Chapter 14

"Here."

Kaori pointed towards a crack in the wall of the cliff, "It must be here. See the crack? Plus, there are transmutation marks here, Sensei."

"Good," Edward sounded rather blunt, and blushed as he pushed past Kaori, "Can you open it?"

"Lemme see…" Kaori drew a circle, then started drawing lines and symbols within the circle.

"What's that?" Alphonse inquired, "That doesn't look like anything I've seen-"

"Shut up," Edward hissed at Al, then turned back to the wall as he put his hands on his hips, "Continue."

Kaori nodded, and placed her hands-or rather, her mittens-on the rock wall. A golden light sprung from the odd transmutation circle, shining more like the oblique rays of the sun than a transmutational flash and/or spark.

All of a sudden, the light from the transmutation intensified, blinding almost everyone behind Kaori. Kaori herself had an almost irresistible urge to take her hands off the circle and cover her watering eyes. Instead, she let herself cry and faced the light boldly-or with a lot of stupidity.

The wall shifted, and dust fell off of the wall, making Kaori cough. The crack split open and a door spread out over the deep cavern opening in front of them. Now the opening was thicker and the door no longer existed.

"Good job, Kaori-san," Ed didn't even glance at Kaori when he entered the cavern, "Let's go."

Roy hiccupped giddily and skipped behind the blonde, followed closely with a readily armed Hawkeye, a sparkling Armstrong, a patrol consisting of Breda, Falman, Havoc, and Fuery; Carrie Mahogany, Pitt Sead, Alphonse Elric, and a hesitant Kaori Nichibotsu.

She decided to talk to Ed when they set camp.

~*~Thus!~*~

"Can someone please transmute some wood to burn?" Edward growled impatiently.

"Come on, Nii-san. Be more patient," Alphonse quietly chided.

"Whatever!" Edward threw his arms up, "We're setting camp, and we need to get warm. We're probably gone half the radius of the mountain, and it's getting really cold. If I don't have a fire this instant, I'm gonna freeze my ass into ice cubes!"

"Fire?" Roy, who seemed to be a little more rational for the time being, looked up with a glitter in his eye.

"I swear to God, you pyromaniac…" Carrie sneered at Roy.

"I'm very useful in this situation! If you don't want my help, I'll gladly make some iced tea from Fullmetal's so-called ass," Roy glanced at Ed out of the corner of his eye, "If he has one."

"Don't question my sex appeal!" Edward growled.

"Stop talking about sex appeal…" Riza sighed while cleaning her gun with melted ice.

"Erm…how about we play a game?" Kaori smiled hopefully, "While some others go search for something to transmute into wood or something."

"This isn't a game. We're tracking down homunculus wanna-be's," Ed frowned.

"But, Edward-sensei…what if we start arguing and split up?" Kaori worried.

"If that were to happen, a game would be the first thing to start that," Pitt sighed, glancing at the Brigadier General and the Fullmetal Alchemist.

"Don't look at me," Ed huffed.

"I didn't say anything," Pitt shrugged, "But all I will say is that some people here are very competitive, and I know that for a fact. So a game is out of the question."

"We can't all just split up, though, whether it's over a game or for some firewood, like Kaori-san mentioned," Carrie spoke up, "So some of us will have to stay here. I'm glad there's a lot of us-if there were only a few, our numbers could diminish very quickly and we'd be more vulnerable."

Edward frowned, "Well, I'd rather be with a few people than a lot. Some people are burdens."

Kaori didn't know if Edward had glanced at her-she hadn't bothered to even look at Ed once. She sat huddled against the wall, a meter away from Carrie and the middle of the group. She was glad Ed was here-it was almost completely black. She didn't know what kept it from being pitch black in the cave-she was just grateful for it, homunculus or not.

In fact, she was so grateful, she started giggling at the idea of a nightlight homunculus, staggering towards her like a penguin and being horrifically corny.

"What're you laughing at?" Edward snapped, spinning around and glaring lasers at Kaori.

"Uh-"

"Don't be so mean, Nii-san!" Al furrowed his brow, "This is the second time!"

