"Excellent work brother! You did an amazing jo-," was all the young Elric brother said before a titan sank his teeth into the Elric brother's flesh.

Ed's heart felt like it had been ripped out from his body and torn apart in front of his eyes just looking at Al being swallowed by the titan. At that moment, something inside him snapped. It was as if every painful moment he had buried and covered up deep in his mind were resurfacing, joining together into one enormous cloud of anger and fury. All Ed knew was that he wasn't going to let Al get eaten. Over his dead body.


Ed and Alphonse left before the rest of the cadets had a chance to respond. Here they were, most of them wanting to piss their pants and hide in a corner, while these two actually had the balls to rally everyone and take charge. Even Eren, the titan-lusting soldier, wasn't expecting it. Just as Eren and Armin were about to join them, Eren's precautious eyes spotted an abnormal jumping like a spider and headed straight for them.

"ABNORMAL HEADED FOR US! HIT THE DECKS!" Everyone speedily jumped out of harms way. The abnormal titan with blonde wavy hair pounced and landed on the clock tower, oddly wrapping his arms and legs around it.

"Is everyone alright?"

"I think we made it," said Armin, his voice just above a faint whisper.

"Wait, where's Thomas?"

The soldiers searched around, wondering where Thomas had landed, but Eren knew better. The abnormal titan moved its head to look at the soldiers, in its mouth none other than Thomas.

"Eren, Armin, anyone… Please… Help… Me…" Those were Thomas' last words before he was swallowed whole. The abnormal dropped down and walked on, as if he hadn't noticed a thing.

Eren's body went stiff at the sight of Thomas' tear stained eyes staring right at him just before he died. The hatred boiling within him surged forward, his face lined with malice and hatred. "BASTARD!" Without warning, Eren practically exploded forward with intent to kill. "Eren!" Armin worriedly jumped off the wall and went after his friend. "Guys we have to stay together!" The other soldiers swiftly followed suit, ignoring Ed's orders.

"GET BACK HERE! I'M NOT LETTING YOU GET AWAY LIKE THAT! YOU'LL PAY FOR KILLING MY FRIEND!" Raw emotion, pain, and unmitigated fury were laced in Eren's words. He shot himself forward even faster, drawing his blades as he did.

"DIE!"

Eren had been so blinded by rage that he failed to notice the 7-meter titan jump up and voraciously bite him. Eren's trajectory was completely thrown off, his body rolling and crashing over the tiles of a dozen houses, until he finally came to a stop; bloody, injured, and defeated, he laid limp, unable to move even his fingers. He was sure he had broken a rib or two, and his head felt like it was gonna explode.

So this was how it ended. Wasted, left for dead, alone, eaten by titans as he slowly died from his injuries, not even having the chance to quench his thirst for titan blood.

Just as he was about to pass out, Eren heard the heart-wrenching cry of Edward Elric.


"AL!" Ed's voice was barely human. Propelling himself as fast as humanly possible, he slashed his blades through the nape of the neck. He had never felt such blind rage toward another being in his life. Even after the titan had collapsed, Ed continued to stab the titan in its head, hacking away at its scalp until there was nothing left. It wasn't enough. He wanted more. He wanted to make this titan bastard pay for hurting his little brother, and he continued to stab and slash at every part he could, until the titan was severed into at least 50 pieces. The blood stained Ed's clothes, but seconds later it evaporated like it was never there.

Ed frantically began to dig through the already disappearing flesh for his brother like a dog searching for it's bone. Ed finally found Al stuck in the throat of the titan. Was he dead? No, he refused to believe he was gone. Making sure "you-know-what" didn't happen, he put his ear to his brother's heart. The slow thumping made him sigh a breath of relief.

Ed was panting heavily, the rush of adrenaline from his first titan kill still pumping through his heart. Quickly realizing his brother was still missing his arm and leg, he sprinted to his side, his deep blue eyes now misty with wet eyes. "Al, are you alright?" Nothing. "Al, SAY SOMETHING!" Still nothing but silence. A single tear slid down his cheek, and Ed did nothing to stop it. At that moment, only one thing was racing through Ed's mind: Ed had broken his promise.

The one thing he had promised his brother, the one and only thing he told himself every day of his life ever since their human transmutation was that he was never going to let anything happen to his little brother, and he'd broken it. Like the self-centered asshole he was, he had made his little brother, an innocent kind soul, believe that he was safe under his big brothers protection. He had tricked him and deceived him, just like when he brought him into his stupid idea to bring their mom back. Nonetheless, Ed knew he had to reattach his limbs. Even if Al hated him for the rest of his life, Ed knew it was the right thing and only thing he could and would do.

