(loud thumping noises can be heard from the closet)
Ithil and LNF: (share looks of disbelief)
Wandering Hitokiri: (looks sheepish)
LNF: You still have Sano looked in there?
Wandering Hitokiri: Yeah...
Ithil: Even with finals?
Wandering Hitokiri: Yes, okay? I'm clingy!
Ed: (mutters) That's an understatement...
Wandering Hitokiri: Do you want to repeat that, small fry?
(LNF and Ithil sigh as the two start fighting again)
Al: (shakes his head) LNF and Wandering Hitokiri don't own FMA or Sano-.
Wandering Hitokiri: (pokes her head out of the cloud of dust she and Ed have formed) You speak blasphemy.
LNF: Ignore her.
Al: (speaks over all of them) But they do own Taylor, Crystal, and their families!
Chapter Seven
A.k.a. Arguments, break-ins, and allergies, oh my!
The odd looking group walked down the streets of Central, though not without gaining many curious looks. Ed made a point to glare at anyone whose eyes stayed on them for too long, while Crystal hovered anxiously beside Al, keeping a close eye on Taylor. The fifteen-year-old watched this in amusement, then finally said, "Crystal, relax. I'm not going to drop her."
"I'm not worried about that! I'm worried that she'll get even worse!" Crystal couldn't help wailing. "I'm already on Cal's death wish list, and I don't want to go further up it!"
Ed snorted. "Her brother can't be that tough!"
"He's as big as her dad, and he was the state champion in wrestling in high school. Not to mention he played and continues to play football in college." Crystal said. "I think he could stop a rampaging bull if he put his mind to it." Both of the brothers sweat dropped. The brunette tilted her head to the side and added, "Actually, Cal is like a strange combo of Armstrong and Sig."
"You know Sig?" Al said, stunned.
"The same way I knew you and Ed before today." Crystal explained.
Ed grumbled something under his breath that sounded something like "freaky stalking girl". The tall girl glared at him. "Do you want to repeat that so I can hear you?" she growled, practically towering over him.
"Hey, back off, you freakin' giant!" he snapped.
"She must have drunk her milk, brother." Al couldn't help teasing.
Ed, as per usual, went into a rage, "MILK! MILK IS THE MOST DISGUSTING PRODUCT EVER! I WON'T EVER DRINK IT! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT IT MAKING YOU GROW-"
"It didn't make Crystal grow, either." Taylor's sleepy comment made Ed pause and Al look at the redhead in his arms curiously while Crystal averted her gaze, blushing. Muddled green eyes closed again as she explained, "The entire Schraff family is lactose intolerant."
"Lactose what?" Ed asked, baffled.
"I'm allergic to milk." Crystal muttered. As the brothers stared at her and Taylor drifted back to sleep, she continued to say in an embarrassed manner, "I can't touch any kind of dairy product either, except yogurt. We keep soy milk and orange juice for breakfast in the fridge cause of that." Now the brunette rolled her eyes. "Taylor doesn't complain, 'cause she drinks that stuff anyway. My brothers hate the taste of plain soy milk, so occasionally my mom will buy the chocolate kind, but usually they just stick to the orange juice."
Al asked, "What about cheeses?"
Crystal shook her head. "Can't go near them, either. Ruins sandwiches, but meh."
"Butter?"
"Nope."
Ed stared at Crystal for a few moments before he pulled a face.
"That sucks. How the heck do you eat toast then?"
"With jam, dummy."
"I'm not a dummy!" Ed growled angrily, and Crystal stuck her tongue out at him in response.
"You sure act like it sometimes," she retorted. Ed clenched both of his hands into fists as he glared at the taller girl, his golden eyes narrowed dangerously. Al let out an exasperated sigh as he shook his head.
"Brother, calm down," he muttered, and Crystal proceeded to pull a face at the State Alchemist as he glowered at her. "Crystal, stop antagonizing him."
"Yes 'Dad'," Crystal muttered sarcastically under her breath as she rolled her eyes, and Ed immediately swatted her upside the head with his automail hand the moment Al turned his back to them.
Al sighed and muttered to the still sleeping Taylor, "It's like dealing with five-year-olds."
Six blocks, four arguments between Crystal and Ed, two of which woke Taylor up enough that she gave them "killer glares of doom", which hushed them for awhile, later, they had finally arrived at the small house the Elric brothers rented.
"Ah, it's good to be home!" Ed said as he opened the door, only to freeze, his jaw dropping.
