ZOMG! Another Story!

But seriously. This is probably my favoritest story that I have ever put on this site! Why? 'Cause it's freaking cool! It's the main reason why I haven't been updating any of my other stories, so it better be good! Took me like forever to write the damned thing and then to type it and do a bunch of other stuff... Ugh..

But anyways, enjoy!

(And look at my profile for the love of God!) I'm sorry God *says while holding her cross* Kids, don't use the Lord's name in vain.

~ I wish you all sun, sea and books. ~ NISISION


Chapter 1: The Eccentric City

"Brother, are you sure that you don't want to stop?"

"I'm fine, Al. Stop worrying about me."

"But you look like you're about to pass out."

Ed stopped in his footsteps. Even though his hood was over his head keeping the beating, hot sun off his head, the interior of his hood was completely black, actually absorbing more sunlight than he'd preferred.

He took a deep sigh as he slowly took his hood off. He looked up into the blinding sun, and then quickly looked down at the sand beneath his feet because of the intense light.

The Elric brothers were currently in the middle of a desert wasteland searching for a city called Station Village. It had a big rumour above its head for being a very eccentric town. But it also has another rumour, more of a military rumour at best, that this was one of the 1st cities that helped with research on the Philosopher's Stone.

Ed unknowingly dropped down on his knees onto the light colored, grainy, and loose sand. If he took another step, he was for without a doubt, going to pass out.

"You're tired, aren't you?" Alphonse said with a bit of smugness in his voice.

The older brother didn't answer. Instead, he let out a slightly dark laugh.

"Brother, are you okay?" Alphonse asked, sounding a little bit concerned.

"You could always read me like a book, couldn't you?" Ed answered, still laughing slightly.

Alphonse made a deep sigh. "The heat's getting to you, isn't it?"

Ed didn't answer but continued to stare at the loose grains of sand while quietly laughing to himself. Al took another deep breath.

'This is exactly why people don't normally walk through the desert. They go crazy from lack of water! I just hope that we're closer to this place than we thought.'

It was then when Al was suddenly interrupted in his thoughts by his 'crazy' older brother.

"Hey! If the sun is out, then why is the ground so wet?!" Ed shouted while looking at the sand with a crazed look. He started digging into the lightly colored sand and had started to reveal darker parts of wet sand.

Al took yet another impatient sigh. "It's the water in the ground. Probably when it rains over this desert, the water seeps into the ground. Surely you're not that delirious to . . . "

Al stopped in his sentence because he realized something. 'Water . . . in the ground . . .'

Al made an audible gasp. He ran up to his older brother, who was still digging into the ground, revealing even darker spots of sand. ' Wow, this desert has more water than I thought . . . '

Al kneeled down beside his brother, who was still digging in the ground as if he didn't notice the action Al just did. "Brother, you stay here, okay?"

Ed didn't answer. Instead, he kept digging into the damp sand. At this rate, he'd be at 3 feet below ground level in no time. He looked like a dog digging a hole and trying to bury a precious bone in a place so deep enough that no other dog could find it. And his quiet laughs sounded like pants of a dog.

Al ran about 20 feet away from his crazed brother and then once there, turned around to face said brother, who was almost 3 feet into the ground. Al watched for a couple of seconds in amazement how fast the hole his brother was digging kept getting larger. He shook his head as to rid himself of the image, and focused on the task at hand. He was going to transmute all the water from below the sand upward, to try and create an oasis of water.

'I sure hope this works . . . '

Al hesitantly clapped his hands together, and placed them slowly onto the area of sand in front of him. Almost immediately, a blue line, looking almost like lightning, went below the sand. Nothing happened for the next 10 seconds. Al seemed very confused, and started to wonder if he had done something wrong. Then, just as he was thinking that, the blue lightning line came back up through the sand and formed a slightly deformed circle in the sand. The blue lightning went away, and then water had started to seep through the sand slowly. Al started to slowly remove his hands from the sand. As soon as he did that, more water had started coming up through the sand at a rate that was incredible. Then the sand made a loud popping noise, and the water had started to squirt up through the sand like a large fountain. This action was so quick and sudden that it made Al fall back into the sand. The water continued to spurt up for another 45 seconds, while all the while, Al was staring in amazement at the alchemy he had just performed.

