So, this chapter was less pages. Still a bit lengthy, but not as long as the previous chapter. I'm not really gonna have an update schedule with this. I'll just kinda write when I can, and update when I've got something to update.
That being said, I hope you enjoyed last chapter. If you did, I would appreciate a review saying so, but that's optional. Whatever you do, I just hope you enjoy.
I hope I wasn't too harsh on Rose last chapter. I really do like her character, I just imagined that our golden trio might be a little less friendly towards her than they could've been, and I wanted to explore that. The earlier chapters are mostly going to be about character exploration, at least until the plot starts to kick up.
This story is going to eventually diverge from cannon, which seems obvious, since we've got one extra person in central focus, so it's not just Ed and Al driving the plot. I don't exactly know what will happen in the future, but I'll just have to wait and see as the story progresses. They'll still kick Father's ass in the end, no worries, but what will happen between now and then, I can't tell you. I'm just writing as I go.
Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. It belongs to our Goddess, Hiromu Arakawa, and I think it's best to leave it that way, because she is amazing.
And without further ado, on with the show!
Chapter 2: The Price of Life
If ever there was a song of pain, no object in existence could ever sing louder than the heavy work of automail that made up Edward Elric's right arm.
Three children, who thought their future would gleam gold, where thrown down into hell when they trespassed into God's domain. They where damaged and beaten, but they now had a new mission. They had to fix themselves. Put themselves back together. In order for Alphonse to have a human body again. In order for Winry to finally be able to do things herself again. In order for Edward to never have to hear the screaming song of pain again.
"I see," Cornello sneered at the children. "Now I understand who you are. It was always a mystery to me why a mere brat had a fearsome alias like 'Fullmetal', but now I know," Cornello laughed. "You fools dared to do the one thing forbidden to alchemist; the unspeakable crime of human transmutation," He smiled mockingly. "They've committed the worst possible sin!"
And suddenly Rose understood. How they flew to close to the sun. How their wings of wax melted, and how they crashed back down to earth. And she understood why they didn't believe that Cornello can raise the dead. And why he couldn't; not without consequences.
Shit. She thought bitterly. That was the only bit of hope I had…
"Alphonse! Winry! Hey guys!" Edward called out, running across the floor of the house.
Winry and Al peaked up from the books they where looking through in the Elric's father's basement, where he had kept his alchemical lab before he had left. "What is it, big brother?" Alphonse asked.
"Look!" Ed cried, showing his brother and best friend a scripture which held circle's and methods and footnotes scribbled across it. A perfect recipe for human transmutation. "We can't go wrong with this theory!"
"No way!" Al cried out excitedly.
"Is this it?" Winry asked enthusiastically.
"It is!" Edward cheered. "This says how to do it! We can bring our parents back from the dead!"
"We had no doubts about doing it," Alphonse told Rose, as the memories from that day played through his mind. Bitter memories of the mistake that cost them everything. "Our mother was so kind, the kindest person in the world. All we wanted was just to see our mother's smile again. And Winry, she lost both her parents, suddenly and tragically. She wanted a chance to see their faces, to talk to them again. We where going to do everything it took to make our wishes come true, even if it meant breaking the laws of alchemy. That was the only reason we were studying alchemy, after all…"
The three children had discussed theorems and methods, drawn the transmutation circle onto the floor with chalk, set up everything right, did everything perfectly. Not a single mistake was made— could afford to be made! It was all so exciting! They where going to see their parents again! No longer would they be alone!
"But the resurrection failed," Alphonse continued, the weight of sadness in his voice.
Black hands made from a strange sort of dust swirled around, collecting they're payment for the act. The ripped Edwards leg off, slowly ate away at Alphonse's body, disintegrating it, and they slipped into the skin of Winry's hands, stealing all of her precious nerve cells inside of it.
"When it failed," Alphonse recalled, "My brother lost his left leg, Winry lost the neurons in her hands, and I had my whole body taken. I lost conciseness for a while. The next thing I saw when I opened my eyes was this armor body, and a sea of blood.
Alphonse had woken up, his body feeling strange and wrong. He could move it, he knew that much, but nothing else registered. He felt empty - like a presence that was supposed to be there just wasn't. It didn't take long for him to figure out why.
