Still don't own FMA, but I'm still loving it!
It had been three weeks since Ed's visit with Fuhrer Grumman. In that time, Riza had rapidly progressed with her alchemy. Upon waking up in the clinic, the blond sniper had immediately sought out Edward to find out what had happened with her transmutation attempt. As expected, she had gotten a huge kick out of finding out that her first attempt had been a clip of bullets. Though it had saddened her a little when she found out that the bullets had been solid iron, and that she couldn't fire them.
Impressed with how Riza had created an iron compound out of a basic earth circle, Ed continually pushed her and, by extension, himself to master earth alchemy. After a week, Riza could endlessly transmute stone to iron with little effort. After two, she could manipulate the trace elements to create gunpowder. And now, after three weeks, she had successfully combined the two techniques to create her own, infinite supply of bullets. When Grumman read that particular report from Ed, he got a chastisement from his secretary for drinking on the job.
Riza had been a bit pissed with Edward when she found out about his weekly reports to her grandfather, but she had only wasted two clips of bullets on her 'target practice' before she realized that Ed likely had no choice in the matter and that Grumman was only trying to look out for her. It still didn't stop her from using a third clip on the Fuhrer.
At this point, Mustang still had no idea what his trusted right hand and his troublesome subordinate were doing together. He knew that the two had been spending a lot of time together, but Riza explained it away as Ed teaching her some of his hand to hand fighting skills, which was somewhat true. Following his teachings of a healthy body was crucial to alchemy, Ed had regular spars with Riza, who had begun incorporating Ed's moves into her fighting style.
With all the time that had passed, and with Riza's rapid progress with earth alchemy, Edward decided that it was finally time to begin researching the notes on her back.
"You know, you never did explain to me why I can't help you with those notes." Riza said, staring at her fellow blonde with undisguised boredom as Edward pored over a picture of the broken formula on Riza's back. The pair were currently located at the two-bedroom apartment that Ed lived in. The second bedroom, usually empty, was where the two had set up shop. Riza was sitting on the spare bed looking through a textbook while Ed had commandeered the desk for his research.
"I explained it to you a month ago." Edward said irritably. "Energy based transmutations are dangerous and should only be attempted by experienced alchemists! I mean, sure you're picking up the basics as fast as I did, but I also got overconfident and did things that I shouldn't have done." Edward's gaze briefly drifted to his artificial arm. "You've only been studying alchemy for a month Riza…" Edward said, his tone softer this time. "You're a genius, I won't deny it. If you had applied yourself to this when you were my age, you'd have been a name bigger than all the generals combined." Edward smirked a bit at that thought before his expression hardened and he turned to face to blonde sniper. "But you have to go slow! If you do this before you're ready, you can die. Or even worse, you can succeed. You'll just go on, mastering new heights. And then, when you finally fail, you'll crash and never get back up." Ed turned his eyes back to the picture, but it was clear his attention was somewhere else.
"…Who was it?" Riza asked after a minute of silence.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Ed asked, focusing his attention back on the here and now.
"Who do you know that failed like that." Riza said. "And don't give me an excuse. I know you far too well for that."
Ed looked at Riza before giving a tired sigh. "I guess there really is no fooling you, is there?" Edward paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts before answering. "Majhal. That was his name. He was a genius alchemist, could have gone state but he wanted to stay with his girlfriend. But there was an accident. He thought she died and went crazy trying to bring her back. Turns out she survived, but had amnesia. When she regained her memory and tried telling him who she was, he didn't believe her because he was so far gone."
"There's more to that story, isn't there?" Riza said softly, noting a pained look in Ed's eyes.
"…During the fight, Majhal created a sword to fight me with. I kicked it out of his hand and it ended up impaling him." Edward shifted his head, letting his long bangs cover his eyes.
"It wasn't your fault Edward." Riza said immediately, knowing full well of the blonde's guilt complex. "He was the one who started the fight and tried committing murder."
"He didn't try anything." Edward said. "He had at least three deaths on his hands that I'm aware of. All of them young women. He thought that transmuting their souls into dolls made to look like his girlfriend would somehow bring her back."
"Then that man was a monster who doesn't deserve your pity, much less your guilt." Riza said, getting up from the bed and walking over to Ed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Tell me, what happened after this Majhal died?"
"I… I rescued Clause, his latest victim. He was just about to transmute her soul when I barged in." Ed said, a bit of a spark returning to his eyes as he looked at Riza.
