Ultimate Alchemist
Chapter 1: The World According to Pitty Sing
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
AN: Wow! If you actually found this story in all the random categories in the FMA crossover section and actually plan on reading this story, all I can say is thank you. This story is set in the Ultimate Marvel Universe (Spider-Man, the X-Men, Ultimates, etc.), but I'm going to explain everything as best I can for those who don't even have a clue what that means. Ed doesn't at the beginning either. It is also set at the end of the first anime (It leaves more open ends). This is mainly set in Ultimate Spider-Man pre-Ultimatum, but other characters like the Fantastic Four and Tony Stark will be in here as well.
So yeah, I hope you enjoy. It should be fun seeing Ed's reaction to guys swinging through the sky in red and blue tights and girls walking through solid walls . Oh! And please excuse the foul language in some parts. It's Ed. What else can I say?
Pitty Sing loved hunting rats. Every night, around eleven or so, before her human-creature went to bed, she would scratch at the apartment door, begging to be let out. Her human-creature would shuffle her old, slippered feet across the carpet, stoop achingly down to rub behind Pitty's ear, and open the apartment door just long enough for Pitty to slip out to traverse the dark, lonely alleyways of New York City.
Pitty had a routine for the night. She first traveled down to an open door, where she knew human-creatures set out food. She socialized with her friends who also came for the food and paused to listen to a human-creature rant spitefully about the strange, powerful human-creatures.
There was a fish set in a bowl at the window of some human-creatures den that amused Pitty. In fact, much of Pitty's night was spent watching as the simple orange fish on the opposite side of the window reverted consistently between staring at Pitty passively to swimming around frantically, trying to escape a predator that could never reach it. The hilarity of it made Pitty's tail twitch back and forth.
After finally getting tired of the incompetent orange fish (which the human-creatures called "gold fish" for some odd reason), Pitty jumped gracefully from the fire escape down to the alley floor, eyes flashing in the dark. She scanned through the alley in all the various junk the human-creatures threw out, searching for the slightest trace of her prey. The tiniest of squeaks came from behind a cardboard box. Pitty's tail swished in delight. She hopped casually on top of a trash bin, observing her target from above. The rat seemed to have finally realized its mistake and searched for any threats, eventually spotting Pitty towering above it. Silently the rat took off, weaving through the trash that littered the alley. Pitty hopped from trash bin to trash bin, her eyes locked on her prey. She was about to pounce when both animals stopped abruptly.
The air had changed. Everything had come to a halt, and yet, there was a crackle, a charge in the air that no ordinary human-creature would have sensed. The charge in the air became increasingly violent, with tiny blue sparks popping and disappearing in the air. Pitty crouched low, her ears pressed tightly to her head. The charges burst into a flash a blinding blue light, and the world went back to the way it was with a heavy thud against the ground.
It seemed to be a human-creature. Pitty had seen (on the moving box thing her human-creature liked to watch instead of petting her) human-creatures fly like birds and shoot webs like spiders, strange, powerful human-creatures, but she had never seen anything appear from seemingly nothing. The human-creature groaned weakly. Pitty decided to ignore it. It frightened her.
She turned to once again find her prey, only to notice its silent, glaring absence. The rat had slipped away at some point while Pitty was preoccupied with the human-creature. Pitty's tail swished indignantly. She pounced off the trash bin and onto the strange human-creature's bare back, her claws extended. The human-creature yelped in surprised and pain. Pitty jumped off as gracefully as any cat and headed back to her human-creature's den. 'Serves it right,' Pitty Sing thought happily, her tail held high in the air.
Edward Elric felt like he had died all over again. His head throbbed painfully (which is saying a lot since he went through auto-mail surgery) and his body ached as if he had been hit by a speeding train. And then, a damn cat scratched him. "Fucking cat," Edward murmured, easing himself into a sitting position. "Can't see why Al's so obsessed with them…"
He quickly banished any more thoughts of his brother, not willing to deal with the worry and pain. Ed studied his surroundings. He knew he was on the other side of the Gate, but he had expected the ruins of the wart-torn city his father had called London. The place seemed like a trash heap (because he was in a trash heap), but all the buildings around him were still intact.