He remembered crying out in shock and fear, but that was nothing compared to the next sight he saw. Slumped up limply against the wall was his brother and Winry. Ed's missing leg was sloppily covered with bandages, and Winry was holding him, pressing herself into his shoulder while crying, while blood stained her clothing. Alphonse quickly ran over to the duo, desperate to know what was happening. He was able to pull Winry off of Edward long enough to see that the thing she was desperately trying to cover was his missing arm, which was quickly loosing blood.
Winry screamed again, throwing body back onto the stump, desperate. "Please, don't!" She cried when Al tried to fight her off of his older brother, needing to confirm what he saw. Edward, the strongest boy he knew, couldn't have possibly lost his arm, could he? "I gotta save him!" Winry shrieked, large tears pouring out of her eyes, "He's gonna die!"
"I'll be ok, Win," Ed muttered quietly and slowly. "I'm just glad… you two are alright,"
"We need to get to Granny's!" Al declared, his voice cracking, as if he where going to cry. But he couldn't. He couldn't cry. That would require a body; something he did not have. "Big brother, what happened?" He asked desperately.
Edward released a weak laugh, muttering "Sorry," while his little body, all out of strength, slumped into Winry, who looked like she was barely holding onto consciousness herself. "All I could get for one amp was your soul," Edward continued.
It took a few moments for Alphonse to understand what Edward had meant, but all of a sudden it clicked. Those hands had only been eating at his brothers leg, after all. But the arm…
"Brother," Alphonse cried out in despair and disbelief. "Why?"
"Even after the horrible injury of losing his left leg," Al repented, "My older brother exchanged his right arm for my soul, and put it in this suit of armor,"
Edward let out a harsh laugh, "The three of us tried to resurrect one person, and this is what happened," Edward shook his head. "This is what it takes to raise the dead, Rose. ARE YOU READY TO MAKE THAT SACRIFICE!"
Rose flinched, shocked. This kind of sacrifice; why would it be like that? Was the world just that cruel?
Cornello simply laughed cruelly. "And you call yourself a State Alchemist!? Don't make me laugh!"
"Shut up!" Edward shouted back, bitter and angry. "You're just a third-rate hack who can't do anything without that stone!"
"I see, I see," Cornello mocked, "So that's why you want the philosophers stone. Good idea, if you used this, you might be able to transmute humans for real, eh?"
"Don't get the wrong idea, baldy!" Edward snapped. "The reason we want the stone is to get our original bodies back. Besides, we still don't know if it'll even be able to that,"
"Father, I'll ask you again," Alphonse requested softly. "Give us the stone before you get hurt,"
Cornello just laughed, as if they had told him the punchline to a good joke. "You fools are the one's who came too close to god and fell to Earth!" He shouted, his philosopher's stone lighting up with red sparks, as he touched his cane, transforming it. "If that's the care, then this time I'll make sure to send you to god permanently!" He declared, pointing his alchemically transformed cane, revealing it to be a machine gun. He let a stream of bullets shoot out, flying towards Edward, Alphonse, Winry, and Rose in streams. Al shielded Rose with his body, while Ed and Winry got engulfed in the dust.
But when the dust faded, he saw only a stone wall with bullet holes in it, Edward and Winry standing safe behind it.
"Sorry, god doesn't like me very much," Edward teased the false prophet. "Even if I went, he'd probably chase me away!"
Cornello scowled. "Why you!" He shouted out, aiming the gun at the group of kids once again, and letting the bullets fly at them again. Alphonse picked up Rose bridal style, using his armored body to shield her from the incoming bullets. Ed, meanwhile, hustled Winry in front of himself, and let his right arm drag behind himself for extra protection.
"Come on!" He shouted out at them, running towards the exit door. 'Let's get out of here!"
"Fools!" Cornello laughed. "The exit is rigged! Only I can open it from up here!"
"Is that so?" Edward said smugly, clapping his hands together, and throwing them onto an empty wall, creating a door of his own.
It was tinted with a reddish brown, while ornate details swirled around either side, with the center being a bull skull, it's horns creating door handles. It was an incredibly terrible style, but that's how Edwards taste have always been, since he was a small child.
"WHAT!?" Cornello screamed in shock, while the Elric crew and Rose escaped through the newly created door.
"If there's no door, then I'll make one!" Ed declared, the group of kids all running to freedom.
"Don't just stand there! Go after them!" Cornello demanded, running through the door that Edward had created. "They're pagans who want to destroy our religion! Get them! Hurry!"
