We decided to update with this chapter for two reasons:
1. We'd finished and wanted to post it anyway and...
2. Gosurori Otaku reviewed! Thank you so much! Mwah!
NB: Yoda is my sister's nickname. I'm sure George Lucas doesn't own her.
Pairings: Still undecided as of yet. Mwaha.
Spoilers: Whole series + Conqueror of Shamballa. Maybe some manga spoilers. You have been warned.
Here is chapter 1. Enjoy! Oh, and when finished: Please press that little blue button at the bottom left hand corner! It doesn't take much effort. Go on, you know you want to.
Chapter 1- Ebonee's point of view
There was a curious numbness inhabiting my limbs. Not that I minded, I suppose it was better than mind-blowing pain, but it was odd, and it made me want to investigate.
Then my mind back-pedalled and I was suddenly faced with the need to know what in the name of whatever god there is had happened.
It all came flooding back.
The convention, the toys I bought, the ice cream which had tasted really nice, all creamy and... no, off track. The ice cream and some random girl dressed up as Envy dragging Yoda off to draw a transmutation circle... Then the blue light... then... nothing.
That couldn't be right.
All laws of the universe denied the existence of a human transmutation actually taking place. Wait, scratch that: of any transmutation taking on our side of the Gate, at all. Not to mention alchemy, for God's sake. As Alfons what's-his-name had said to Ed in the movie, Newton's laws eclipsed alchemy, bringing in the modern age.
Perhaps it was just a trick some of the other fans had pulled on Anna, to make her feel bad- Wait, then why did I black out from that?
And where the hell did all this grass come from? I could feel it, tickling my back, poking into my ears. Since when did they have grass in Sydney's Entertainment Centre? I sure as heck didn't see any when I was wandering about.
Was that a dog barking?
I forced myself to open my eyes and tried to ignore the shot of pain it sent jolting through to the back of my head. My vision cleared and I could see blue sky peeking through swaying branches of a willow tree.
There weren't any willow trees near Darling Harbour!
Or blue sky, for that matter. It was usually blocked out by clouds or just overshadowing skyscrapers.
Something weird was going on. Maybe I was hallucinating.
With a rush, the feeling returned to all my limbs. And my right leg started to burn painfully. Well, painful enough for my vision to blur again.
And painful enough to make me believe that this was not a dream.
Maybe Mum was trying to wake me up using a toaster again...
Nope, definitely not toaster-burning. Toaster burning hurt more.
I could feel the grass, it was tickling my outstretched fingertips now. I tried pushing myself up using just the palms of my hands as leverage, but it wasn't enough. With a sigh, I sat up like I did everyday on the bench press then kept myself upright using a hand.
What I saw didn't exactly fill me with joyful thoughts as I looked down at my left leg. Or what was left of it.
Holy shit..
It was a wonder I had woken up at all with a wound that... catastrophic, the scientist in my head (which sounded a lot like Anna) told me knowingly. Midway down my thigh, my leg ceased to exist. Luckily the wound didn't bleed so much, it was like it had sealed itself off. The science-fiction-guru part of my mind (which, funnily enough, also sounded like Anna) immediately came to the conclusion that it had been a lightsaber that cut off my leg, as the laser had automatically evaporated any blood on-site.
This, of course, left me sceptical in regards to the placement of my sanity.
"You know, Chibi, I seem to have misplaced my hand." This comment was accompanied by an insane giggle. I swivelled around as best as I could under the circumstances and found my big sister sitting up and staring at the stump left at the end of her right wrist. Her black sleeve was rolled up to her elbow and the smile on her lips was rather vampiric.
"I've misplaced my leg," I agreed and gave in to a bout of hysterical laughter.
Yoda smiled lopsidedly. "I think I better figure out where we are, as you can't stand up." She was strangely more sober than she was only moments before. With a grunt she stood upright, weaving a little on her feet.
She took a few paces uphill then turned around and came back down again.
"I've come to a conclusion," she declared.
"What?"
"When I activated the circle, the Gate opened, decided the sight in my left eye, my hand and your leg were equivalent exchange for trying human transmutation, then threw us unceremoniously into Risembool."
I blinked up at her. "Risembool?"
Yoda nodded. "Risembool. Let's get you up. I'll carry the backpacks."
It was strange seeing Yoda hefting two backpacks onto her shoulders, then looking further down and seeing only a bloodied stump instead of a flesh hand. It was even more strange trying to walk using a weighted down Yoda, who was also blind in one eye, as a crutch. Painful too.
"Just twenty or so more metres," Yoda panted as we walked -well, I hopped- up the dirt driveway to a two-storey yellow-painted house bearing a sign saying, "Rockbell Automail" in bold letters.
"A few more... Thank God, if we had to walk further I would have had a heart attack." Yoda left me clinging to a white-painted hand rail at the bottom of a short staircase. She knocked on the door.
A blonde girl about a year older than me and wearing an apron, opened it. If I wasn't much mistaken, she was the girl I was currently dressed as. Winry Rockbell. Automail expert and mechanical genius.
"Hi, I'm Winry, what can I do- Oh my God Al get your metal butt in here!" Clanking quickly followed this order and I could see armour-bound Alphonse Elric standing behind Winry and staring down at my sister.
"What happened?!" his voice echoed slightly.
Yoda gestured vaguely behind herself, at me, before falling to the ground unconscious.
Winry bounded outside, nimbly stepped over my sister, leaving her for Alphonse to pick up, I guessed, and down the flight of stairs.
"We'll get you inside and bandage you and your little brother inside, okay?" she told me softly, looping an arm around my shoulders and steering me up the stairs, careful not to bump my leg. I nodded, muttering, "Thank you." It didn't occur to me that Yoda was once again being mistaken for my little brother.
"Grandma!" Winry hollered into the kitchen as she and I -I was still hopping- walked past. "We have two patients that need urgent attention." I could hear Alphonse clanking in behind us.
"Well, give them shots for infection and bandage them up, girl!" Pinako yelled back.
Winry led me into a small room, presumably a cosier type of operating room than that of a hospital's and sat me down on one of the beds.
Alphonse managed to squeeze through the door and gently laid a still-unconscious Yoda on the bed opposite. Winry shuffled past him, and started going though drawers, pulling out random pieces of gauze, syringes and small bottles. I must have looked worried because Winry chuckled and held up a bottle.
"These are for fighting infection. I'm not going to just pump you full of random drugs, girl." She frowned. "What's your name?"
"It's Ebonee but people call me Chibi and that's Anna. People call her Yoda."
I had the feeling Al was confused. "Isn't Anna a girl's name?"
I resisted the urge to laugh. "Yes. She's my big sister."
"I don't mean any offence to her, but she doesn't look that much like a girl..."
"It's cause I'm dressed up like you, master Alphonse," a croaky voice announced from Anna's bed. She sat up and rubbed her head with her still-attached hand.
"I beg your pardon? How d'you know my name?"
"I'm dressed like you are when you're thirteen." She shook her head. "Sorry, when your body is thirteen. And I know your name because I've read a good deal about you."
"Ah..." Both Alphonse and Winry looked beyond confused at this point.
"Anna, shut yer gob, you don't know what you're talking about," I hissed at her. She blinked at me. One of her dyed-green grey eyes was duller than the other, indicating where blindness had hit.
Winry raised a sceptical eyebrow at me. I shrugged and grimaced.
"I think Ed might want to hear about this..." Alphonse told Winry and she nodded in agreement. He turned to go out the door.
"Believe me," I said darkly. "He'll want to know badly."