He grabbed an empty bottle nearby and studied it carefully. It was made of a very strange substance. He then grabbed a piece of brown box that lay near him. His brow furrowed in thought and confusion. Everything felt so artificial…
There was a stack of newspapers across the alley that Edward slowly crawled towards, not trusting his legs to hold him upright. He rubbed the fingers of his left hand (the Gate had given him back his auto-mail arm and leg) against the surface of the papers and sighed in relief. At least newspapers were made of relatively the same materials. He could make a jacket of some sort of them, as long as he could now use alchemy in this new world.
Before he tried a transmutation, Edward picked up the top newspaper, searching for the date and where he may have been exactly. The top of the newspaper read the New York Times and the date below made Edward want to faint. The date was nearly a hundred years in the future, there was no way that could be true. Edward grabbed another set of papers to check. His stomach sank in dread. What the fuck had the Gate done to him? The feeling of sickness eventually passed and Ed decided to try to understand the events of the world he was living in. The article on the front of the Times read "Mutant Terrorists Attack British Parliament." He had no clue what mutants or Parliament was. He then looked at the paper called The Daily Bugle, it headline story was " Spider Menace Plagues New York," followed by a picture of some guy swinging around in red and blue tights. Edward was not amused. He had ended up in one strange, fucked-up world in the future.
He sighed as if to prepare himself for failure and clapped his hands together. A wave of relief passed over him as he felt the familiar surge of energy pass through his body and into his hands. He closed his eyes and pictured the transformation of the molecular structure of the crazy newspapers into that of a jacket. He opened his eyes to a successful transmutation. He smiled at the finished product. It was a rather plain, black (there wasn't enough colored ink to make it red) jacket with a light gray Flamel symbol on the back. There had even been enough lead, chromium, and copper complexes in the ink to make a zipper. He was going to have to figure out what exactly allowed him to still use alchemy later.
He zipped up the jacket fully, not sure how the people of the world he was now in would react to a metal arm. He grabbed hold of a nearby trash bin and hoisted himself to his feet. His head pounded at the sudden motion and his legs shook unsteadily. He paused to let his body adjust before stuffing his hands into his pockets and wobbling precariously out of the alley he had fallen into.
Edward knew definitively that he was in another world as soon as he stepped out of the alley. He watched in silent awe as sleek, fast cars zoomed by (without backfiring, mind you) and girls (or boys, he couldn't always tell, the clothes were so similar) with make-up caked faces chatted whimsically on little boxes while they walked down the sidewalk and what seemed to be radios with flashing lights sent loud, monotonous tones out of the windows of apartments and homes. Edward's legs shook more than they already were. He felt completely and painfully alone.
Edward wandered down the sidewalk (he had no idea where he was going), his hands still jammed in his pockets. It was all so overwhelming that his mind felt numb. A loud droning from above made Edward instinctively want to duck underneath some sort of cover for safety. In fact, he must have cowered down because he was getting strange, amused looks from those who passed by him. One girl even giggled. Ed's eye twitched in agitation. He put on his best glare and growled a "What are you lookin' at," and inwardly smirked as amused faces transformed with fear and uneasiness.
Edward glanced into the night sky, expecting to see one of those monstrous zeppelins that destroyed the city of London nearly a hundred years before. Instead, he observed a much larger version of the small, bird-like devices that swarmed the zeppelins in London with an unbelievable torrent of bullets. The not-zeppelin soared slowly and gracefully through the air, its red lights looking passively down at the earth below. For a split second, Edward had to admit that it was quite a beautiful sight (though he would never get on one), and judging from other people's reactions, a common occurrence.
The technological advances of this new, unfamiliar world were incredible, and yet, he saw no one having anything close to auto-mail. That was another curiosity he would have to look into later.
The screeching, desperate meowing of a cat caught Edward's attention. It was a noise that could be heard from any world that had cats he supposed. He normally would have walked away without another thought, just as the people of this new world reacted to the bird-like objects soaring about, but some force of curiosity and maybe Fate drew him down another deserted alley.
The cat was on the second floor of a fire escape, pawing frantically at a window that Edward assumed should have been open. There was just enough light from a nearby street light for Ed to study the creature closely. The gray stripes and white face and orange nose. It was the same damn cat that had scratched him earlier. He contemplated his revenge against the devious, orange-nosed cat, but a crashing bang from inside the window sent Edward scrambling up the fire escape to join the cat on the second story.
