Chi: Chi-Ji-Dragom here with another FMAB story. This is NOT completely mine! THIS WAS ORIGINALLY CREATED BY A WOLF12832 ON DEVIANTART. WE DECIDED TO COLLABORATE ON THIS! The way it works is he writes a chapter than I do. Uploading time may vary since I seem to take forever and then he takes somewhat quickly, sometimes he gets busy with his other stories.
Please put in the following link to visit his profile/page. Though take out the '_'. Thank you have a wonderful day~! If you find you can't use thee link it WILL be on my profile!
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In a village in a desert area between Xing and Ishbal, within a small hut on the outskirts, lies a secret. A secret that's about to be revealed. From underneath the hut, there was an explosion. It was big enough to wipe the uncharted village out of existence. The explosion that enormous would've killed everyone, but there was one survivor.
The survivor was wearing an all-black dress, with gloves, hooded cloak, and glasses that looked like Major Miles', but were also all black. The survivor removed the hood off of her head, revealing her silver-colored hair. Her strait hair was blowing in the wind, than she removed her glasses. She opened her eyes, revealing her eyes as a really deep purple, nearly black in color. Her skin was clearly white, but with a hint of Xingese skintone mixed in.
"Good-bye, Father. May you suffer for your sins against this village." the survivor said.
Than she placed her glasses back on. Fixed her hair and put her hood back on top of her head. She turned away from the burning, mostly abandon village, and walked east towards Xing. After about a week later, she arrived at a guard post and a town.
"Name?" the guard called out to her.
"Gloomwood. Marith Gloomwood." Marith said.
"Welcome to Xing, Ms. Gloomwood." the Guard said.
The guard opened the gate, allowing Marith to enter the great nation of Xing. As Marith walks around the village, she saw a lot of homeless Xingese people begging for money. She looked onto one of the posters that were hanging up, it was talking about the crowning of the new Emperor. She continued until she found a direct route to the main city.
When she arrived at the main city, she found it crowded. Before long, she found herself at the Town Center. It was crowded, more than the other streets nearby. Than the trumpets were being blown, and a few robed figures climbed onto the stage. Than one of them sat in a fancy chair. Than another guy, with a funny looking hat on, unrolled a scroll and said, "Since Ling Yao has discovered the power of immortality, he is your new Emperor!" and the crowd cheered. Everyone, except for Marith.
After spending some more time in Xing, she was getting bored. She was also not wanting to stay in one location for too long, for some unknown reasons to her. She soon found a small cave behind a waterfall. Later that night, under a full moon, she heard a commotion outside. She slowly peeked around the waterfall. She saw a group of Xingese men and they were trying to make a Xingese woman remove her robe. Marith decided to intervene, for the sake of the woman. She don't know why she is intervening, but she had a feeling that this isn't with the Xingese woman's approval.
"Hey, you Xingese men, leave her alone." Marith said.
They looked at her and laughed, "Butt out, Amestrisian. How we treat our homeless isn't up to you." said one of the men.
"Men. They are all the same." Marith said, than she clapped her gloved hands together.
There was a deep purple glow surrounding her, and there was a glow of the same shade coming from her gloves. The glow on the gloves were revealing a symbol on both gloves. The symbol was a circle with an upside-down triangle. There was three symbols appearing at each of the three angles. At the bottom was a human skull. At the left corner of the triangle, was a raven, and it was looking down at the skull. Lastly, in the right hand angle of the triangle, was an image of a Hemlock. She, than slammed her palms into the ground and created a skeletal scythe, with a chain of finger bones, tied by sinew. At the end of the chain, was a skull of a wolf.
She threw the skull at the man whom was holding onto the woman. The skull opened its mouth and grabbed onto the man's neck. When Marith yanked on the chain, to make the skull come back to her, it ripped through the man's neck, completely decapitating him. The woman screamed and fainted. The man's blood flowed into the pond nearby. The man's buddies decided to attack Marith, whom easily sliced off three more heads, which fell into the same pond. Their bodies fell onto the ground, spilling the contains all over the ground.
"Screw this! We're outta here!" said another man.
Marith threw the skull at the man, from behind and dragged him back to her. She, than, pulled the man onto his feet, facing away from her. She drove the scythe's blade into a thick bamboo, to restrict the man's movements. She clapped her hands together and placed them upon the man's back. The same Alchemy circle that is on her gloves appeared upon the man's chest, and the man screamed. As he was screaming, the last two men were grabbing onto their own heads, and were also screaming.
Before long, the two men's brains imploded, killing them. The last man, the one with her alchemy mark on his chest, he was cooked from the inside. Her alchemy mark remained upon his chest. She walked over to the woman, and carried her inside the cave. She, than bathed the woman and gave her one of her old clothing, to replace the blooded old one. When the Xingese police arrived, Marith and the woman left the area, for another region within Xing. When they stopped, Marith bought the woman a black version of hers normal Xingese robe.