Never before had Cornello been so glad to have had soundproof walls.
A line of guards blocked off the Elric crew from running down a hallway. They observed their opponents and laughed. A boy who looked like he was twelve, and a little girl. The suit of armor looked somewhat dangerous, but it's hands where full with one Rose Thompson, so they didn't really worry about him too much.
"They're they are!"
"Hey, you! Stop!"
"Hey, you little kids, are you gonna try to take us all on?"
"Might as well give yourselves up before you get hurt,"
Edward just laughed, clapping his hands together and pressed them to his forearm plate on his automail, transforming it into a full-on sword.
The guards screamed, and where treated to an onslaught of Edwards new weapon, the stone boxing gloves still on Winry's hands, and the powerful kicks of the suit of armor.
The men around the corner shuttered as they heard their buddies getting the crap beat out of them. "Er, um, they're strong!" One of the guards tried to pep talk. "Don't let your guard down just because they're kids!"
Just as he said this, the armored boy kicked him in the head, shouting out "'scuse us," as he went through.
The guard fell to the ground, thinking "that's not fair," before he lost consciousness.
As the kids ran through the hallway, Al had lost a bit of grip on Rose, and had transferred his hold to a single arm tucked around her waist. Edward had deconstructed the stone gloves on Winry's hands, and she pressed her arm onto the still-bleeding scratch she got from the fight with the chimera, once they noticed she was leaving a minuscule trail of the blood.
The kids ran past an open office, which Edward took enough interest in to stop himself in his tracks. "Huh, what's this?" He asked.
"The broadcasting room," Rose informed them. "This is where Father Cornello delivers his sermons over the radio,"
"Oh really," Edward hummed, a smile on his face as an idea popped into his head.
Al sighed. "Uh-oh, he's got a bad idea,"
Alphonse had taken Rose to the rough to help set up the plan, while Winry and Edward stayed in Cornello's office to work out they're part.
Edward had found a first aid kit in one of Cornello's drawers, and began to clean off Winry's scratch across her collar bone.
"Really, Ed," Winry assured him, "It's nothing. It just looks worse then it actually is,"
She was right, with the scratch being thin, but Edward carefully covered it with a strip of bandage anyways. "We can't just leave it open, though," Ed told her. "It might get infected,"
He let out a sigh, and settled onto Cornello's desk, while Winry leaned against it next to him. "Sorry for freaking you out," Winry apologized.
"Don't be," Ed told her. "I was the one who let the stupid cat sneak up on me. I never understood Al's appeal for those damn animals anyways,"
"Dogs will always be better than cats," Winry declared. Edward laughed, wholeheartedly agreeing with her.
Winry looked a bit melancholy. "I hate having to relive that day," Winry said sadly. "I honestly thought that you where going to die,"
Ed laughed. "You can't get rid of me that easily!" He joked. "Besides, you made an excellent human bandage,"
Winry smiled slightly. "At least it's almost over," Winry hummed. "We'll get that philosopher's stone, get our bodies back, then go home to granny's for a good old bowl of stew! And I'll be able to eat it all by myself without someone feeding me!" She cheered.
"That'll be great, wouldn't it!" Ed agreed. The two fell into a comfortable silence. "Say, Winry," Ed asked her. "What's the first thing you want to do when we get our bodies back?"
Winry hummed. "I guess all I really wanna do is hold my grandma's hands again," Winry said simply. "What about you, Ed?"
"Well, I'm probably gonna give Alphonse the biggest bear hug he's ever had," Ed laughed. "But other than that, I'm not sure,"
Winry just shrugged. "Well, we won't have to think about it for much longer if everything goes right. We'll get that philosopher's stone, and be good to go,"
"Al's probably gonna have to get used to being in a human body again," Ed contemplated. He paused for a moment, before suddenly perking up. "Hey, you know what I wanna do when we get our bodies back?" He said.
"What?" Winry prompted her friend, encouraging Edward to continue.
"I want us to all go on a bike-ride around Resembool," He told her. "You, me, Al, granny, and we can cart Den with us in a wagon or something,"
Winry giggled. "That's the best idea ever!" She declared. "Al would probably love it!"
"He sure would!" Ed laughed. "Now we just have to figure out where the hell we're gonna get that many bikes in Resembool of all places,"
It was only a few minutes past six o'clock, and the church bell was supposed to be chimed. The man who was supposed to chime it was at a loss for what was going on, telling himself, "there's a lot of noise down there today, isn't there?", looking up into the bell tower, just not understanding what was going on.