Ed gripped his hair, trying to think of what to do. There was no medical procedure that could reattach limbs, and even if there was,it would take too long for him to find help for his little brother. But wait! His face lit up when he remembered he still had his alchemy. He knew all too well that reattaching the limbs was possible; he even had living proof that it was: Scar. He had been told that Scar's brother had sacrificed his right arm and attached it onto his brother with no side effects whatsoever. If Scar's brother could do it, then Ed could too.

Wasting no time, Ed scavenged his brother's limbs, which were thankfully intact with no broken bones or torn muscle tissue. "This could work. I could actually save both my brother's limbs." Whatever it took, Ed would pay the price.

"God I hope this works." If Al didn't make it through this, Ed didn't know how he would ever recover. So he took a very deep breath, and clapped his hands together, the cackling of electric energy and hint of ozone saturating the air around him. Electricity began to course through the dismembered body part. Ed gasped. The arm stub and the arm flesh were intertwining, the nerve endings reconnecting sending jolts of neural electricity through Al's unconscious brain.

Ed stayed frozen. The two had seemingly joined together, and with the reconnection came a light scar circling around his arm. He wanted to make sure the transmutation reconnection worked; so ever so lightly, he tugged his right arm to see if it would come off, and to his extreme relief, it didn't tear an inch.

Filled with newborn confidence, Ed moved over to fix his right leg. He clapped his hands together and watched the muscle ligaments twist and intertwine with each other, becoming a single whole once more.


All the while, Eren was watching this with one eye open. The impact of the fall must have given him a concussion, because there was no way anything of what he saw was real.

If his eyes weren't deceiving him, he was looking at Alphonse Elric with both his right arm and right leg torn off his body, then his brother reattaching them both just by clapping his hands together. Not only that, but some weird electricity came sparking out of the ground when he did it. Eren must have been hallucinating, because there was no way in a million years something like that could have been possible.

"Ed… You're just… Full… Of… Surprises…"


The older Elric brother didn't move a muscle. His eyes were focused on nothing but his younger brother. A minute had passed since he reattached his brother's limbs, and Al still remained unconscious. "Come on Al. Please wake up…"

Alphonse's eyes gradually fluttered open, and he was awoken to see his older brother kneeling on his right side, looking like he had just witnessed a miracle. "Brother?"

"AL!" This time it was Alphonse who was completely winded by his brother's tight grip on him as Ed wrapped his arms around his shoulders. "I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you're okay!" The young Elric brother rubbed his head, trying to remember exactly how he got his brother this worried over him. "Brother, what happened?"

"After I killed my first titan, I let my guard down and you paid the ultimate price…" Al tilted his head, not understanding what his brother meant. "While I was distracted, a titan pounced from out of nowhere and… ripped both your arm and leg off…" Ed's body was trembling; his human fingers ice cold and his face ghostlypale. "I was able alchemically reconnect your limbs before it was too late, but you almost…" Al jaw dropped open when he saw Ed was actually crying. Ed's tears were falling onto Al's uniform, and his entire body was shaking. Al couldn't believe it.

In all his years spent together with Ed, he had rarely if not ever seen his brother crying. There were sometimes that Ed's true feelings ever showed, when he was able to show his true colors, but those were luxurious moments that were often forgotten. It was only now, seeing Ed's face littered with tears, that it truly registered how much he meant to his older brother. If he felt happy before when his brother had vowed he would protect him, it was nothing compared to the feeling of euphoria and happiness rushing through him. Not wanting to waste a second of this moment, Al returned his brothers embrace, tightly wrapping his arms around his chest as the metallic and sharp smell of his automail filled his nostrils. Ed's eyes widened at the unexpected return of an embrace, but he eventually gave in and firmly grasped his brother.

Eren watched this entire emotional scene unfold with a sense of sadness and longing in his heart. Whoever or whatever these two really were, the one thing he did know for sure about the two of them was that they had each other.


"BROTHER!"

That was all Ed could process before he was thrown into a bear hug aimed around his chest that winded him to the ground, tensing his already stone stiff muscles.

"Jeez Al! Calm down! It was just a run! I'm alright!"

The young Elric brother quickly released himself from his older brother. "I know. I'm sorry brother, but its just that I didn't know if you would be alright after running for a fourth of the day. I didn't know what would happen to you…" said Al as he shrunk down on the ground, hands trembling as he did so.

Hiding under the shadows of the cabin, Eren watched this scene unfold, knowing full well he was slightly intruding. His patience had run thin waiting for Ed in the mess hall.

Eren had been eagerly waiting for Ed to arrive, his tapping feet and jittery hands making that obvious to Armin and anyone else who would have bothered to pay attention. After everyone had finished asking him about his experience in Shiganshina, he had uncannily excused himself to go to the bathroom and went out in search of the infamous Edward Elric.