As soon as the pressure of the water had started dying down, Al took this chance to see if his intentions had been fulfilled. And they were, to an extent. The area of the oasis was about 10 feet in diametre, almost resembling a small swimming hole. The water was a translucent blue and not muddy in the least, although Al had figured that all the muddy water sunk to the bottom of the oasis, so he was pretty sure that it was safe enough to drink. The only 'cons' were that the sun was beating down onto the water, making it almost as bright as the sun, and he wasn't really sure if the water was cool or not. Once the water pressure was finally gone, Al looked to see what his brother was doing. Ed was still digging a hole about half the size of the oasis Al made, and probably almost as deep as it as well. Al couldn't see his brother, but had seen and heard large amounts of dirt being thrown out of the hole and loud thuds being made. There was a pile of dirt almost as tall as Al being made about 2 feet from the hole. Al quickly ran back toward his brother's hole. He looked down into the hole and saw Ed, completely covered from head to toe in dirt, still frantically digging. What he was digging for was the question . . .

"Brother, stop digging. I have some water for you!" Al yelled down into the hole.

But to be proven to have no avail, Ed kept digging frantically. This was proven as more larger amounts of dirt starting to move at a rate that was almost impossible to count. It seemed almost cartoony in a way.

"Brother, stop digging!" Al yelled louder into the hole.

"I'm almost there," Ed muttered. Al took it as an incoherent sound.

Just as Al took another breath to yell even louder into the hole, he had heard the same popping sound that was made when he made the oasis coming from Ed's hole. Al moved closer toward the hole and hesitantly looked down into the hole. What he had seen was a sight. As soon as he looked down, he saw his older brother looking up at him, with what one could call a crazed smile across his face, and with eyes with should well belong to that of a killer's. Al seemed a little shocked, but stayed exactly where he was. Until the sand beneath started rumbling. The ground shook violently and Al felt on his back. The rumbling continued for another 15 seconds and then stopped immediately. Al, still a little shooken up, slowly started to sit himself up. He looked at the hole again and saw Ed climbing out of the hole. How he did with all the rumbling going on is a mystery.

"Brother, are you okay?" Al asked, starting to settle onto his feet.

Ed didn't answer, but continued looking at Al with a very confused look. The confused look slowly but surely started to turn into the one that Al had seen while looking into the hole, but this time with sunlight making it more profound. Or scarier.

Al backed away a couple of steps as he saw Ed walking toward him in a zombie like way, with his head lowered and his back in a strange curve. His footsteps were rather unbalanced as well. Once Ed was within 5 feet between him and Al, he stopped in his tracks.

Al looked at Ed with a very confused look, as if he were almost scared of him. But, he kept convincing himself that it was the heat that was making Ed act weird. He came out of his thoughts when he had suddenly heard a loud clap noise.

"You really didn't have to make the oasis," Ed had started saying very slowly. He brought his hands down onto the sand very gently, as if he were trying very hard not to move any of the sand grains his hands were on top of. Just as he did that action, Al watched in surprise as he saw a massive amount of water suddenly spurted out of the deep hole that Ed was previously in. This massive amount of water kept spurting out for about another 30 seconds. Once it had finished, Al looked down at his brother, who had just started to lift his hands away from the dry desert floor. Ed slowly started to stand back up to his normal stance. He looked up at Al, and flashed a smile as bright as the hot desert sun, and continued saying, "'cause I had one from the very beginning!"

And with that, Ed went happily ran straight to the hole filled with water he'd just made, and started to drink out of it. Al remained standing where he was, very dazed and confused, about what had just happened . . .

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

"What kind of lesson was that?" Al asked, now sounding very angry.

"To see what you would do if something like that would happen," Ed answered simply as they started to walk through a dry desert. Ed now had a giant canteen filled with water that he was currently drinking from.

"But you scared me! I thought that you were going crazy from the heat." Al said in the same tone.

"Do I look like I've gone crazy?" Ed asked, looking at Al with a flashy smile.

"For some reason, I can't find myself saying no," Al muttered to himself.

Ed's smile started to disappear. "It was just a test to see what you would do. It wasn't like a cruel joke or something."

Al looked into the direction of the sun, ignoring Ed.

Ed made a deep sigh. "Fine. I won't do it again."

Al continued looking toward the bright sun.

Ed looked at him for a couple of seconds, and then made a 'hmph' sound and crossed his arms in frustration. "Be that way."

All was silence for the next two hours, until Ed broke the silence with an observation.

"Hey, Al. Why aren't you sinking?"

"I don't know. Maybe the sand's denser here." Al answered immediately.

"Hunh," Ed said nodding his head slightly. "That makes sense."

There was a moment of silence for another 15 minutes until it was Al's turn to break the ice, metaphorically speaking.

"We're here."

"Oh. That was quick."