His name was Joshua. He was Delilahs older brother, and had a small rivalry with her, due to volunteer work.
The two siblings volunteered at the church at the same time, but Delilah got the better jobs. She was Cornello's personal assistant. She did his secretary work, ran errands for him, collected donations during services, and was overall kept so busy that she had to skip work. Joshua on the other hand, was only given one job; ring the goddamn bell at six o'clock. And currently, he couldn't even do that job.
"Hey, what are you doing!?" Snapped one of his fellow volunteers; Matt, his best friend. "It's way past the time when you're supposed to ring the bell!"
Matt was slightly exaggerating. It was only less than five minutes past the time, but the bell-ringing was still an important job, that Joshua wasn't supposed to mess up. "The bell," Joshua attempted to explain in mild shock.
"Huh?" Matt questioned, looking at Joshua's dumbfounded face.
"The bell's gone," Joshua explained.
Matt took a minute to let that register in his head. "Say WHAT!?" He then exclaimed in shock.
"Oh no," Joshua cried. "Father Cornello's gonna fire us! And I'll never be able to prove that I'm a competent big brother to Delilah!"
"Calm down!" Matt snapped. "He won't fire us if he doesn't find out. Just say you took a sick day, and I'll blame Harold from downstairs,"
"But Harold doesn't deserve to get fired!" Joshua protested. "He's trying to get his dead wife back! If he get's fired Leto will never grant him his wish!"
"Fine! Then we'll blame Reggie," Matt relented. "The guy's a no-good slacker anyways,"
Alphonse, meanwhile, carried the stolen bell down to a deck on the tower, placing it onto the floor and grabbing some chalk, ready to set up the transmutation for the next phase of his brother's plan.
"About what you were saying before," Rose said sadly. "i can't believe you have to do all that to perform Alchemy,"
"I told you," Al replied, "the foundation of Alchemy is the Equivalent Exchange," He drew a transmutation circle around the bell, the white powder etching onto the pavement. "To obtain something, something of equal value must be lost," Al told Rose. "People call my brother a genius, but the reason he's so good at it is he paid the price, and worked so hard.
"But, because you sacrificed so much, you must have been able to bring back your mother!" Rose cried, grasping on loos straws, holding onto something - anything - that could possibly give her some hope, that maybe - just maybe - if she gave up enough, she'd be able to bring her lover back to life. But Alphonse just shook his head.
"The thing we brought back wasn't even human anymore,"
And Rose felt the weight crush her. Alphonse had felt it to, when he had sat in the hollow suit for the first time, while Winry desperately clung to Edward, hoping to keep him from bleeding out.
"No!" Alphonse cried. "How did this happen!? Big brother, your theory was flawless!"
"Yeah," Edward agreed, his voice small and haunting, barely audible over Winry's loud sobs. "There weren't any mistakes in the theory,
"We were the ones… who made the mistake,"
"We've given up on transmuting humans," Alphonse told the older girl. "But my brother and Winry still want me to get my original body back. I want to make their bodies the way they where too," Alphonse finished the circle with a fluid white line. "But like I said before, the risk are high, so we might end up even worse, or lose our lives. That's the way things are in this business,"
Al finally stood up from his finished circle, looking Rose directly in the eye. Edward and Winry where plagued by nightmares of that day. They suffered pain, threw themselves headfirst into hardship, walked through hell and continued to walk through it. But they did it for him, and for each other. And Alphonse would forever do the same for them.
But they could've avoided it! They could've simply heeded the warnings, considered the consequences, just have been a little less arrogant. But they didn't. And they hurt themselves because of it.
The pain of letting go of a loved one was difficult to endure. But by god, was it much better for everyone to just endure that pain, and not try to do the impossible.
"Rose," Alphonse finally said, taking in the older girl. The grieving girl who couldn't think of a life without the boy she lost. But she didn't see, she didn't know, how sad it would make the town of Lior, the entire town that had collectively adopted her after her family died, to see her go through the kind of pain she would go through if she committed the taboo. "That's why you can't choose this path,"
Cornello rushed around the the church halls, looking for the Elric crew. He had been following a trail of Winry's spilled blood from the chimera fight, but had long since lost it.