"Brother, what's wrong?" Al asked, only to look for himself and stare in horror. Crystal peaked around the armor curiously and wrinkled her nose at what she saw.
The entire place had been ransacked.The couch cushions had been ripped open with some kind of knife, the books that were once on the bookshelf were now all over the floor, papers were everywhere, wooden furniture was overturned... In short, it was a mess.
Crystal joked weakly, "Who did you all piss off?" Edward snarled and threw the bags he still carried at her. She caught them with a loud "Oof!", barely managing not to get herself knocked over. Al gave him a pointed look, but didn't say anything this time.
Carefully, the suit of armor righted the couch as best he could and set the redhead down on it.Ed was looking at the mess carefully, trying to find a rhyme or reason as to all the mass destruction.Crystal stood by uneasily, wondering how she could help, when Taylor suddenly woke up with a loud sneeze that echoed through out the room. The brothers both jumped a mile high, then whirled around and stared. The tall brunette, used to the large sneezes from her small friend, just looked at her curiously as the sneezing continued on.
"You all don't have a cat, do you?" Crystal finally questioned as Taylor's sneezing came to a brief stop.
"No, not unless..." Ed turned and gave Al a pointed glare. The suit of armor quickly held up his hands defensive and shook his head.
"Well, then why am I sneezing?" Taylor snapped, sniffing.
"Cause you have a cold?" Edward leered, only to have a nearby book get thrown at his head. He barely managed to avoid it. "What does a cat have to do with you sneezing?" he grumbled, only to pause as the almost audible click of him figuring it out happened. "Oh sheesh, you're allergic to cats?"
"They make me sneeze like... like... ACHOO!" Yet another violently loud sneeze came from the little dancer. "Like no other..." she finally managed to mumble as everyone else tried to calm their racing hearts.
"Maybe this was caused by cat burglar, quite literally?" Crystal suggested, only to have a book thrown her way this time.
"Not funny, Crys…" Taylor sniffed as she wiped her sleeve across her now-running nose. "Aw crap, now my nose is getting all drippy."
Ed arched an eyebrow as he looked at Al over his shoulder. "You're sure that there's not a cat in here, Al?"
"No Brother, not unless one snuck in," the fifteen-year old admitted.
"Oh, I didn't think about that," the teenage alchemist admitted. Crystal sighed and shook her head as she knelt down and started gathering up stray papers, stacking them into neat piles before setting them down on a small footstool.
"And they call you a child prodigy," she muttered sarcastically under her breath as she took a peek at the scrawled notes and diagrams covering the pages that she was picking up. "Hey Ed, did you write all these?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"Your handwriting sucks."
Crystal was forced to duck behind a toppled chair as both Ed and Taylor flung books at her, both for exactly the same reasons.
"Shut up!" Ed spat angrily. "I can't help it if I have to write with my left hand!"
"Don't even go there, Crystal ! My handwriting stinks too!" Taylor snapped.
"Agh! Alright, geez, I'm sorry, okay?"
Taylor arched an eyebrow skeptically, but was interrupted from giving her friend a death glare by the sneezing fit that hit her. Once it finally subsided again, she shook her head and made a funny face, which resulted in Crystal laughing. Some of the visible tension in the room faded as the Elric brothers started to straighten up their house, with some help from Crystal.
When Crystal, being the poor fool that she is, opened the cabinets of the kitchen, and then the fridge, before she blanched.The state of affairs would have put a college boys' dorm to shame. "When was the last time you were home, again?"
"A week, give or take a few days." Ed answered absentmindedly.
"So this place could have been a mess like this for a week, and you wouldn't have known?" Crystal said, obviously in disbelief.
Al explained, "We take everything of real importance with us when we travel. Everything that's left here is easily fixed or replaced."
"Does everyone know you travel often?" Taylor asked suddenly. As the side effects of her cold medicine faded, she was able to think more clearly, and she wasn't liking what she found.
Ed, however, just stared at her like she was nuts. "Why would anyone care how often we traveled?" He then glared at Crystal. "Besides freaks like her, anyway."
Even as Crystal sputtered indignantly, Taylor said thoughtfully, "Because it would give them a chance to look for something specific. Is anything missing? Any kind of note, or other piece of information?"
"Not that I noticed."
Crystal quickly caught on to what her friend was thinking. "You think that somehow that psychopath from woods is from Amestris, needed sacrifices for whatever he was doing, so he came to our world and stumbled upon us?"
