Author's Note: Dude…I JUST came up with another awesome title for this fic!
FullMENTAL Alchemist! Ah, but the first one has already stuck…
I'm very happy that the Omake was a success. I didn't expect to get reviews, let alone 5 or 6 subscriptions ^_^
And now I bring to you chibi!Elrics.
Enjoy and review~
Chapter 11: Obligatory Emo Flashback
I don't remember him much.
In all my memories, I only remember our dad buried in his books, studying. Dad was an alchemist, but he hardly ever spoke to us.
I also remember him wearing a dress once. Though that might have been a dream.
Nay, a nightmare.
Anyway, when he left us without saying goodbye, Mom just smiled and said "it was inevitable" but she would cry when she thought no one was looking. I always tried cheering her up by giving wedgies to Al, but it was to no avail. Not long after, mom died of her broken ankle.
"Ed! Al!" Trisha Elric found her two sons reading in her husband's old study. "What have I told you about painting Mr. Ferguson's cows with zebra stripes?"
"We wanted it to look like Africa!" said Ed.
"Yeah and Niisan tested the paint, it's not toxic," said Al. "Why is everything orange?" he added.
Trisha face-palmed; she couldn't believe how stupid her two sons were. Then she noticed the drawings on the floor. "Have you been doodling on the floor again?"
"No!" Ed put his hands around the doodle. There was a flash of light, and a toy horse appeared in the middle of a small depression in the floor.
"Whaddya think, Mom?" asked Ed excitedly.
"That hardwood floor was pretty expensive, Edward."
"Yeah but it's alchemy!"
"Change it back."
"Okay okay, sheesh, lemmie finish reading this chapter then," he grabbed a nearby open book and continued studying.
That's how it started. We wanted to learn alchemy to impress our mom and not make her feel ashamed of her horrible children. We also learned it because we were small for our age and didn't want our neighbors' kids to beat us up anymore. It's hard to beat someone up when they can melt your beloved red bicycle down to a sad, pathetic liquid. Yeah that taught them a lesson.
What was I talking about?
"How tragic," said one of the neighbors at Trisha Elric's funeral, "leaving two orphans."
"It really is," said his wife. "Who would've thought that a broken ankle could lead to gangrene of one's brain?"
"Truly terrible," agreed her husband.
"Where's the husband?" asked his wife.
"How do we contact him?" asked another neighbor.
"How pitiful," said one of the farmers.
"So who's taking them in?" said the man who had first spoken.
"Not me," said the farmer and fourteen other neighbors.
"I'll take them," said Pinako. "Winry could use new playthings."
"We're not toys, Grandma Pinako," piped Ed.
"If toys want to eat then toys should stay quiet."
"Great. Just great."
"I'm sure our lives can't get any worse, Niisan," said Al. "At least we have our health."
Later that week, Ed and Al sat before their mother's grave again.
"This sucks," said Al.
"It's not so bad," said Ed. "Batman's parents died and then he became filthy rich."
"Neither of our parents were billionaires. Plus Dad's still alive."
"Shit."
"I'm bored, let's go home."
"Let's bring Mom back to life."
"What?"
"Yeah!" Ed stood up. "Those alchemy books talked about homunculi- humans composed of the minds, souls and flesh of living people. We could revive Mom!"
"But the alchemy books said that human transmutation is impossible."
"So let's do Batman instead."
"Maybe we shouldn't."
"No, let's do it."
"Okay."
We believed wholeheartedly we could bring him to life…We wanted to see his unsmiling face so badly.
If only we knew about the consequences of bringing fictional characters to life.
"Cells 66%, outer cell fluids 24% then cell membranes 10%…"
The Elric brothers were researching human anatomy while bored in math class, their huge Advanced Biology books feebly hidden inside thin Basic 4rth Grade Math textbooks.
"Hey check it out, Al, there's a chapter here on reproduction on page 323."
"Heheh sweet."
"Are you boys paying attention?" asked the teacher from the front of the class, interrupting their vital life lesson.
"Yeah!" said Ed.
"Then what did I just say?"
"You asked us if we were paying attention."
"Oh haha."
"Teacher!" another boy raised a hand. "I think Winry is drunk again."
Winry had indeed snuck alcohol through her juice box. She was currently attempting scoop up a fish from the classroom aquarium using a pencil.
"I'm *hic* Aquaman!"
"If I ever become like that, Al, I want you to shoot me."
"With pleasure, Niisan."
"Detention to all three of you!" said the teacher.
"Hey what did we do?" asked Al.
" You read outside the curriculum!"
"I hate public school," said Ed.