It was around seven thirty. The townspeople would be tuning into their broadcast right about now. To bad they where going to just have to wait.
Cornello finally found Edward and Winry sitting in the broadcast room. Edward was still only wearing half his shirt, since his coat was long-since forgotten in the battle against the chimera. Winry had her jacket off, and it sat on the desk. Her wound was covered with a bandage strip that looked like it had come from Cornello's medical box.
Those jackasses! He thought. First they try to ruin my plans, and now they steal from my first-aid box! He looked over to his table where his now-cold tea still sat, and the novel he was reading laid on the chair. At least they didn't touch my book.
"You little brats!" He shouted at the two kids, wheezing. "You're no getting away!"
"Just give up, will you?" Ed groaned out, feeling 100% done with Cornello's shit. He just wanted to grab the stone, and go home. He needed a bath anyways. The wether in Lior had produced an entire buckets-worth of sweat on his body. "News of your trickery will spread throughout the town in no time, anyways,"
"Shut up!" Cornello shouted. "Everyone within the church is under my direct control! They'd never believe a stupid follower if she contradicted me!" He declared.
"You sure about that?" Winry asked. "I mean, the entire town loves Rose, once they find out that you tried to kill her, they won't be happy,"
"So what!?" Cornello snapped. "Those fools all lay in the palm of my hands; I can tell them anything! I can do anything, in fact! I'll just kill the bitch before she can say anything, and blame her death on you!"
"No, that's not a way to treat your loyal followers," Ed berated the man. "I feel sorry for them; they care about you so much, yet you care about them so little!"
"Followers are just pawns to use for war!" Cornello snapped. "I don't have the to be sorry for mere pawns! If I ask them to, they'll die happy and fulfilled, believing that they did it for god! I'll mass-produce them! Limitless fanatics, from the masses of idiots who can't even tell alchemy from miracles!" Cornello once again started to do his villain laugh. Winry and Edward exchanged disbelieving looks. He was so lame! And he would be their final villain too before they would be able to get their hands on the philosophers stone. Why couldn't he be cool? "Did you think that you two could stop my plans so easily!?" Cornello shouted, making his audience nearly roll their eyes in disbelief that he was still continuing to monologue. "You underestimated the power of blind faith!"
Edward and Winry couldn't take it anymore. They burst into laughter. Ed hunched over, his ribs beginning to ache, but he couldn't stop. Winry was practically rolling on the floor, tears of mirth streaming from her eyes. It was just so goddamn funny how idiotic their opponent, their Bad Guy, was.
"What's so funny!?" Cornello shouted, unhappy that he was being mocked.
"That's why I keep saying your a third-rate, baldy!" Edward laughed.
Cornello continued to grimace as he watched them continue to laugh at him. This boy was so ridiculously small he looked at least three-quarters of his age! This girl was a stupid teen, who should be worrying about her makeup and shit, not doing whatever the hell she was doing! It was absolutely humiliating to watch these kids laugh at him! "You dare insult me, you little brats!" He shouted at them.
However, Edward held up a switch. "Know what this is?" He almost sang.
Cornello looked down at the floor and noticed a microphone at his feet. He observed the switch that Edward was holding, which was currently on. It was only a few minutes past 7:30, broadcast time. It suddenly clicked into his head what those kids had done.
"YOU LITTLE SHITS!" He shouted out at them, for all the town to hear. His confession was heard all over the radio, and for whoever happened to not be close enough to one (which was kinda impossible, since the town had radio's just about everywhere, but one couldn't be too careful), they would here it from Alphonse's bell, which he had transmuted into a megaphone.
Everyone heard it. A twelve-year-old girl was left frozen in her tracks, while her grandmother, who she was giving food to, sat open mouthed in her chair, as the two heard the reveal from their home. The guards who worked for Cornello heard it all throughout the church, suddenly rethinking their lives. The shopkeep was pouring a man some coffee when he heard the message, and had accidentally let the cup overflow as he continued to pour, eyes wide with shock. Catherine merely groaned, the effects of the champaign wearing off into a hangover, while she tried to reach for a glass of water that the shopkeep was about to give her, but had left it too far away from her hands to grab. The people in the streets looked up towards the church, Delilah frozen in her place, feeling shocked that Cornello was not only lying to the town but also planned to kill her roommate and accuse children of doing so in order to cover up the lie. Even the dog, who was standing not to far away from Delilah, near her owners feet, looked as if it was shocked by the reveal. It was everywhere. The town heard it. The town knew. Cornello's plan had officially failed.