The Elric brothers looked up at a 20 foot tall rusted sign above them, saying in dull blue letters; 'Station Village: Ex nihilo nihil fit'.

"What do you think 'ex nihilo nihil fit' means?" Al asked, slightly confused.

"Dunno. I don't speak Latin," Ed answered simply while taking a deep breath.

"But in some of the alchemy books we've read, there was some Latin in it," Al said while looking at the sign more intensely.

"But all that had to do with alchemy. I have no idea what this says."

"Don't you think that if this was a town that was associated with the Philosopher's Stone, then wouldn't the saying have something to do with alchemy?"

"That does make sense . . . but, let's just ask someone when we go inside."

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Station Village had definitely lived up to its rumour of being a very eccentric town. Though all of the building structures were made that almost identical toward city like structures, the people themselves were very eccentric. All the signs on the businesses were put backwards so the only way you could read them was with a mirror. The town itself was in the middle of the desert, so they probably didn't get many tourists. So when they actually had tourists, you could imagine that they would act more eccentrically more than 'normally', in their case. And each day was a special holiday, from all age groups, measuring from the day after their birth, to all the way toward their death. It may be a very eccentric town, but it treats its people very well.

"It says here that they have a holiday, every single day of the year," Al said while looking at the tourist guide. Both he and Ed were seated at a restaurant, waiting to order their food. Well, more like Ed's food.

"Oh yeah? What holiday is it today?" Ed asked, sounding very nonchalant.

"Apparently, it appears to be 'wear your clothes backwards' day," Al answered while flipping the page.

"What kind of a holiday is that? It sounds really boring," Ed said while looking around the area of the restaurant. He saw a group of kids about 20 feet away playing a game that involved a soccer ball, a baseball, a croquet mallet, a piece of paper and a snorkel. He quickly turned his attention back toward the table he was sitting at. He didn't want to know what kind of sport they were about to play.

"This place is actually very interesting. If it weren't so far away, it would probably be a good vacation spot. Even though they're in a desert, they still have all the requirements to live as if they weren't a remote town." Al said while being completely emerged in the book.

'Why would this place even need a tourist guide if there are rarely any tourists here? Wait a second . . . where'd you get that from?" Ed asked, sounding more curious.

"A little girl gave it to me while we were walking inside," Al answered, not looking up from the book.

"So, what you're saying is that a random little girl came up to you and gave you a book with all the information about this town?"

"Oh, you must be talking about Yeshska." A person answered walking up to them. "Silly little thing can always tell when tourists come to visit. Even when others can't. Not that you two are a sight for sore eyes." The person that had answered was female, with lightly tan skin and sun kissed wavy dark blonde hair that went down to her waist, with dark blue crystal eyes. She had on a backwards light blue shirt and a black skirt on. "Sorry, for interrupting your conversation. I just heard it from across the room. My name's Azulene." She said with a big smile on her face.

"It's nice to meet you, Azulene," Al said finally looking away from the tourist guide. "Your town is very interesting."

Azulene made a light hearted laugh. "Actually, I think the word you're looking for is 'eccentric'. That's what everyone who visits here says. But, trust me, the longer you stay here, the more you'll agree with me. Now, what would you like to order?" She said as she took out a notepad and a blue pen from the back of her head, near her neck.

"Before we do that, can I ask you a question?" Ed asked while looking at the menu. He put it down on the table in slight frustration that he couldn't read it without a mirror. "Actually, I have a few questions."

"Sure, that's fine with me." Azulene answered while putting the notepad and pen back in her hair.

"That sign at the entrance," Ed started while pointing towards the front of the town, "The Latin part. What does it mean?"

Azulene looked at him with a confused expression, but then her face finally lit up. "You mean 'ex nihilo nihil fit'? Well, that means, 'from nothing, nothing is produced'. That saying is in most of the beginner alchemy books made. Especially in the chapter where they introduce the 'Equivalent Exchange' rule. Or it could be the 'Law of Conservation of Mass' chapter? Well, I've only dabbled a little in some of the books, but that was only for school. But I'm not really sure."

"Wait. You have to learn alchemy here?" Al asked sounding very interested.

"How do you think we get all our main resources from? We get most of our water from the bottom of the desert floor, but we always put it through a filter just to be sure. We grow our own food by mixing some of the water we use with some of the sand. So, it's pretty good here."

"Sounds pretty resourceful."

Azulene nodded her head slightly. "It is. Which is why every single person here has to take at least four years of alchemy training so that they can help out in the town. I'm on my 6th year. The art interests me in many ways. The way you can take something that has one use and transform it so it has another completely different use."