"Close to it, though I may be wrong. After all, he obviously didn't need human sacrifices or he would have been tracking down humans rather than stray pets, which is why I think he came here fairly recently. He probably had cat hair all over him from..." Taylor's voice drifted off as she shivered at the memory of the stone alter in the middle of the woods.
The Elric brothers looked between the two, until Crystal said in uncharacteristic seriousness, "He wanted to do something that wasn't allowed here. He needed to perform the actual transmutation where the military wouldn't chance upon it, so he got clever and came to our world. How he got there was by something here in the house."
"Not quite. I think what he wanted to do was here in the house. He was trying to summon a specific thing, remember? I can't recall the name. You know all this random stuff about the Elrics, Crys. What have the encountered that makes this madman think they can help him?" Taylor questioned.
"Recently, they ran into a guy using a false Philosopher's Stone." Crystal pointed out. "Then there's the homunculi. Not to mention the Ishbal thing..."
"Can you quit talking like we're not here?" Ed grumbled. The two friends whipped their head around to look at him, having gotten so drawn into their conversation they forgot who else was there, a fairly common occurrence with them.
"Whoops, sorry about that," Taylor muttered sheepishly as she rubbed the back of her head. Ed rolled his eyes as he straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest, fixing both girls with an intense look.
"Okay, I think you two owe us some answers, and I want 'em now," he stated seriously, golden eyes narrowed dangerously. "You two show up out of nowhere while we're fighting Envy, show us a bunch of weird technology, have detailed knowledge about our personal lives, and talk about Amestris like you've never been here. So what I want to know is what the hell is going on?!!"
Taylor looked at the blonde for a few moments before she blinked and pointed a finger at Crystal. "Umm… half of what you just said applies to her, not me."
"I don't care!" Ed snapped. "What I want is a straight answer, and I want it now!!"
Taylor looked over at Crystal before an evil smirk crossed her face and she patted her friend on the shoulder.
"I believe that you just volunteered for that job," she remarked as she gave the taller girl a crooked grin. Crystal stared at her in disbelief for several moments before she was finally able to voice her protest.
"Why do I have to do it?!"
"Because you're the one who got us into this mess," Taylor replied just as she broke out into yet another sneezing fit. Once she stopped, she pulled a tissue out from her pocket and wiped her nose with it before she continued. "If you hadn't been so nosey, I'd still be in bed and asleep right now, or maybe eating breakfast with Cal."
Crystal made a low noise in the back of her throat as she fixed the redhead with a glare.
"I hate you sometimes."
"Oh, bite my biscuits."
"W-what?" Ed stuttered before he burst out laughing. "What the hell was that?"
Crystal and Taylor both gave the boy an odd look before the dancer responded.
"You've never heard that before?" Taylor asked skeptically, a reddish eyebrow raised delicately. Ed stared at her, still chuckling, for a moment, before he shook his head.
"No, I haven't."
"Taylor says it sometimes instead of saying 'kiss my ass'," Crystal interjected. "She usually saves most of her cussing for people who really tick her off. Take Envy for example; that was the first time I've heard her cuss in weeks."
"Crys, stop stalling and just tell him," Taylor grumbled as she reached out and swatted the taller girl upside the head. "Meh, you're so easy to see through sometimes."
The tall brunette stuck her tongue out in retaliation. Taylor just looked at her coolly, till her friend sighed and gave in.
Hesitantly, Al looked between the dejected Crystal and the still-amused Ed and asked Taylor, "Would you like to go upstairs and rest, while they talk?"
"Yeah, I probably won't be much help in telling the story anyway." With an annoyed sigh, Taylor let Al carry her up the stairs. The upper floor of the house consisted of a small bedroom with two beds, and an equally small bathroom.Al set Taylor down on the bed, and then sat down on the floor beside her.
It was silent for a few moments, and then Al asked, "What was your mother like?"
Stunned, Taylor stared at him for a second, wondering how he knew about her parents...till she remembered that she had slept almost the entire walk here, and figured that Ed must have clued Al in. Then, with a sad smile, she started to explain, "She was blonde, with bright blue eyes. Even though she was as tiny as I am, she had all the grace of a queen. She was a dancer when she was young, like me. However, she was lucky enough to train in the town of ballet's birth: Paris.
