Third fanfic! *applause* Special thanks go to my nameless friend for helping me brainstorm ideas to torture Edo. If you like it, let me know in a review! If you don't, let me know why in a review! Either way, review! Reviews are rice, and authors are Chinese people - We can't live without our rice. So review, unless you want to single-handedly cause the downfall of one of the world's most populated countries.
Disclaimer: I really, really, really, really, REALLY wish that I owned Fullmetal Alchemist. But I don't. So I write fanfiction instead.
When Edward Elric regained consciousness, he expected to find himself bound, gagged, and in serious pain, so there was no surprise when he confirmed this reality. What he most certainly did not expect was the hushed giggled that seemed to be coming from all directions. He opened his eyes, and instantly wished he hadn't.
"Goddamn it," he muttered to himself. "Not again."
"HE'S AWAKE!" screamed the nearest psycho fangirl. The twenty or so teen- and tweenage girls shrieked as one, pressing in to get a closer look at their kawaii idol. Ed's shouts of protests were lost in the din, but someone else's bellowing voice somehow managed to carry over crowd.
"MAKE WAY, YOU MORONS!"
The fangirls parted like a shoal of fish to reveal a tall, heavyset girl with curly black hair, glasses, and a Fullmetal Alchemist T-shirt. Ed had enough experience with organized crime to come to the conclusion that this was the leader. Some of the more hardcore anima fans were bowing slightly and saying "Konnichi wa, Amber-san."
Amber may have been a crazy fangirl, but she was obviously smart. It took brains, not brute force, to train this many rabid animals to do one's bidding. It took brains to have said rabid animals strike as one - sitting on hotel staff, breaking down the Elric brothers' door, drugging Ed and bringing him back here (wherever "here" was). For a moment Ed worried about Alphonse's safety, but then he remembered that his younger brother had gone out to look for stray cats. He figured that this particular mob didn't much care about the whereabouts of his brother, though, since they were all clustered around him, practically foaming at the mouth.
Amber reached Edward. The fangirls were all standing roughly two feet back, as if they were all magnets being repelled by Amber. Though they all displayed a fair amount of admiration, Ed could smell their fear. He desperately hoped that Amber only wanted an autographed photo or something harmless like that; the last time he'd been kidnapped like this, it had left him emotionally scarred for life. Not to mention that he'd been rescued by Mustang, of all people. Talk about humiliating. That one had been the talk of Central HQ for weeks.
The leader grabbed Ed's chin in her right hand and forcibly turned his head side-to-side, examining him. After what seemed like an eternity, she released him, then turned to the mob.
"He's the real effing deal!" she proclaimed. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you idiots did a good job!" As the fangirls erupted in another round of shrieks, Ed heard Amber mutter to herself "For once." Ed wondered how many failed kidnappings there had been before he'd wound up in their custody.
The whole situation was, in a word, ludicrous. Here was a fifteen year-old alchemist prodigy with enough power to take out entire city blocks with his short rants, being held hostage by a bunch of insane girls. Ed wondered briefly what Breeze (a.k.a. "the authoress") would do if she could see him now. Laugh, probably. And give the fangirls advice on how best to torture him. That chick was a freaking sadist.
Speaking of sadists, it would seem as though this particular pack of fangirls were the type who were turned on by character pain. Ed could tell by the glint in Amber's eyes as they slowly advanced, evil written on their every feature.
Alphonse Elric was having a good day. He had rescued six stray kittens, as well as found a good home for each. He had gone back to the hotel to report his success to his brother, only to find the hotel staff unconscious in the lobby. Panicked, he'd ran all the way up the stairs to the fifth floor - no simple feat, now that he had his body back - and discovered that the room the brothers had been sharing was in shreds. In fact, it looked like they'd been robbed; all of Edward's belongings were missing, including his boxers. Approximately three seconds after making this observation, Al had realized that his brother was MIA, too. The normally sweet younger Elric took this opportunity to swear profusely.
"Brother, you idiot," he muttered to himself. "How many times have I told you to watch out for fangirls?"
Al ran back downstairs to the lobby. The guy behind the desk was sawing logs, so Al helped himself to the phone. It took him a few minutes to recall the number given to him by the authoress after their last misadventure.
Here's my cell number, in case you need me, she'd said. Just don't call when Bleach is on, or I'll ignore you.
He punched in the number frantically, then danced back and forth on his toes while the phone rang. To the casual observer, it would appear as if the young man seriously had to pee. Finally, Breeze picked up on the fifth tone.
"You've reached the amazing Breeze Nightingale, authoress extraordinaire. Please leave a message after the beep." She waited several seconds before saying "Beep."
"It's me, Al," he said quickly. "I need a favor…"
*cue dramatic fadeout*
Ed retched several times. These fangirls were killing him. After stripping him down to his boxers, (how they had managed this without untying him, Ed hadn't a clue) they had forced him to ingest milk, of all things! When he had yelled and screamed about how disgusting milk was, one had screamed "He's doing the milk rant!" and they'd all shrieked as one. Ed had thought for a minute that they would forget about it, but no such luck. Amber had reminded them of what they were supposed to be doing, and one girl had poured the milk into his mouth while another pinched his nose closed, forcing him to swallow the vile liquid.
Now he glared at Amber. Since declaring him to be the real Edward Elric, she had been standing off to the side, content to only watch. He couldn't guess what she was planning, but the way she just stood there - part of the action but not really - reminded him of Breeze. Maybe Amber was another authoress? But he hadn't seen her with a book or anything, so how could that be? Under different circumstances, he suspected that he could have figured it out, but three or four fangirls were now yanking on his braid, trying to undo it, and he was forced to drop his current train of thought in order to yell at the morons that it wasn't that damned hard to undo a braid.
