FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, GOLDEN EYES

By Born of Starlight

Disclaimer: FMA is not mine. If it was, episode 25 would never have happened. Which is why my story is one of those "Timeline, what timeline?" kind of stories. And it's not like I don't understand the necessary killing off of characters. I understand it all too well. BUT WHY THAT CHARACTER?

----------------

Prologue

-----------

Light is shining

Shining bright

Shadows are falling

On metal in the night

This golden child

In secret afraid

Her heart is wild

But she wants to be saved

The steel is gleaming

In the chain she's a link

And into golden lightning

She's afraid she will sink

Though a mere child, she controls all

For this is the child, the Elemental

----------------

Chapter One

-----------------

Edward Elric was there when she was brought in. The bleeding was just barely under control and her eyelids were fluttering.

But she didn't cry out.

She was in worse shape than he'd been in!

Ed lurched to his feet, ready to help if his help was indeed needed. His golden eyes took in the battered body of the girl. He didn't even hesitate when he noteved who was carrying her: Roy Mustang.

"Get the door, Fullmetal!" snapped the dark-haired man.

Ed complied without complaint.

"What happened! Who is she?" he demanded.

"We don't know! That door."

Ed opened the next door and held it for Mustang. "Will she make it…?"

Mustang didn't answer.

It really did look bad for the girl. Her right arm and leg were completely gone as well as her left leg from the knee down. And there was something wrong with her eyes.

Ed opened the next door, and Mustang rushed through. Ed followed him through. Mustang's subordinates got a door slammed in their faces.

"So you've got no idea how she ended up like this?"

Mustang didn't stop running, knowing just how vital time was to the girl's survival. "Oh, we have an idea alright." He looked grim, but didn't continue.

Ed opened one last door. The had reached the hospital wing of Central Headquarters. Ed didn't go in.

"Alchemy…"

He turned and ran back the way they'd come. A dull metallic clink echoed through the halls on every other step.

----------------

"Where are we going, Brother?"

"We've gotta find where it happened…" Ed didn't have the breath to spare for talking. He ran on, his brother clanking along behind him.

"But how will you know?"

"Trust me, Al, I'll know."

He skidded to a halt quite suddenly. "We're here!"

They were standing outside the remains of a blown-out building. Its windows were all shattered and smoke was curling out the doors and fractured walls.

Ed entered and paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. What he saw made him freeze.

An intricate pattern was painted onto the floor in white, but it was stained red in places with blood. Anything that may have been in the room prior to whatever had happened had been completely decimated. The furniture was little more than wood shavings, and any stonework had been turned to gravel.

"No wonder she was in such bad shape…! What the HELL kinda alchemy was she doing?"

Al walked into the center of the room to stand next to his brother. As he looked around, words failed him.

Ed knelt down, fingering the circles on the floor. "This is incredibly complicated… It reminds me of…" his voice trailed off, as he was unable to place where he'd seen something so complicated. Maybe he hadn't…

"I think she stood here." Ed moved to the center of the array. There was blood all over. Frowning, he bent to examine a burnt spot on the floor (which had miraculously survived the alchemic happenings).

The burn spread outward in a ring, a pool of blood in the center. Ed rubbed at the scorch, but it refused to go away.

With a sigh he stood back up. The clinking of his metal limbs made him wince, but he didn't let Al see. He did NOT want his brother's pity. Glancing down, he saw that his white cloves were now covered with soot and blood. Grimacing as he peeled them off, Ed's eyes searched the room. Ignoring the rubble, he didn't really see anything out of the ordinary. But a second look made him stop.

"Al! Look!"

----------------

Cliffhanger...Sorry. Not really. snickers Um... I guess just... READ AND REVIEW! If you don't, I'll send my muses to attack you. Oh, and, no one-word reviews...please? Those aren't any fun for me. Talk to me!