"How long has that switch been on!" Cornello shouted, his voice coming in through the radio's everywhere.
"From the very beginning," Edward said joyously. "You just exposed your entire plan,"
"Even if your able to lie your way out of this one," Winry hummed smoothly, "I'm pretty sure that some of those words you said would not be forgotten,"
"Wha!?" Cornello cried out in shock. "Wha!? What!?" Veins busted out on his forehead as he reveled in his anger and annoyance. "You stupid brats! I'm going to kill you!"
He attempted to turn his cane into a machine gun like he had done earlier, but Edward and Winry where quicker. Edward transmuted his arm into a blade, while Winry morphed the desk into a wooden hammer over one of her hands. "Too slow!" Edward cried smugly, cutting the entire gun in half before it can be finished. "Didn't I tell you?! There's no comparison between us!"
"I won't…" Cornello muttered, before shouting, "I won't give up! As long as I have this stone I can make miracles again and again!" He shouted, while the broken gun blared out in red light, sparks almost exploding from it. Edward stepped back from the dangerous transmutation, throwing a protective arm in front of Winry to make sure she did the same.
Cornello suddenly screamed in shock and pain, as the stone rebounded, morphing his arm into something grotesque, while skin and flesh mixed savagely with the machine that was supposed to become Cornello's gun. It looked morphed and disfigured, like something from a horror movie.
"My arm! My arm!" Cornello cried out, "It hurts!"
Edward and Winry starred at the freaky spectacle with shock and distress. "Why…" Edward pushed out, horrified. "Why did it…"
He suddenly slammed his head against Cornello's, grabbing the man by the shirt. "SHUT UP!" He cried. "IT WAS JUST A REBOUND! DON'T MAKE A BIG DEAL OVER ONE OR TWO ARMS!"
"Edward! Stop!" Winry called out, her body shaking. "The stone! It shouldn't rebound!"
Edward ignored her. "The stone!" He shouted. "Let me see the philosophers stone!"
"Argue, my stone!" Cornello forced out, his voice strained, as suddenly the thing lost it's bright red hue.
The stone cracked, falling out of it's spot in the ring. It hit the ground in fragments, and tinkled away into dust, before simply ceasing to exist at all.
Edward and Winry looked at the sight they had just seen. "It broke?" Ed questioned. "How could this happen?! How could a 'pure substance' like the philosophers stone break apart!"
"I don't know, I don't know anything!" Cornello insisted, "Nobody told me a thing! Please, spare me. I was wrong!"
"It's a fake?" Ed muttered out, disappointment hitting his heart with the force of a bullet.
"I'm powerless without the stone! Help me!" Cornello continued to blabber, but Edward wasn't listening. He slowly walked away from Cornello.
"After coming this far, I thought we could finally go back to normal, and it's a fake!"
Edward fell to his knee's in gloom. They had come so far! So far! This wasn't fair! They really thought that they were gonna do it, gonna go back to normal! Al was supposed to pet Den! Winry was supposed to hold her grandmother's hand! They where all supposed to go on a bike-ride together! Go to college! Quite the military! Live a normal life, free from the nightmares! They where finally going to get out of that hell! But no. It had to skirt them. Had to throw them for a loop. Bring them right back to square one. It was like a punch to the gut.
Winry stood at the leftovers of Cornello's desk, her hand still covered with the wooden hammer. She looked just as dead inside as Edward did. "It's a fake," She muttered to herself, reeling from the destroyed hope she had. "Of corse it's a fake," She said in a near deadpan. "Why wouldn't it be? Just another thing to ruin our lives; the possibility of breaking the fake philosophers stone,"
Cornello smirked, looking at the two teens. They weren't paying an inch of attention to him. He laughed internally. They're not paying attention to me! I'll get even with them even if it means giving everything to kill these two kids! He was about to run after them, but much to his dismay, Winry had taken notice of him.
"DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO KILL US AFTER ALL YOU PUT US THROUGH!" She snapped, boxing him in the head with her hammer hand. He fell to the floor unconscious.
Winry then let out a scream. "Not fair!" She shouted, stomping her feet. She knew she was acting like a child having a temper-tantrum, but she didn't care. She just felt disappointed, shattered, and foolish for even thinking that this mission would be the one. After three years of false leads, she thought she would know better.