After putting the robe on, with a Crimson sash, white socks and a pair of Xingese shoes, they found a isolated area within the woods. When they settled down, the Xingese woman stared at Marith.
"Who are you?" the Xingese woman asked.
"I'm Marith Gloomwood." Marith said, "And what is your name?"
"I..." the woman said, "I'm Tsukiko"
Marith looked at Tsukiko, "Nice to meet you. Are you truely homeless?"
"Yes, I am." Tsukiko said.
"Well," Marith said, than looked away from Tsukiko, "I am as well."
"Than, May I come with you?" Tsukiko said.
Marith looked at Tsukiko, "Sure. I'm not much of a talker, just to let you know, now."
"I'm used to not talking." Tsukiko said.
"Let's go to bed. We'll worry about all of that in the morning." Marith said.
Tsukiko laid down onto a log and said, "Good night, Marith."
"Good night." Marith said, while looking away from Tsukiko, and laying on her own log.
The following morning, they moved onto another Xing village. While they were in transit, Marith decided to talk to Tsukiko, to pass away the time.
"Tsukiko, who is this Ling fellow?" Marith asked, while looking at a poster.
"He was the son of the past Emperor, Marith." Tsukiko said, with a lot of unusual amount of energy, "They said that he went to Amestris and discover the secret of immortality! I really want to visit Amestris. Have you been there?"
"No. I was always kept inside my room. Whenever I did ventured out, I was usually kept within my own house." Marith looked away from the poster.
Tsukiko wrapped her arms around her, "Well, at least you are away from your home now."
"Yeah..." Marith said unsure of what else to say. An eerie silence filled the air.
"So what were your parents like?" Tsukiko asked breaking the silence. Marith knew that her father was cruel but couldn't understand or remember why. Nor could she remember anything about her mother.
"I can't remember." Marith told her but not letting in on anything else. "What about yours?" Marith asked to avoid an uncomfortable silence.
"They got sick because of living on the streets and they didn't get any medical attention." Tsukiko replied turning eerie silence into a dark mood that didn't seem to bother Marith so much.
"So how did he learn the secret of immortality?" Marith brought the original topic back up.
"Apparently he helped someone and discovered it in the process." Tsukiko told her. "I don't know who he was helping though." Tsukiko pointed out. Both of the women seemed to be expecting the other to talk. But as both were used to silence neither knew what to say. "So why do you travel?" Tsukiko asked curiously.
"I travel because I don't like being in one place for too long." Marith replied.
"Then how about we travel to Amestris someday?" Tsukiko inquired smiling still full of energy.
"Why not." Marith told her liking the idea slightly. The transit came to a stop as the two left. Tsukiko glad that she might get to visit Amestris with her hopefully new friend.
They found another place, once again, in the woods, to spend the night. As they were setting up a campfire, some bandits surrounded them and tied up Marith.
"Marith!" Tsukiko screamed.
"Well, this is going to be differcult." Marith thought to herself.
The bandits were laughing, as they were approaching Tsukiko. She looked around, but didn't had a weapon in hand. She was beginning to shake.
"This one will fetch a nice price on the black market." one of the bandits grabbed one of Tsukiko's arms.
Marith activated her alchemy and impaled the bandit. Than she ccreated another spike to cut her bindings off. She ran over to Tsukiko, and removed her cloak and glasses. She opened up her mouth and her teeth were looking more like fangs.
"You blasted bandits have now made me very angry!" Marith slammed her fists together.
Marith droved her fists into the ground and white marble encased her. Than she moved, and the marble looked more like a skeletal armor. With a simple stomp, she made two weapons appeared from the ground; her normal scythe that she had created earlier, and a katana. The katana was about three feet long. It was comprised of a skeletal hand, for the handle. The wrapping underneith the hand was the small intetine of a human being. The blade is made up of two compressed skeletal human spines, tied by sinew and sharpen to a razor edge.
Marith attacked, with Tsukiko in tow. The first bandit who was slained, was slained by Tsukiko, as she was trying to protect Marith. The katana expanded and wrapped itself around the bandit's neck. When Tsukiko pulled the katana back to her, it decapated the bandit. Within a span of ten minutes, all the bandits died. Tsukiko quickly pickpocketed the corpses while Marith dissolves her armor and retrieve her stuff. As soon as Marith placed her hood onto her head and her glasses as well, Tsukiko walked over to her.
"Here, Marith." Tsukiko handed a sackful of Xingese coins, "I insist."
Marith, unwillingly accepted the sack of money. As Marith was pocketing the money, she noticed Tsukiko was doing something she wasn't prepared for, Tsukiko was on her knees, and bowing towards Marith.
Feeling awkward, "Tsukiko, please stand up. This is embarrising."
Not moving her head, nor standing up, "Please train me, Marith. Train me in your alchemy. Because we were poor, I never was trained how to fight. I mainly ran away from danger. This was the first time I ran into a fight. I realized that I actually like fighting, and killing. Please train me, I'm begging you."