"So basically, you're like a monolithic town," Ed said while trying to read the menu.

Azulene moved her head slightly to the right. "I guess you can say that."

"Well, that does kind of make sense," Ed mumbled mostly to himself. "Alright, second question. Why are all the signs in town put backwards so that you need a mirror to read it?"

"Actually, it's just another way to read English. And it was the way we were taught to read and how all the books are printed here. Only outsiders like you would probably need a mirror to read it the way you learned it. Oh, I almost forgot."

Azulene walked away from the Elric brothers for a couple of seconds and then appeared with two small mirrors in her hand. "Just don't point them directly into the sunlight. They're like magnifying glasses. They'll reflect of the light and direct it toward something and probably burn whatever you directed it at." She said as she set the mirrors down on the table where they were sitting at. "Any more questions?"

"One more. Why are you guys in the desert? Why so far away from other towns, not to mention civilization?"

Azulene took a deep breath and thought for a couple of seconds, as if she didn't know how to answer the question.

After a couple of more seconds, she finally answered saying," Well, imagine a teenager just wanting to get away from their parents because they're sick and tired of them, so they just ran away from home. This town is the teenager. And the rest of the world's our parents and home." She finished the last sentence in a sad tone. She lowered her head, as if to conceal the fact that she was crying.

Ed looked at Azulene with concerned eyes. "Was that too personal of a question?"

Azulene looked up, and suddenly her expression changed to a more cheerful expression, though a little sadness still appeared across her features.

"No, it's fine. Are you guys ready to order now?" She answered while pulling out the notepad and pen again.

Once Ed ordered his food, and Al said that he wasn't very hungry at the moment, Azulene had walked away saying that their order would ready in just 10 minutes.

"It's such a sad story. Being separated from civilization because you're different." Al said while looking at the tourist guide again.

"She reminds me of someone . . . " Ed mumbled while looking at the ground.

"You mean Rose? Yeah, she does seem to have some similar personality traits to her. But she also seems to express her feelings just like Rose as well."

"Do you think this town is like Liore?" Ed asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, not at all. It's just that there are a lot of similarities between the two. This town's definitely better, alchemy wise. Everyone does their part, instead having somewhat of a dictator taking them over. Besides, there isn't a religious broadcast in sight. "

Ed made a small laugh. "That's true. They seem like a pretty sturdy town. No one to lean on. Only depending on themselves and the business they do."

"Wait! Brother, look at this." Al said while handing him the guide book.

Ed took the book and started to read. It was talking about the town's history. The passage had read: In 1790, Sir Arturo of the country formally known as Grecia (now called Adela), immigrated to a place near Amesteris, only to be lost somewhere about 50 miles from the country with 36 other people. With no way or idea of finding the country, they had decided to create their own town, like what the Americans did with Jamestown. But they had absolutely no supplies like the Americans had. Luckily 15 out of the 37 people had been acquainted with the art known as alchemy, which is the act of transforming matter so that it could be used as something else. The alchemists were said to have used the gravel and concrete around them to make large stone buildings. They used the wheat around them to produce bread. Once all the buildings and businesses were set up to its maximum capacity, the settlement was called Station Village because of how all the buildings were put right in the middle of the road, and how people came and went like what one would do inside of a train or bus station. By 1804, the settlement came to have 290 people and had one of the most incomes for selling it's freshly baked bread using the alchemy to help cook it.

All was well and good, until the year of 1824. State Alchemists barged into the quaint little town and demanded that the town would become part of Central, although Central itself was more than 70 miles away. The mayor, and great grand son of Sir Arturo, David, refused and demanded that the State Military get out of his town. The State Alchemists merely laughed in his face. But they went away nonetheless. But one day on the 13th of April in 1825, the leader of the State Military, whose name will not be mentioned, approached the mayor and gave him information about a precious stone.

'It must have been the Philosopher's Stone!' Ed thought furiously.

Later on the 25th,two State Alchemists went to the mayor and started working with him and research with the town's scientist and alchemists about this precious stone. No one knows what the name of this precious stone, but only that it was more powerful than anybody could imagine.

On the 18th of May in 1826 Mayor David and the two alchemists, who had become well acquainted with the people of Station Village, despite their title, revealed something magical. The mayor held up a tube filled with red liquid, and poured out the contents onto the podium that was in front of him. The contents turned into a ball even though it was liquefied. The Mayor said to the townspeople that this was something that was called the Philosopher's Stone. He described as ' a substance that could give you the equivalent of having Godlike powers'. He gave a demonstration of the Philosopher's Stone, by having a piece of wheat, a turned it into an entire loaf of bread. He then took a glass of water, and turned it into wine. He took a tiny pebble and turned it into a bar of gold. He did many more demonstrations that day, and people were amazed at all the power that was in the little stone.