He and the cat peered through the window, trying to phantom what exactly was going on through the dark. Edward growled in frustration; he couldn't see jack-shit. Orange-nose hissed venomously, its ears pressed back. Edward followed the cat's line of sight, only to be able to make out two dark silhouettes in an even darker room. He watched as what appeared to be the more petite human fell back defensively. That was enough for him.
Ed smashed his right arm into the window and yanked it upward, his eyes never leaving the now surprised figures. The larger silhouette lunged towards him while he was crawling through the forcefully open window. Edward ducked out of the man's path, a knife through the space where his head had been three seconds before. The man's cold, unblinking eyes, illuminated in the light from the street, turned to where Edward crouched defensively. Edward could see a large syringe held in the man's other hand. He cringed. God, how he hated needles.
The man swung the syringe widely, aiming for Edward's neck. Ed caught the man's wrist easily. He growled angrily as the needle cut into his forearm, making his skin tingle unpleasantly. He had used the wrong fucking arm. He tried to push the instinctive worry of what was in the syringe out of his mind.
The man then jabbed the knife forward; it was an easy grab. Edward's right hand squeezed the man's wrist tightly. He smiled just a little bit when he heard the inevitable pop of the man's wrist. The knife fell to the floor. Ed brought his left knee up, ramming it into the man's solar plexus. He crumbled like a leaf.
Blood pounded heavily against Edward's ears, and his body began to become uncontrollably limp. He tried to take a step back, only to fall to the floor with a heavy, painful thud. He was having a bad fucking day. Whatever had been in that syringe had made his whole body immobile, but he could still see and feel everything. What a frightening drug.
Ed closed his eyes, thinking he had failed the person he was trying to protect. Thinking that he would never be able to get home and see if Al was alive and human again. There was a shuffle of movement from where Edward knew the man had fallen. Edward felt a sense of sinking dread wash over him. A hollow, metallic click seemed to echo through the room. "Move another inch," came an ancient voice, "and you won't have a head on those shoulders anymore."
Edward could hear the crunching of broken glass beneath heavy boots, the clanking of something down a metal ladder, and a relieved sigh from someone beside him. An elderly woman hovered above him, looking genuinely concerned. She pressed her thin, wrinkled fingers against his neck. "Well, you're alive," commented the old woman, a soft, playful smile gracing her lips. "He must have hit you with some sort of temporary muscle relaxant." She shook her head sadly. "What a terrible way to go…"
Edward had to agree with her, but all he could do was look at her blankly. "Let's get you off the floor."
The elderly woman pulled Edward's right arm over her shoulder, kindly ignoring the abnormal hardness of the arm and the metal glint of the now exposed hand. She tried in vain to hoist him upward. "My, you're heavy for such a little guy," she observed.
Edward would have ranted if he cold. Instead, he settled with glaring with his eyes.
The woman was able to drag him slowly over to the sofa but could not lift him high enough to set him on it. So, she propped his back against the soft material, figuring it was at least more comfortable than the floor. She grabbed the stranger's left arm and examined the cut. "That's quite a deep scratch you got," she observed. "I'll go get the first aid kit."
The old woman disappeared from Edward's sight, the sound of her slippers shuffling across the carpet fading into another room. The orange-nosed cat that had scratched him earlier rubbed affectionately against his arm. 'Figures it like me now,' Edward thought grudgingly.
Edward was confused about what had just happened. A man had tried to drug and kill this old geezer, and she didn't even bother calling the authorities. He wondered if the world he fell into even had people who responded to such situations.
The woman shuffling back into the room interrupted his thoughts. She slowly knelt beside the boy and once again grabbed his injured arm. She pulled his sleeve up and swabbed the wound with a pad that (Edward assumed from the sting) was covered in alcohol. "You're lucky I was a nurse during the war," the woman chatted easily. "I know exactly how to dress most simple injuries."
She talked lightly and it seemed to really no one in particular as she worked. She reminisced about a soldier she had treated during the War (Edward wasn't sure what war), who had been shot in the ass. She laughed about how he had whined and gone on, even though it was really just a scratch. She smiled softly and commented offhandedly that that goofy man later became her late husband. The old woman chuckled and observed that Edward bore his pain much more courageously, but she wouldn't expect anything else from the boy who saved her life. She acted as if no one had just tried to murder her.
