A cold Saturday in December. Manhattan, New York. 9:00 a.m.. An alarm clock rings, before a girl, aged sixteen, hits it and turns it off. She rises from bed and dresses casually. Looking in the mirror, she thinks of cutting her waist-length brown hair. She believes it would better suit her tan complexion and red eyes.. For she is an Ishvarlian. To her knowledge, the last of her kind. But more on that in a second. She chooses to not yet cut her hair. This girl, Nina, who's last name she's never truly known, steps outside of her apartment room. She exits the building, and heads for her typical Saturday morning destination. The local Starbucks.
A meth lab in the ghetto of Manhattan. A man, Shou Tucker, but he just goes by Tucker, wakes up with a pounding headache. He chugs half a bottle of whiskey. He is addicted to many drugs. Alcohol. Meth. Tobacco. All the hard shit. But mostly meth. Being a proud alchemist, Tucker's ability to make meth is very skilled. His complexion has always been tan. His eyes have been made redder by the meth but they always have been red because he too is an Ishvalian. To his knowledge, the last of his kind.. but more on that in a second. He needs a new drug besides just alcohol to shake off his current headache and hangover. He decides that caffiene would be best. So he exits his meth lab, and heads for a new destination. The local Starbucks.
The Ishvalian Backstory.
Ishvalia had once been a promising land. A utopia. Bordering Kurdistan, it was the center of the world. Not literally. But it was. If you needed alchemy tools that you could get nowhere else? Go to Ishvalia and you will find them. If you are sick with an illness that you can not cure anywhere else? Go to Ishvalia and an Ishvalian will be able to heal you. And so on. It truly was a great land of promise.
This all ended one day. A meteor was headed straight for earth... destination, Ishvarlia. All the most powerful alchemists tried to use their alchemy skills to make the meteor go away. But they just couldn't. They couldn't alchemize it into something less powerful. It hit Ishvalia. There were no survivors except for two. This was sixteen years ago. There was a baby girl Nina who survived the blast for unknown reasons. And there was a man Tucker, who was not in Ishvali at the time the meteor hit. These two were the last Ishvarlians left. Their paths should have never crossed. The Ishvalian race should have come to an end that day. But it didn't. Because two and only two survived. One was a man, Tucker. One was a girl, Nina. A man. A woman. All that is needed to reproduce a once-great race to it's former glory.
It was 9:15 a.m. Cornello was serving up lattes and mochas for all the people at the Starbucks. Nina was already in line to get hers. Tucker came walking in in a stupor and stood in line behind Nina. Nina could not help but look around and see who this man was that had just walked in because she had heard his footsteps.
They both looked in each other's eyes. They saw each other and knew who the other was. At once, they realized... Ishvalians united. "You..." Nina said, at a bit of a loss for words.
"My goodness..." Tucker said. They both embraced and knew that they had to leave. To talk. To catch up. It was, for each of them, as if they were meeting an old friend for the very first time. They ran out of the Starbucks immediately, Nina's fried mocha latte still sitting on the counter. "I made that drink for nothing..." Cornello sighed, disappointed.
"How did you survive that meteor?" Tucker asked. "How? The blast, it was huge, all Ishvalia was decimated.."
"I do not know.. I simply do not know. I was but a baby. I've wondered every day. Why did I survive when thousands, millions even, died for me? I've just thought I was the only survivor.. But how did you live?"
"I was not in Ishvalia at the time.. I was studying advanced secret alchemy techniques from Edward Elric in the mountains of Nepal. I learned how to alchemize almost anything into anything.. But that doesn't matter, what matters is, I was there and not there in Ishvalia so I did not get hurt by the meteor. I survived, and I also thought I was alone, but so did you."
Nina was dumbstruck. "We are not alone. We are alone relative to the rest of the world. But with each other, we are alone together.. Another Ishvalian, I just can't believe it. We have each other. Our race can survive now."
"It can.. But we need to reproduce if we want it to. Please. Will you come back to my meth lab and reach, with me, the highest form of physical intimacy? Please? It is for our people. So they can survive. So more Ishvalians can be born. So Ishvalia can rise once again."
"You want me to have sex with you, sir?"
"Yes, that is what I am asking." Tucker confirmed.
"No!" Nina shouted.
Tucker waved his hands around and did the Old Alchemy Persuasion Chant, taught to him by Edward Elric. He waved his arms all about her face and her mind and repeated this chant. "Donec ultricies tempus accepit interpretari tergum ut Northmanni. Mauris nibh velit nimis implicari. Aut ut aut iuste Latine loqui.. There. That should do it." And with that.. Nina's "no" was alchemized into a "yes".
"Yes!" Nina shouted. "Yes!" Her doubt and anger were alchemized into eagerness and lust.
"That's what I thought you said," Tucker winked. Truly his greatest work of alchemy to date. Even more so than when he had alchemized an entire yacht from a roast duck. Oh the times he had on that yacht, he recollected.
Tucker led Nina by the hand, her mind still woozy from the alchemizing, to his meth lab in Manhattan. Soon they reached its entrance. He brought her in.
"Why this place is disgusting!" Nina shouted and tried to leave.
Tucker said another simple chant. "Hoc ostium vertitur murum." He waved his hands at the door to his meth lab, and it became a wall. There was no escape. Not any escape anymore. Nina had to stay.
"I know it is not the most romantic setting, mon renoncule, but I will do my best to alchemize it into something more.. Romantic. For you. For us. For our children. For.." Tucker paused. "For Ishvalia."
"Say no more, pig!" Nina shouted. "You are all but raping me! If you are going to make this place more romantic, then just do so!"
"Okay Nina. I will make it a more romantic setting, but it will take a more complex chant.. Give me a moment." Tucker took a deep breath as he inhaled deeply and got ready to perform the Old Alchemy Romanticism Transformation Chant. He began:
"Lorem caught in laqueum
Non ambulaveritis ex
Quia te eu nimis
Cur non vides
Quid tu facis mihi
Dico autem vobis non credunt verbo
Ire non possumus simul
Per animi suspecti
Non aedificabunt et somnia
De animi suspecti
Si amicum antiquum scio
Lorem guttis by dicere
Utinam tamen vident oculos in suspicionem
Hic nos vado iterum
Qua Ive 'been asking
In at pretium horum lacrimae rerum
Im clamor
Ire non possumus simul
Per animi suspecti
Et somnia non aedificabis
De animi suspecti"
He waved his hands around wildly, pointing at all the things in his meth lab. They alchemized at once. His meth stash transformed into a red giant kings size bed. His meth making material became a stereo playing the most romantic music of the ages, perhaps sometihng by Styx?. His lighters became candles. The walls were no longer moldy. Everything changed and became more romantic. It was no longer a meth lab. It was a Love Shack.
"Oh..." Nina said. "This isn't too bad. Well, fine. Take me if you must." She lied down upon the bed. Tucker bent over upon her and took off her shirt and her pants after taking off his own. They were down to but their underdrawers. He nibbled upon her earlobe and licked her neck. She giggled. She was enjoying this more than she thought. His boxers grew a bulge and he took them off...
There Tucker stood before her. Naked in all his glory. A statuesque portrait of a man, with the manliest parts all hardened and long and ready to go. He took off her bra and her underpanties. They were naked together as lovers. I will spare the most intimate details, but it was a crazy night. They were together. Two Ishvalians. Restoring their race because she was sure to get pregnant from his manliest seed. A beautiful thing to behold. I wish you had seen it.