"My mother was French, and lived and trained her entire career with a Parisian company. She became one of their primaries at the unheard of age of nineteen. Her name was known throughout France. Then, one performance of Romeo and Juliet, with her as Juliet, her partner dropped her. They had practiced the lift a hundred times, but his grip was wrong that night. My mother broke her knee. By the time she had healed, another dancer had been dancing her part for months, and the public had grown to love the new dancer. Rather than get stuck in the chorus line, she became a recruiter.
"She traveled all over the world, finding promising talent and sending it back to Paris. Eventually, she came to America, and met my father. I guess you could say the rest was history. Mama never forgot where she was from. When we were little, she would speak as much French to us as English. I still speak French fluently, though Cal's forgotten most of his.
"Our grandparents on that side of the family disowned her when she married Daddy. I don't think they even know that Mama died." Tilting her head to the side, Taylor said thoughtfully, "She always seemed removed from the rest of us... At least, until I started to dance. Then that missing part of her found a connection with me. After that, we were always close. Some days, I wonder if she really loved my father, or if she saw him as her only choice. Whatever it may be, I think she was happy, in the end." Sighing, Taylor asked Al, "What about your mother?"
Al looked thoughtful for a second before he responded.
"She… she was our entire life. Our dad left our mom when Ed and I were really little, so I barely remember him," the fifteen-year old offered, and Taylor made a face.
"Yeah, Ed mentioned that, and his exact sentiments about your dad," she pointed out. "I've never heard anyone say that about one of their parents before."
"Brother hates our father with a passion," Al told the redhead as he gave a weary shrug. "I think that's because he partially blames Mom's death on him."
"Well that would explain a lot," Taylor muttered dryly. Al nodded in agreement before he continued.
"Our mom had rich brown hair and green eyes; to us, she was the most wonderful person in the world, and we loved her with everything we had. She was the one who first inspired us to do alchemy, and her praise was what encouraged us to keep going. But she always seemed sad whenever one of us mentioned Dad, which is part of the reason why Brother hates him so much."
Taylor didn't say anything as she looked at Alphonse intently, and the possessed suit of armor seemed to grow a little distant as he sunk back into his memories.
"When Mom died, Brother and I realized why she had been so happy whenever we had done alchemy; it reminded her of Dad. We were nine and ten when that happened, and we came to Central a little over a year later."
"Wait a second, how old are you then?" Taylor wondered, confusion evident on her face.
"Fifteen."
"…Damn. You sure had one heck of a growth spurt."
Al stared at the small dancer for a few seconds before he started to chuckle.
"Don't say that to Brother. He gets mad whenever someone thinks that I'm the older brother, or that I'm him," the teenager pointed out. Taylor gave him a grin and opened her mouth to say something just as an angry yell, followed by a loud crash, came from downstairs.
"Oh, hell," Taylor sighed. "Wonder what Crystal did this time..."
"It may have been Brother's fault." Al protested.
"No offense, but bullshit. We both know it is most likely Crystal said something stupid. Again." Shaking her head, the redhead hurriedly stood up. She wavered a little as she got lightheaded, but shook it off quickly and hurried down the stairs, Al right behind her.
The two came downstairs to find that Ed had Crystal cornered, his automail arm once again in its blade shape.
"Can we not leave you two alone for five minutes?" Taylor exclaimed, exasperated. Immediately, the blonde morphed his arm back, looking very sheepish like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The teenage girl wouldn't look at anyone, and kept fiddling with the ends of her hair.
Al asked eagerly, "Did you get the answers you wanted, Brother?"
Ed looked at Al for a moment, and then his eyes drifted first to Taylor, then to Crystal. "Yeah... I don't like them, but I got them." The brunette cowered, her gaze sheepish.
"Why do I think this has something to do with the homosexual palm tree?" Taylor sighed.
An expression of disgust crossed Ed's face. "Of all the people for her to be obsessed with..."
"Much agreed. Though personally, I think Mustang ranks right up there with him." Ed and Taylor shared smiles.
Crystal looked between her best friend and the teenage alchemist. "Okay, if you two are done flirting with each other, I really should go do some research on that circle."
Both teens stared at Crystal for a moment, before they could react. Taylor immediately flushed at the suggestion, being a shy person when it came to the opposite gender. Ed just glowered at Crystal, obviously still annoyed from the answers to his questions and not appreciating her comment about him.
"I still say there's no way in hell that you two can be from another world," he grumbled darkly as he scowled at the brunette. "It's not possible, even with alchemy."