"Then see? By stopping Majhal, you managed to rescue a child's life." Riza said wisely, repeating a lesson that was taught to all green soldiers to handle how to kill.
"Yeah, you're right…" Ed said before focusing back on the picture still held in his hand, eager to escape from this particular topic. "But I think I found the basic formula for flame alchemy." Ed pointed to a line of runes at the bottom left of the picture.
"You know, you've told me why we haven't even begun trying to figure out the formula until now, but you've never told me why we need to decipher the runes that my father used." Riza said, tapping the picture. "The alchemic circle shown here is almost exactly the same as the one Roy uses. And in all actuality, I could just copy down Roy's circle for our own uses since I have that circle committed to memory from having seen it so many times."
Ed just smiled before standing up and beckoning for Riza to follow him. He led the confused sniper through the streets and to an empty park, all the while not uttering so much as a word. It was time to demonstrate to Riza why she shouldn't doubt him. Clapping his hands together, Ed created a small bunker and motioned for Riza to step inside, before walking a fair distance and drawing a circle on the grass using some ink that he had randomly pulled out of his pockets. He quickly drew what Riza, even at the distance between them, recognized as the transmutation circle drawn on Roy's gloves. Evidently, Ed had memorized the circle as well. With that completed, Ed seemed to concentrate for a moment before touching the edges of the circle. Almost instantly, a huge pillar of flame leapt shot into the air, the flames only constrained by the circle. The light created by the flame blinded anyone who looked at it, heating the air to an ungodly temperature.
Riza could only watch the dancing flame in horror, thinking that the flames had consumed Edward. "I never should have asked him to help me with flame alchemy!" Riza thought, tears in her eyes as the pillar began to die down. "Wait! Is that…?"
The light died down and after a few seconds of rapid blinking Riza was able to see again. Walking away from a patch of earth that looked like hell itself threw up on it was Edward Elric, a cocky grin on his face and looking remarkably fine.
"That…" Edward said as he came within hearing range. "Was me only trying to get a flame about a foot hig- Oof!" Edward was suddenly stopped by a teary-eyed blonde bashing him on the head before hugging him.
"If you ever do something that god-damned stupid without telling me first…" Riza began, shocking Ed since she almost never cursed. "…I will personally shoot you so full of lead that people will think that you're a statue!"
Ed hesitated a bit before returning the hug, comforting the blonde before speaking up. "Don't worry Riza. I just wanted to demonstrate to you why this alchemy was too dangerous to rush into. I promise that next time I'll tell you before I do something like that." Suddenly, a spark shot through Ed's brain before he paled. "But… Uh… We should probably get out of here and fast. Like, REALLY fast!"
"…Why?" Riza asked cautiously, wondering what Edward could have possibly done when Riza had been with him all day, the both of them having taken the day off to study.
"Because I just shot a pillar of flame a mile high into the air and that kind of thing gets noticed and investigated." Ed said, untangling himself from Riza before grabbing her arm and dragging her to the nearest entrance.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" A voice rang out through the park, stopping the two in their tracks. A shadowy figure walked up from the entrance the pair had been heading towards and walked up to them, revealing the deadly serious and extremely pissed-off expression of one Roy Mustang. "Now why don't one of you tell me just what the hell happened here?!"
Two updates in a month? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?! Anyways, this chapter's a little short but at least the story's progressing! Roy finally catches them in the act and he is NOT happy about it! This was also the first instance where I bring in events from the 2003 anime. Keep in mind that this fic will mostly take place in the mangaverse though. Also, I'm not really that good at emotional scenes since I'm just a heartless bastard so please feel free to tell me how I can make this chapter better since I wrote not one, but two emotional scenes in it. Flamers be warned... Well, actually there havn't BEEN any flamers yet. To be honest, I'm mildly dissappointed. But, on the bright side, I guess this means that I'm doing something right. Anyways, on to review responses!
darkpaladin89: Grumman didn't get promoted to Fuhrer by counting bottlecaps, now did he?
darklinks100: It will be Ed/Riza, but not in the way you think. I'm aiming for a brother/sister relationship with those two, not a romantic one.
ZakuroU: I didn't think that I needed to clarify this, but I suppose that I might as well. This fic WILL feature lightning alchemy eventually. It's a slow process though.
And finally, a new shoutout! In honor of the two reviews asking if this story was going to be Ed/Riza, I give you flaminghotalchemist! This author has written 8 FMA stories, including a trilogy based on a romantic relationship between Riza and Ed. Not everyone's cup of tea, but it had some pretty funny scenes. Until next time then!