It was at that moment that the door imploded, sending a few fangirls flying into several boxes full of anime merchandise stacked up against the back wall. Though Ed knew that whatever had blown the door in was probably his salvation, instinct told him that it was likely his damnation, too.
"FANGIRLS! FEEL THE WRATH OF THE STUFFED ANIMALS!"
Definitely damnation.
The only possible way to explain it was that someone had modified a submachine gun to fire giant stuffed unicorns at a rate of 5000 plushies per minute. Ed was helpless to do anything but watch as fangirl after fangirl was downed by the fluffy projectiles. The situation was almost funny, except that he was half-naked and chained to a chair, with the taste of milk still strong in his mouth.
"Brother!"
Ed couldn't help but grin when he saw Al running towards him. His brother would release him, he could grab his clothes, and they could get the hell out of there before Breeze got bored of shooting people and started to torture Edward herself.
Thwack!
Ed was stunned for several seconds, so it took time to register that his brother - his sweet, kind, pacifistic baby brother - had just smacked him upside the head. Hard.
"What the hell-" he started, but Al cut him off.
"Brother, you're an idiot. Don't even try to argue, because you know it's true. I thought you'd learned your lesson last time, but apparently not even the embarrassment of that particular episode was able to teach you. In a way, you deserve this."
Ed's indignant response died in his throat. "Fine," he said angrily as Al used alchemy to break his bindings. "You're right, okay? I'm a big dumbass who totally deserves to be kidnapped and tortured like this. But honestly? Why did you bring the evil authoress?"
Alphonse sat down on the floor beside his brother. "I know," he said. "She can be a bit… extreme-" In the background, several girls screamed as the were buried alive underneath a mountain of dolls. "But if it weren't for her, things would be a lot worse."
Apparently one of the stuffed animals struck something flammable, because several small fires sprung up around the building. A small vein popped in Ed's forehead.
"A lot worse, huh?"
It was everywhere in less than two hours. Nobody got the entire story quite right, but if you listened to each of the 150-odd variations, eventually you could sort of piece together what had happened.
The fangirls who were still able to run had cleared out fast once the fires started. The entire warehouse burned to the ground remarkably fast, but it had been filled with highly flammable plush toys.
The authoress had continued to snipe fleeing fangirls from the roof of a nearby building as they attempted to escape. No one had been reported dead, amazingly enough, though many went gibbering to mental hospitals, and all cringed away from stuffed animals for the rest of their lives.
As for Edward, he got to listen to two lectures; one from Alphonse, and one from the Colonel. Al put serious emphasis on his brother's safety, whereas the Colonel took a full hour just to poke fun at his young subordinate. The authoress didn't really speak much, which Ed found unusual, though he could tell that she was biting back sarcastic commentary every time someone else opened his mouth to speak.
In the end, the Elrics returned to their hotel room, worn out and pissed off. Ed stepped into the shower and passed out almost instantly, which necessitated Al having to drag him out, dress him, and toss him unceremoniously into bed. Al himself then collapsed into his own bed to reflect on the day, as usual. He had also noticed Breeze's uncharacteristic silence since the incident, and, being much more sensitive and in-tune with people than Edward, he had gotten the distinct impression that the authoress was keeping something to herself.
Oh, well, he thought as he rolled over and began to drift into unconsciousness. It's probably nothing.
It was dark. Almost too dark to see. Even so, the young woman didn't falter in either her confidence or her step. She knew where she was going, and was sure of what she would find when she got there.
She arrived at a normal-looking apartment building and stepped inside. The guy behind the desk was sound asleep with a cigarette in his mouth - unlit - and a porno magazine open on the desk. Breeze noted without really noticing that it was gay porn.
She headed for the stairs, went up two flights, then turned off, counting doors until she came to the eighth door on the left. He stopped and rapped on the wood four times.
The door swung open to reveal none other than Amber, leader of the fangirls. She offered Breeze a friendly grin, which the authoress returned. Amber invited her inside and lead the way to a pair of dusty couches. Both girls sat down, and Breeze pulled a piece of folded paper from the depths of her cargo pants pocket. She handed it to Amber, whose grin went from friendly to spasmodic in seconds.
"So this is-"
"Yup."
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
Amber looked like she could barely contain her excitement. "This is really Roy Mustang's address? And his home phone number? You're not yanking my chain?"
"Yes, yes, and hell no," replied Breeze, her grin plastered on her face. "Equivalence, right? You earned them. Thanks a ton, by the way. I don't think that Ed will ever fully recover."
Amber puffed out her chest in a moment of pride. "You should have been there. Those fangirls, they totally worshipped me. It was awesome. Just lemme know if you ever want me to make a reappearance."
Breeze stood up to go, extending a hand to shake Amber's.
"Right," she said. "And be careful when you go Mustang-hunting. I hear he burned a swarm of fangirls last month."
The girls walked to the door, and Amber held it open politely. "Don't worry. I found this great material - It's completely flame-resistant. I'm going to make a dress out of it. Thanks again!"
Breeze stepped back into the night, the darkness masking her evil crackfic authoress grin. It was very likely that she would be calling on Amber again in the future. Assuming that her friend didn't get charred to a pile of ashes, of course.
So, I have to say that this is by far the best ending I've ever written. (Not that I've had much practice - a finished story is rare in my case.) For those of you *cough* lovely people who didn't read the author's note waaaaaay back up at the top, I'll repeat myself. Chinese people need rice. Authors need reviews. If you review, I will be happy. If not, I will cry myself to sleep every night.
Like this for the emo moment!
Wait, this isn't Facebook! Don't press any stupid "like" button. Review so I don't have to cry! Duh!