Over four hundred years ago, a prosperous country by the name of Xerxes disappeared overnight. Countless myths have been told about it. Some stories say that an incredible, evil force swept through the land and took the people's lives. Others say that God, angered by their freedom and hedonistic ways, smote them from the land. And others say that everyone left after a serious termite infestation. Al and I often lay in bed after working on Batman's transmutation circle, actively discussing what could have happened.
"I think it was probably the termites," said Al. "They're really gross."
"Yeah, probably."
After that we didn't think anything of it.
We had forgotten that the buildings of Xerxes were all made of stone.
…
The author doesn't want to end this part with a serious line, however silly the previous lines were.
Lalalalala I'm a tuna fish
"Hurry! It's raining harder! The banks are gonna flood!"
It was the worst rainstorm in 60 years.
"We need more sandbags!"
"There's no time, get to higher ground!"
Most of the men had given up on trying to stall the rising water; they scampered like mice as the river began to overflow.
"Come, boys!" Grandma Pinako pulled the little Elric brothers away. "Children and water don't mix well." She learned it the hard way, after all; Winry would never know of the uncle who might have been.
Pinako pushed them towards the hill as the water swelled.
It was then that we saw her.
"Move aside." A pale woman with long, braided hair and a giant of a husband moved forward. With a clap of her hands, there was a flash of light and she created a wall along the riverbank.
The townspeople stared in shock. "Who…who are you?"
She smiled. "Just a passing domestic engineer!"
"Wow, you're amazing!"
"I know. Now hurry up and reinforce that wall," she said, "before it-" suddenly, she put her hand to her mouth and hunched over, as though she were about to be sick.
"Izumi!" Her husband Sig held her by the waist so she wouldn't collapse. "Someone! I need a bed for her!"
"Hey Al, I have an idea," said Ed as they watched from the sidelines.
"What is it, Niisan?"
"We should make her our master! She's obviously an awesome alchemist."
"I don't know, Niisan," said Al. "She looks like she might become ill and die at any moment. I don't want to find a new mother figure and go through all that trauma again. I'm fragile."
"It'll be fine, Al."
"How do you know?"
"Just keep swimming."
"That's not a good answer."
"No, that's not what I meant. The flood barrier broke, you're drowning."
"FFFFUUUUUU-"
"…So you're just travelers from the south? Wow, I thought you two were state alchemists or something."
The Risembool residents had gotten Izumi to a bed. They were so isolated and curious about the outside world that heckling an ill woman made no-nevermind to them.
"Oh, no no no!" said Izumi, who liked the attention all the same. "We're just a humble couple from Dublith who own a simple butcher shop, nothing more!"
The Elric brothers walked up to her.
"Adopt us."
"No, I hate children."
"Please?"
"No."
"We'll be your slaves."
"…Fine."
"YAY!"
"But you will sleep in the shack."
"Honey," said Sig, "we don't own a shack."
"We'll make them build one for themselves, darling."
"Okay, good idea."
"Hold on," said Ed. "Before we commit to being your slaves, we wanna make one thing clear; we want to learn alchemy from you!"
"Oh that's what I need on top of my butcher shop duties. To teach two bratty strangers all of my secret techniques. Sure yeah no I'll totally do it."
The two brothers were never great at detecting sarcasm.
Thus, Izumi found herself stuck on a train with the two most annoying kids ever.
"This one time, at band camp," said Ed, "I ate three whole 16-ounce steaks!"
"Niisan, that wasn't band camp, that was Ferguson's farm, and it doesn't count because you didn't eat anything you just bit his cows-"
"-you mean zebras, I bit his zebras-"
"-what you use to paint them like that, anyway? I still see orange-"
"-really? Do I look good in orange?-"
"-you look like an Oompa Loompa-"
"BOTH OF YOU, SHUT IT!"
Izumi sat there fuming next to them (Sig, who needed a whole row to himself, sat across from them). She then decided that, if she was going to be their master, she would have to discipline them in the most extreme way possible.
"When we get there, I'll be conducting an exam to test your intelligence and skills," she said.
"Will it be like a pop quiz?" asked Ed.
"Do we need scantrons?" asked Al.
Ed raised his hand. "Teacher! Teacher! I forgot my number 2 pencil!"
"I'm going to kill these children," muttered Izumi.
We were so hopeful and full of life back then…Now that we had gotten a new teacher to educate us in the ways of alchemy, we thought nothing the world could stop us.
We also still thought that Santa Claus existed. It wasn't long after we met her that Teacher ruined it for us. Al still cries about it sometimes.
Mentally, anyway.
Author's Note: This was gonna be a much longer flashback, but it ended up way too long and I would've needed more time ^_^' So I'm breaking up the flashback into three chapters or so.
ANYVAYS- I've recently updated my profile a bit because it barely had anything on there…sooooo if you're ridiculously bored and have three minutes to kill, you can check it out :D