"What the hell," Edward muttered. "This world loves to think of new ways of screwing us over, doesn't it?" Ed choked out. He then stood up. "We should probably go. We need to find Catherine and leave before the disgruntled townspeople start to riot,"
He clapped his hands together, and dissolved the hammer that Winry had made for herself. She let out a sigh, hanging her head in disappointment. Edward frowned. The disappointment of a false lead was bad enough, but seeing the defeated look on Winry's face just made it worse.
He reached up and gave her a pat on the head, causing some of the bangs she had pinned back to fall over into her face. "Don't give me that look, Win," Ed demanded, putting on a smile for her. "We'll figure out a way to get back to normal soon! Just you wait!"
Winry slowly nodded, rubbing her eyes with her arm, even though she hadn't been crying, despite feeling very close to. If Edward was honest, he wanted to cry right then and there as well, but he refused to do it. If Alphonse couldn't cry, then he wouldn't either.
The two kids met up with Alphonse outside the church. Al could already tell by the sad looks on their face that the lead they had hunted down turned up dry, but he needed to hear them say it anyways. They slowly explained what happened to Alphonse, who sat there in disbelief the entire time, feeling hopeless.
"It's a fake?" He almost laughed. Of corse it was! Why wouldn't it be!?
"Yeah, it was all a waste of time," Edward confirmed, trying to transform his despair into simple annoyance. That emotion he could deal with. That emotion didn't weigh on his soul and remind him of how much he failed. "Just when I thought we were finally boing to be able to get your old body back,"
"We need to worry about you two first," Alphonse insisted. "Winry can't live properly in her condition, and automail has a lot of problems,"
"Well it doesn't matter who we worry about first now," Winry spat out, angrily. "Cause apparently the world just loves to screw us over,"
"We'll be fine," Ed told her, standing up and wiping the dust off his pants. "We'll just look someplace else. We've got to find it eventually,"
"But…" Came a meek voice. The trio looked over to see Rose, sitting in the dust on her knees. They had almost forgotten she was there. "This can't be…" She whispered. "What am I gonna do? He's never coming back!"
Edward sighed. "You've got a lot of people in this town that care about you, Rose," He told her. "You should go to them,"
"But," Rose cried, tears dripping from her eyes. "I loved him! He can't be gone! He was supposed to come back to life!"
"The dead stay dead, Rose," Winry told her calmly. "I hate it too, but that's the way it is,"
"But what do I do!" Rose cried. "That hope was all I had, what am I supposed to believe in now!?" The nineteen-year-old shouted in despair. This reality. This cruel, harsh reality. She didn't want this! She loved him so much! She needed him! He was her whole world! He couldn't have just been taken away from her like that! "Are you going to tell me?" She asked them desperately. "Well, are you!?"
"You need to figure that out on your own," Edward told her softly. The words seeped right through her body and into her soul, ringing loudly. "Stand up and walk," Edward told her. "Keep going forward. At least you have strong legs to take you there,"
The three of them walked away, while Rose continued to cry. But she would listen to them. And she would figure out how to move forwards. She would do this because she had to. And she had to because she was human.
The children picked up Catherine, and hopped on the earliest train they could that would take them out of the city. They felt crushed, but they wouldn't dwell on it. They were used to the foul taste of disappointment, and they would move forwards. They would keep moving until they finally reached their goal. It was what they would do. And nothing would stop them.
The townspeople charged the front of the church, all shouting angrily, demanding that Cornello come out and face them. They where angry for his lies, angry for the false hope that he had given them, and angry that he was planning to use them as cannon fodder. His lies, his words, his thievery. How can someone who had given them such hope turn out to be a man like that!?
Cornello wondered though his church, his disfigured arm still throbbing with pain, and his head ached from where Winry had hit him. He wished he had the foresight grab an ice pack, but his chance to get his hands on it was up. He simply contented himself with lumbering back to his room, homing to make a new plan; salvage something, anything, from the pieces that the Elric crew had destroyed.
"Damn it!" He murmured, bursting in through his door. "I can't believe that runt ruined my plans! I won't allow it!" He declared, walking past the chimera, which was dead, with it's skin torn off it's bones, revealing the poor creatures rib cage. Cornello could've swore that the beast was alive the last time he saw it. "I've invested too much in this to let it fall apart,"
"Really, you where so close, and now everything's ruined," Said a voice from the room.