Some people called it a miracle.

Others called it an impossible sight made possible.

But most importantly, most people called it breaking the laws of' 'Equivalent Exchange and Conservation of Mass'.

Nonetheless, the people of Station Village were surprised at the magic bestowed on their little town. Some people wanted some of this power for their own. Others wanted to keep their distance from the power of God. Very few hated the fact that this power were put on their town. They were the kind of people would rather work for the same actual result that stone have produced. Yet they wanted to find out more about it.

Almost two weeks after the power of the Philosopher's stone to the townspeople, there was a riot at the mayor's home. Someone had shot the mayor and fled off with the precious stone of power. Most people thought that it was one of the State Alchemists, but when the townspeople barged into their homes, they had seen them shot both in the head, dead.

Once the riot was calmed down, everyone went to the hospital to see the injured mayor. Sadly, when they arrived at the Hospital, the mayor was already pronounced dead as well. The townspeople felt lost. They didn't have a leader, and the two people who helped keep them safe, were now both dead. And no one in the group really knew how to guide a group who had just lost their leader. It was then at that particular moment, that they had decided to not become any part of the countries around, never to be involved with any other government, except themselves. They wanted to be as far from the world as possible. They wanted to move away from this bloodshed town. After complex and deep contemplation of where to live, they had finally decided on a place to live: the desert. They knew that the desert wasn't the best place to move a town, but no one in the townspeople disagreed. They didn't want something like this happening in their town ever again. They had prepared and created items using alchemy that they needed for their long trip.

3 months after making this decision, Station Village, now consisting of over 900 people, packed up everything they could and settled out towards the Andira Desert, over 40 miles away, on October 12th, 1826.

Ed put the book down, his face covered in shock. "The Philosopher's Stone... it was in the same condition as Dr. Marcoh's . . ."

"And someone came and took it from this town." Al said, looking out at the crowds of people walking past the restaurant.

"But, what I can't understand is why would someone want to take an incomplete stone . . ."

" Maybe they had a reason for taking it." Al said, reassuring.

"What kind of a reason would someone have that would involve killing three people? Even if they were in the same situation as us, there are many other ways to get a stone, before you even get to the point of killing people."

"They could have been in a situation that's even worse than ours, and the only way out was to get the Philosopher's Stone."

Ed slammed his hands hard onto the table, making it jiggle a little. "Remember this; there is no, and I mean absolutely no situation horrible enough to kill people over, just to get what you want. There's always an alternate way, even if it's harder. You can never kill people just to get what you want." Even though he spoke in hushed tones, it was as if the entire town stopped what they were doing, and listened to what Ed had said.

"You're right, you know," Azulene said as she set Ed's order down in front of him. She stared at the tourist guide in front of him. "You read the history, didn't you?" she asked, looking at both Ed and Al with a sincere look.

They both had looked at her and nodded their heads slowly.

Azulene smiled at them. Tears started to run out of her dark crystal blue eyes and run down her cheeks as she continued, saying,"It's a terrible thing, killing. I wished that it never was created. How a human being can take the life of another human, and not feel any remorse at all, is beyond me. I cry even when I see an tiny little ant get squished. But, it's all a part of life. Everyone dies somehow, in some way. I just wished that killer didn't take the precious stone, even, if it was breaking the two basic laws of alchemy. I wanted to see if human beings could cross into God's territory, and make actual human beings come back to life or live longer than we were destined to live for." Azulene caressed her stomach in a caring way, as if something was inside of her."C-could you guys stay for another 20 minutes? My shift ends then. I want to show you something."

Both Elric brothers looked at each other at the same time. Then they both looked at Azulene with sincere looks on both of their faces. They nodded their heads slightly.

"Thank you."She said, wiping the tears away. "Enjoy your food."

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Does anybody EVER review my stories? I mean, come on guys. Every story that I read, I absoulety try to leave a review in every single one. Think about how hard the people work to try and update chapters for you guys who read them, and they have have like 3 or 4 reviews after they finished the story. The most awesomest stories I read have like 12 reviews at the end of them, when they should have like 500. So, please try and review every story you read, even if it's like 'good job' or 'keep up the good work'. Every review is the best in the author's heart. (Well, at last in mine...)