"Alchemy can't explain everything, Edward," Crystal countered, and had a rolled-up ball of paper thrown at her head in response. Taylor just sighed and rolled her eyes while Al did pretty much the same thing from where he was standing.
"Brother, why don't I take her to the library instead while you stay home and keep an eye on Taylor?" the fifteen-year old suggested. "That way you two don't try to kill each other."
"I wouldn't kill her, Al," the teenage alchemist muttered grouchily as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I'd just turn her over to Mustang instead."
"And then I'd be barbecued instead of being stabbed to death," Crystal responded dryly. "Gee, as much fun as that sounds, I think I'll pass."
"Crys, you brought this all on yourself with that big mouth of yours," Taylor pointed out as she sat down on the couch, carefully avoiding one of the huge holes ripped into the seats. "You've got no one to blame here but yourself."
"I thought that friends were supposed to support each other."
"Not when you're the one who landed us in a mountain of trouble with the military of some foreign country that exists in one of your stupid anime shows."
"Your confidence in me is overwhelming."
"Yeah, which is why I'm about two seconds away from introducing you to the ground if you don't stop saying the wrong things."
Crystal gave a fake sniffle as she adopted what she hoped looked like a hurt expression. "Taylor, you wound me."
"No I don't; you're just saying that in the hopes that I'll take pity on you or something."
"Damn."
Rolling her eyes, Taylor held out her good arm. Smiling, Crystal sat down beside her, and Taylor wrapped her arm around her in a one-arm hug. "I knew you loved me." the brunette commented.
"Whatever."
Ed rolled his eyes at the two. "Give me one reason to let you be seen in public with her." he told his brother with a sneer.
"She isn't that bad. Taylor and you just seem to bring out her strange side." Al half-lied. "Besides, one of us really needs to do some kind of research today, or else it would be wasting time."
The blonde teenager's scowl only deepened. He hated to waste time. "Fine. I'll stay with the redhead. Just don't stay out after dark, 'kay? You never know who's wondering the streets at night."
"Sure brother." Al grabbed Crystal by the arm before she had time to protest. She was barely able to grab her bag before they were out the door.
Once they were half a block down the street, she stopped letting herself be dragged and said, "What was that about?"
"Just avoiding another argument." he said. Thinking it over for a second, she shrugged and followed him willingly.
Meanwhile, Ed grabbed a nearby wooden chair and set it down across from the couch, sitting in it backwards so he had somewhere to rest his arms as he watched Taylor. She was scribbling down something in a notebook, occasionally checking the volume in her hands. "What's all that for?" he asked, curious.
"Book report due in English. Technically, I don't need to do it till next week, but I'm horrid at English, so I have Crystal check my papers before I turn them in. Plus, I have to type them one-handed, which takes forever," Taylor said absently, finishing her last paragraph.
Ed's curiosity was peaked, "What book?"
"It had to be a piece of foreign literature. Because I can read the original language, I chose The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas." Taylor finished her paragraph with a sigh, and then closed the notebook. "Though now that I'm finished, I don't know what I'm going to do."
"I'd ask you to help clean, but I don't think that would work. Don't you have anything else to do in your bag?"
"Just breaking in a new pair of toe-shoes, but that requires a cinder block, something I doubt you have on hand. Plus, I don't think my hands are steady enough for it."
His head hurting from trying to figure out what a cinder block had to do with breaking in a pair of shoes, Ed gave up questioning her, and instead began to silently start making repairs via alchemy to pieces of furniture that had been damaged by the ransacking. Watching him with half-hearted curiosity, Taylor wasn't surprised when she drifted off.
"Wow..." Crystal muttered from the other side of Central, in front of the military headquarters. "This place is huge!"
"You seem surprised," Al said jokingly. Crystal looked over at him and gave the boy a sheepish grin.
"Well, I know that this place was supposed to be really big, but I didn't realize that it was this big!"
"Oh God, not her again," a familiar voice groaned, and both teens turned around to see Mustang standing right behind them with a visible scowl on his face. Crystal immediately darted behind the safety of Alphonse's armored bulk, eying the Flame Alchemist warily.
"Hello Colonel," Al greeted cheerfully, ignoring the fact that he currently had a teenage girl cowering behind him. Mustang arched an eyebrow as he stared at the younger Elric for several long moments before he even dared to voice his comments.
"Alphonse, what is she doing here?" the older man growled, indicating at Crystal with a finger still encased in his ignition-cloth gloves.
The teenagers shared nervous looks. "Well, Colonel..."