The voice was alluring and dangerous, with a sharp edge. It belonged to a woman who was currently stationed in the room.
She was beautiful and sexy. She had curves like nobody else, and large breast and hips that one couldn't help but stare at. Her raven-colored hair was long and curly, falling over her beautiful, pale face. Her eyes where garnet red, sitting in eye-catching orbs. Her thin but plump lips where covered in a dark red stain, which was the same color as a tattoo that sat at the center of her chest. She was clothed in a long black dress, which was strapless, and hugged both her curves and her breast. Black boots covered her feet, while a pair of black gloves sat atop her shoulders, dropping down and over her hands. She was beautiful, and dangerous.
She was leaning up against a large man. He was extremely fat, with legs that looked as if they couldn't possibly carry that much weight, extremely long arms, which also held a large amount of flesh on them, and a head that seemed to grow up from his body without any sort of neck. His eyes where like little white circles glued onto his face, and his cheeks blended into his smooth, hairless head. He was chewing on the leg of the dead chimera. So that's what happened to it.
"Long time no see," The woman greeted the false priest. "Wish it was longer. You've caused a lot of trouble, your holiness,"
"What is the meaning of this!?" Cornello shouted at his providers. "The philosopher's stone that you gave me broke into pieces! How dare you give me a fake!"
"Please," The woman mocked, looking board with his very presence. "Did you think we would hand over the real thing to a person like you?"
"You— You said that I would be able to take over this country by using this stone!" Cornello cried, angry that he had gotten screwed over.
"Hmmm," The woman hummed, her voice holding a seductive tune to it. "I did say something like that, didn't I?" She continued, as if she had forgotten. "All we wanted was for you to cause a little bit of chaos in this region. That's all," She informed him.
Cornello looked shocked. They used him?! Him!?
"What?" The woman laughed. "You look surprised. Did you really think that a third-rate despot like yourself could become the ruler of a country?!" Lust began to bust out in giggles. "You're really too much!" She cried.
"Hey, Lust, can I eat this old guy?" Asked the fat man. His voice was somewhat childish, as if he where some sort of toddler trapped inside the body of a man. "Can I?" He asked excitedly.
"No, no, Gluttony," The woman, Lust, refused her partners odd request. "You're going to get a stomach ache if you eat the likes of him! If you eat this third-rate, no, this forth-rate fool—"
Before Lust could continue, Cornello shouted out, "Your making me! You and everybody else!" as he went in to attack her.
Lust sighed, annoyed. Who did he think he was?
A simple extension of her fingers, and Lust created a hole through the mans head. Cornello didn't even have time to think any last thoughts. He was just gone.
"You, are no longer of any use," Lust said with a smile, contracting her fingers back to normal size, as Cornello's dead body fell to the floor, blood pooling out of the fatal stab wound. "Awww," Lust pouted, "And just when things were starting to go so well! Father will be furious,"
Gluttony wondered over to the dead man, who was still twitching. He pulled him up by his clothes, as blood continued to spill out from his head. Gluttony felt his craving for human flesh burn inside his stomach, the ever-consuming portal inside it lusting for more. He needed to eat. He needed to eat whatever he could get his hands onto! He needed to eat this man.
"So, what should our next plan be?" Lust asked her partner, only to find that, much to her dismay, he had sunk his teeth into the dead man's flesh, despite her orders. "Hey, I thought I told you not to eat that,"
And, done! I hope you guys enjoyed the read. I definitely enjoyed writing this! Tell me what you thought in a review! And if you have some thought about what could possibly happen in the future of this fic, feel free to tell me about them. Depending on how the story goes, you might see your predictions show up later.
With that said, I'm really happy to be writing for FMA again. Words cannot describe how wonderful that series makes me feel, and how great of an impact it has had on me. I gotta say, Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the only stories I came across that ever made me glad to be human! This story made me grateful for the fact that I'm alive, and it serves as a constant reminder that I've got people in this world who care about me. In other words, I love it to no end, and I love writing fanfiction for it; especially fanfiction that requires me to read the manga again.
I hope you guys enjoyed. Leave a review. A good note, constructive criticism, whatever, just tell me things! Whatever enjoyment you found from this fic I would like to know about.
~MotherUniverse signing out!