CHAPTER 9

An Empty Tale

"Wait," Cyborg said waving his arms around. "So you're trying to tell me that this is your brother. This guy in the giant suit of armor who knocked down our door is your little brother?" Al gave a pitiful nod, which made Cyborg moan in complaint. "Now I have seen it all."

"That is just way too cool!" Beast Boy yelled as he jumped around the metal suit. He poked and prodded the joints of the armor. "I have never seen a set of armor like this except in Jumbo Samari Seven!"

"Umm, glad you like it?" Al said nervously. Raven grabbed the green boy by the ear and yanked him off the new visitor. He fell to the floor grumpily and mumbled a few words, in which he received another slap against the head. Al was a little taken aback by the strange new people that surrounded him. They acted so crazy and out of control.

"I thought you said your brother lost his entire body," Robin asked him with all seriousness. He completely bypassed the emotional reuniting of family. Facts were more important. Both of the Elric brothers looked at him apologetically.

"Yes, how can a boy be standing with no body?" Starfire questioned.

"Hey, I have no body!" Cyborg cut in abruptly pointing to his mechanical joints and structures.

"That is some very nice auto mail you have there," Al complemented. "But it's nothing like that."

"Then what is it?" Robin rebuked impatiently. Al shifted his wait around nervously looking at his brother. The only help he got from his brother was a reassuring shrug. He carefully lifted his giant gloved hands and twisted his helmet off of his shoulder. The Titans looked at him expecting to see a terribly mangled body, or a metal skeleton, but instead they saw nothing but a red glow. Al bent over so all of them can look inside of his empty shell. A giant red Philosophers stone laid in the chest of his armor.

"I am guessing brother told you about the night he lost his leg," said Al's voice from the headless antique. "When my body was taken, my brother gave his arm to bring me back, but all he could get was my soul in which he bound to this armor." He pointed to the seal in the back of his body. Gasps escaped from his audience. "See this? This blood seal is what's keeping my soul in this suit."

"Then what about the stone?" Robin interrogated. "How did you get it? And why is it inside you?" Ed stepped forward to help out his brother. Al didn't seem to be taking the pressure to well.

"I was about to tell you before Al showed up," He said glancing faithfully up at his brother's emotionless face. "The man who made the stone, made it inside my brother. The homunculi are after him because they want the stone, they are after me, because they want to some alchemist to do the transmutation."

"Right before I came here they had us too," Al said desperately. The entire room froze, they all wanted to hear what happened to these boys before they were sent over. "The homunculi chained us up and were torturing us. It got to the point where one, named Wrath, was going to rip my brother's limbs off. They were kicking him, blood was everywhere." Al's turned ghostly as he remembered the events with such detail. The Titans stood in fear as they listened to his gory report. All of a sudden, Al broke down into a panic. If a suit of armor could cry it would have shed an ocean. "I just couldn't stand it!" he screamed sinking down to the ground. "Ed I am sorry! I tried to help you! I got free for just a moment and I did it! I used alchemy like you told me not to! There was a flash with the transmutation and you were gone! I accidentally sent you through the gate! I thought I lost you!" A stifling cry filled the room. Ed looked down at his brother in worry. He had no way of comforting him. No words could be spoken, and Ed dared not touch him again. Not with the stone inside him. The entire room just waited out the sobs and the invisible tears. After about ten minutes went by, Ed finally said something, but it wasn't as comforting as he expected.

"Al, you used the stone didn't you when you made the reaction." A short nod came from the tin can on the floor. "Stand up let me see," Ed commanded. Al obeyed his brother and climbed up on his legs. His younger brother investigated his body while keeping a safe distance away. Just as he expected a large section of Al's body was destroyed along with the stone. A Gaping hole underneath his arm revealed the glowing red stone with a chunk taken out of it. "Oh boy," he mumbled.

"What?" Al asked feebly.

"Cyborg can I have the stone?" he asked keeping his focus on Al's missing piece. Cyborg tossed him the canister with no question, and he carefully opened it. A red stream of light flew out of the container. "Al, lay on your side." Al flopped over on the ground. The Titans closed the circle in to see what he was about to do. Ed rolled up his sleeves and carefully and held the canister over top of Al. "By the way this is going to be painful," he said to his little brother and everyone in the room for warning.

"What are you doing?" Al questioned but by that time Ed already tipped the canister and poured its contents onto his broken armor. Ed leaped back as a red flash protruded from his brother. A deafening scream came from the suit of armor. The stone melted on the suit's metal and welded the patch together fixing the broken casing of the stone. After the light calmed down, everyone looked at Al in amazement to see that the deep hole was now gone. Al stood up and to everyone's alarm socked his brother in the face. "What did you do that for?" Ed glanced at him clutching his now red face with his hand.

"When you used the stone, it lost some of its power and mass. You were falling apart. I pieced you back together," he argued defensively. The two brothers stared at each other for the longest time, neither in anger, pity, nor sorrow, but for peace of mind. Beast Boy glanced over at Robin, who looked deep in thought and was rallying up a storm of ideas in his head.

"What do we do now?" Beast Boy asked him softly. Robin glanced at him in full concentration.

"We find a way to send these two home."