook.
Edward did not reply, he didn't even look as if he had heard her.
"Oh well," she shrugged as one of her men tossed her a gun, "It really is too bad." And she fired.
The blow jerked Edward back and then the force of gravity pulled him forward and off the edge as if he was on an invisible rope his midsection leading the fall.
"No!" Alfons cried running forward to try and catch him. The guilt on his shoulders had become so heavy now he was about to collapse under it. Had Edward been killed because of him, because he had refused to listen, because he had a hard head?
The weight of someone nine months older than he was pulled Alfons to the ground and left his neck extremely stiff, but before he could let himself think about anything he had wriggled out from under Edward and lay him in front him at his knees, unmoving and pale-faced.
"You-! You-!!" Alfons shouted without words up at Linda, who shrugged as if nothing had happened.
"Don't worry sweetheart," she said tucking her grey blond hair behind her ear, "After we concur this new world there won't be anyone left alive who's like you friend there. Thanks for the rocket, by the way." And she disappeared from view.
He understood now, they were going to use his rocket to punch through, what Ed had called, "The Gate," and then once in Ed's world they'd do the same thing they'd just done to Ed. With most dead, it would be easy to recruit others for the war Germany was starting, they'd fear them and feel pressured to do it; an army of people who fear no hell because they're already in it. This was his doing, if only he'd been happy just living while he could, no instead he would be responsible for causing the deaths of thousands, his friends death being the first one in many.
Tears rolled down Alfons's face and hit Ed as he hugged his head to his chest and put on hand on the golden blond hair, most of which had escaped its normal braid and had begun to stick to the blood on his face. Ed had been his best friend, room mate, accomplice, assistant… and his brother.
It must have been just a few short minutes he had stayed with Edward's head pressed to his chest, but it felt like hours. Letting out one final sob into the top of Edward's head he laid him down with his hands folded on his chest and watched him for a few moments before he noticed something, something someone who's dead definitely does not do. Ed's hands on his chest were moving, because his chest was moving, because he was breathing.
Alfons's heart skipped a beat and he leaned down, his ear to Ed's mouth and sure enough he was breathing. He sat up and ran his hand across the front of Ed's coat; there were no bullet holes on the front, just one on his right arm, but no blood escaped this for it was his fake arm. The blood was not his own, it was his father's.
"We'll take him," said one of Acheheart's men, a sturdy man with blond hair and blue eyes, leaning down to take Edward.
"No!" exclaimed Alfons.
The man hesitated a moment, not sure how to respond to the boy's sudden out burst.
Alfons blinked hard and after another few seconds said, "I'll take him, don't worry."
"What do you want with him?" the man asked as Alfons picked Ed up.
"I'll send him back home, so his family can have him," he replied nonchalantly, and this was not a total lie.
"You'll make a fine soldier, son," said the man lifting up the seventeen year old's chin and moving his head from side to side to take in his features. "Look at you, blond hair, blue eyes; the pride of Germany. I hope you decide to join us."
"Oh I've already decided to enlist sir," Alfons lied pushing through the crowd who was getting his rocket ready to launch and off into a darker part of the building where another rocket sat, smaller than the other and far quicker. He climbed the metal stairs of the port beside it, lifted Ed into the one-person cockpit, and pulled every one of the ten safety belts across his chest, then waited.
"Right in the fake arm, huh?" Alfons smiled a half hour later when Ed's eyelids flickered open. "You're the luckiest man I know."
"Either that or she's just a bad shot," Edward groaned wiping crusted tears from his eyelids and dried blood from his cheeks. "Man, my neck is stiff-" he suddenly stopped short and looked with wide eyes at Alfons who looked away. "…T-there's nothing left for me… then."
"Don't say that," Alfons said quickly, "I'm sending you home."
"Hang on a second! I never said I wanted to go back there!" Ed shrieked pulling at the seatbelts that Alfons had already locked in place.
"I'm not giving you a choice," he sighed.
"… You… you're trying to get rid of me, so you can go on with plan!"
"Are you hearing yourself?" Alfons said tears brimming in his eyes, he looked at his feet and away from Ed who had immediately taken back his own words. "… No… no Ed, I'm real, we're part of this world, we're not just a dream like you thought. I care, and I make mistakes." Alfons broke off and his voice cracked before he took a deep sigh and continued, "…B-but you need to understand…. I have a terminal illness.… And-… and I'm dying, seventeen, and I'm dying."
Edward lurched forward as a lump in his throat rose.
Alfons continued before he could say a word, "The world may not remember me, but I want you to, that's all I'm asking." his hand closed around Ed's. "There's one minute until launch."
"No! No! You can't send me! Alfons!"
"I'm afraid I can't let you stay here," Alfons said with a weak grin, a silver tear fell from his eyes and landed on Ed's hand before he pulled from his friend's grip, "I'm sending you now, the portal is being opened, you should be able to squeeze past their ship and punch through first. Trust me, you won't get killed, I made sure of it, everything's stabilized…. And Ed, I may not live much longer, but I'll still be here."
"Alfons! Alfons!" Ed cried battling with the many locks as Alfons slammed the door shut and the rocket shifted into an upright position.
"ALFONS!!!!!!" Edward screamed terribly loudly while Alfons jumped from the port and to a control panel where he began flipping switches and pressing buttons with extreme skill and knowledge.
The man with blue eyes and blond hair who Alfons had been talking to earlier looked up at this cry and, pulling his gun, walked down around the corner into the darkness.
"Goodbye, Ed," Alfons smiled pressing the last button and the back end of the rocket exploded with fire. The huge structure raced forward and shot up with a loud crack and a bang, and then in an instant it had gone from sight beyond the huge purple disk of glowing light that was the gate.
Alfons smiled up at the place his friend had just disappeared through and suddenly there was a bang from behind him. He could feel blood running down his back, there was pain beyond any thing he had ever felt and then there was a sense of nothingness. He could not take the smile from his face or close his bright blue eyes; his body fell as another bullet hit him between the shoulder blades, but he could not feel it. And with a last sigh he crumpled to the ground still and unmoving.
Alfons had been wrong, Ed hadn't been the first of thousands to die, he had been.
This is the scene from the movie where Alfons dies... but you already know that.... I thought it would be fun to tell this from Al's point of view instead of just when you're given in the movie. Yeah Al's not really Ed's brother I know, but I thought it would be sort of cute for him to call him that :P Thanks so much for reading and please review!
Tennessee