The elderly woman leaned back, finished. She had cleaned and dressed the wound in no time. By that time, Edward could talk and move his arms and legs slightly. The woman took his arm again, stating, "Alright, let's get you on this couch now."
She helped him stand temporarily and tried to make him plop as gently as possible against the floral sofa. Edward smiled weakly in gratitude. The elderly woman studied the boy, her face even more wrinkled from concern. "You know, I could have died tonight if you hadn't distracted that psycho," she murmured thoughtfully, grimly. "There must be something I can do in return, besides cleaning up a scratch."
Edward's face turned an embarrassed pink. He always resented asking others for help, but this was one of those times when help was necessary and he had to swallow his pride. He was, after all, stuck alone in a foreign, unfamiliar world. His voice came out slowly and with difficulty, like syrup pouring from a glass bottle. "I could really use a place to sleep tonight…" He trailed off, expecting refusal.
A myriad of emotions played across the elderly woman's face: surprise, fear, concern, and settled finally on empathy. She kindly took hold of his left hand. "Of course you can," she smiled softly at his surprised expression. "It's probably for the best anyway, since you're injured, and I don't think you'll let me take you to the hospital." Her eyes lingered his exposed auto-mail arm.
Edward didn't know what to say. He was touched by the woman's kindness in letting him stay and not freaking out about his prosthetic arm. He mumbled an uncharacteristically quiet thank you.
"There's nothing to thank me for…" she paused noticeably and then looked somewhat embarrassed. "Here I've been talking about my husband and life as a nurse, and you don't even know who I am. My name's Nancy. Call me June."
Edward frowned grumpily. Why did he always have to run into crazies? Nice, yes, but still crazy. "Call me Ed," he replied, playing off "June's" words.
June then introduced Edward to the orange-nosed cat, Pitty Sing, who sat constantly purring by his side. June shuffled once again out of the room to grab Ed a blanket and some clean clothes (remarking laughingly about Ed's smelling like garbage). Ed replied with a rude comment that made the old woman laugh.
Edward stood slowly, shakily and stretched, the stiffness caused by the unknown drug working its way out of his system. His head still throbbed and his eyelids felt like lead weights. He had had a real long day. He noticed sleepily that the window he had forced open was still broken. It wouldn't do to have another creep break in (he technically broke in too). He did a good impression of the old lady June's shuffle and stooped down to collect the broken shards of glass. He placed them on top of the windowsill and clapped his hands together as lightly as possible. In a bright flash of blue light, the window was whole again.
There was an awed gasp from behind him. "Ah, so you are one of them," she remarked in amazement. "I figured as much with an arm like yours."
He didn't know whether to be insulted by that comment or not, and he certainly had no clue who "them" was. "One of who?"
"Mutants." June mistook Edward's confused expression for fear. "Don't worry, I'm not against you as so many people are. You're just the same as anyone else, except with a few different abilities than normal."
Ed wasn't sure what a "mutant" was exactly (maybe they were like that "Spider-Menace in tights), but he gauged from what he had seen in the world so far that people must have disliked them quite a bit.
June handed Ed some clean clothes and a blanket for the sofa, instructed him to put his dirty pants and jacket in a basket already full of other clothes, and bid him goodnight. He gave her a feeble mock salute in reply. She paused before leaving the room, looking back at the exhausted young man. "You have an amazing gift," she stated quietly, then turning off the light.
Edward did as instructed and then wearily laid down on the old woman's sofa. Despite his aching head and body, he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pink, floral pillow; Pitty Sing curled up on his stomach.
AN: Yes I started this story in the point of view of a cat named Pitty Sing. It's weird. I know. On another note, if you actually read this story and can tell me in a review where Pitty Sings' name comes from, you will have an eternal supply of imaginary cookies and hugs (rubber duckies if you don't like hugs, whatever). So yeah, if you read this and want to read more (this chapter was really just setting things up for a later event), please have mercy and kindness and review. Just tell me what you think. I will reply personally to any reviews I get, even if you do just say "Update Soon."
Next Chapter: Punishment and Spiders
Thanks for (maybe) reading,
Gufetto