His search turned out successful when he finally found Ed finishing his last lap. He was about to run and introduce himself, but the introduction of Al's younger brother halted his actions. Feeling it would be odd to intrude at a time like that, he turned around to return to the mess hall, when Ed groaned in exhaustion, prompting him to see what happened. He had not expected Alphonse to tackle him to the ground in a bear hug. His curiosity overcame his respect for privacy and he watched and heard everything they were saying.

He heard them talk about their teacher and her training, surprised that they had training before this, but what really confused him was that he heard a word he had never heard before. He thought very hardly on what it could mean, but alas, nothing came to him. But the thing that really caught him off guard was the overwhelming worry in Al's eyes and words.

Seeing the way Al wasn't afraid to show how he felt about his brother made him feel a sense of nostalgia and devastating guilt. How many times had he been too embarrassed, vainglorious, or stubborn to accept his mother's love and affection towards him? Had there ever been a single moment in his life when he ever showed the feelings of love he had for her mother?

He closed his eyes and forced back tears. Crying would only make him weaker and he was pretty sure he would get beaten up if any tough-guy cadets caught him crying like a pussy. The rapid footsteps of the two Elric brothers snapped him out of his emotional drama. As quietly as he humanly could, he sprinted for the mess hall, trying to forget what he saw as if it never happened.


The memory of that night came flooding back to him, and it only amplified the feelings of pain and guilt vested in the depths of his heart. He didn't deserve anyone's affection, especially his mother's. "Mom, I'm sorry…"

As if things couldn't get any worse, the ceiling tiles under him started to shake. He looked up and to his horror saw a 10-meter titan with a gray beard closing in on Edward and Alphonse. This could not be happening… "Ed…" His throat was raspy and in pain, and his body still felt like a disarray of bloody bones and torn muscles. "Ed…" For whatever reason, Ed and Al were too caught up in their heart-warming reunion to feel or hear the titan approaching with nothing or nobody to stop it.

The titan now stood just meters away, and its hand gradually started reaching out for Ed. "ED! BEHIND YOU!"

The voice of Eren Yeagar broke through to Ed's hearing, and he turned around to see a titan towering over him, his hand stretched out. "Shit!" This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. Ed's metallic limbs were still causing him a great deal of pain, and as the hours passed by, it was becoming increasingly difficult to move, hindering his reflexes and mobility a great deal. There was nothing he could to to save his brother or himself.

The titan now gripped his fingers around the young human, preparing itself for it's 10th victim. Ed all the while shouted as he banged his fists on the titan's hand, squirming in his grasp, trying to do anything he could to escape.

"BROTHER!" Al desperately tried to get up, but he winced in pain, his right arm and leg sending out wave after wave of pain through his body. Without either his right leg or right arm, Al couldn't use his gear to kill the titan. Al was standing and watching the people he loved die, just like he always did.

Ed was now in the mouth of the titan. He couldn't grip himself on anything. He couldn't do anything but slide down the throat to his inevitable death. So this is how it ended. Dying in the belly of a beast; leaving his brother alone without his brother or anyone to help him; not even having the chance to look at Winry, Teacher, and even Mustang one last time to tell them he was ok. What an end. "Goodbye Winry…"

But then, a hand reached out to him. "Al?" Ed couldn't believe his eyes it when he saw Eren Yeagar, bloody and infuriated, holding the jaws of the beast open and saving him from his certified death. But Ed's face darkened in horror when he noticed Eren's left leg was nothing but a bloody stump. It must have been bitten off by a titan before Eren even had a chance to react.

Mustering all the energy he could, he pulled Ed out from the throat and threw him straight out of the titan's mouth. "EREN!"

Eren pried open the jaws of the titan, his face stained with blood and saliva.. "I'm refuse to die like this."

"Come on Eren! Reach for my hand!" Ed reached his hand for Eren and desperately reached as far as he could, refusing to let his friend die like this. "Eren listen. We're going to get out of these walls. See the world outside the walls…"

"WE WILL EREN! I PROMISE WE WILL! JUST GRAB ON! GRAB-" Eren didn't even have the time to say goodbye before the titan clamped his teeth shut, taking his arm in the process.


You know I would never be so heartless to kill Al like that. He's too sweet for that kind of death. This ending is like a repeat of the anime, so not really that surprising.

I'm sorry if this was a short chapter, but it was harder than usual for me to write this chapter. If your wondering why it took me longer to upload this chapter, I'm writing another fanfiction write now, called The Space Emperor's Besiege, and I try to work on both of them, which is kinda challenging to do in a shorter time period. I'd like to thank GoldenLombaxGirl and Rini x Ryo for your kind and thoughtful reviews. Really lifts my day up. Hope you enjoyed!