"Calm down, Elric brothers," Armstrong sighed, his deep voice booming in the cave, "We should be friendly for the time being. You can exercise your muscles outside."

"True," Carrie huffed, "We shouldn't be fighting, although I want to kick all y'all asses."

"We could play a little truth or dare game, in fact," Pitt smiled.

"That's a good idea," Alphonse smiled at his childhood friend.

"Yeah!" Fuery grinned a small smile. Riza looked up from her gun pieces and smiled a little, "Glad you're getting along."

Kaori nodded and scooted closer to Carrie in comfort. "Here, have my scarf," Carrie offered, shaking her blonde hair out of her face.

"Er…you sure?"

"Yeah! As long as you return it."

"Thanks," Kaori smiled knowingly and wrapped the scarf around her bare neck.

"I'm used to the cold air here, so it's fine. You looked cold over there anyway," Carrie explained. Kaori nodded in thanks.

"I'll collect firewood," Edward said bluntly, then quickly stalked off into the darkness.

"Should I go…" Kaori looked at Al for an answer.

The blonde shook his head, "I'd advise not. He's pissed right now. He needs to be alone. I just hope he doesn't go too far ahead of us."

Suddenly, Kaori heard a growling noise and screamed, jumping into Carrie's lap.

"Sorry, that was me," Breda laughed heartily. Everyone else laughed along with him.

Ed, who was retreating into the darkness, growled angrily and disappeared completely into the cavern's shadows.

~*~Thus!~*~

"Tsk. All of them," Edward pouted, kicking a rock. He had scraped a rock against a wall and had lit a stray stick on fire, not caring from where it came from. Now he had a makeshift torch at his side, "Al, always trying to calm me down, cocky Mustang, musclehead Armstrong…Eh?"

Ed looked up at the cave ceiling, studying millions of dull and bright crystals littering the area, "Whoa…that's pretty…like-" Ed shook his head, "What am I thinking…?"

Sighing, he walked on until the cavern widened into a big area. Bigger and more numerous crystals sparkled on the floor, walls, and ceiling.

"I'll have to show this to Kaori…" Ed smiled childishly as he put his hand over a ray of light sparkling from a crystal on the ceiling. Suddenly, he frowned in horror, "Where is this light coming from…? Too much to be coming from my torch-"

He spun around and gasped just as something caught his throat and threw him to the ground.

"What the hell?" Edward struggled, trying to pull the arm-like thing off his throat. Coughing, he kicked at it, but it didn't seem to weaken it's hold any, "Get off me! I can't breathe!"

"Yeah, he can't breathe. Let 'im breathe," a geeky voice snickered.

The thing holding Ed down split in two and held down his hands. Then, each arm split in two again and held his legs down.

"Ah…I feel a draft…" Ed blushed immensely, feeling the uncomfortable, chilly air travel up all the way up his pants and freezing his underwear, "Ah…"

He could see a curvy figure walking up to him, but he didn't guess it was a girl until she appeared in the crystal room.

She was shining all over. Dark-colored silk covered the detailed parts of her body, but still left a lot of skin revealed. On her cheek was a tattoo in the shape of an E.

"Well, well, Nikumu told me a lot about you," she smirked, flipping black-blue hair over her shoulder. The ends of the hairs ended at her ass, and that girl had a more developed body than Hawkeye, Ed noticed, then sighed and mentally smacked himself for thinking so perversely. She continued, "Like how thick your arms and legs are, your hip measurements…"

"What?" Ed snapped, eyes widening.

"But she didn't tell me you were from Czelkless," the girl replied, battering her eyelashes at Ed's blonde hair, "How cute. A little present from King Xerxes."

"You know him?" Ed snarled, wanting to get up, but couldn't.

"Mmm, we're friends. I dumped him when he turned 30. Didn't like having fun anymore," the girl licked her lips, "He was rather yummy, though. You remind me of him."

Maybe she's getting Hohenheim mixed up with King Xerxes-after all, a king couldn't possibly look like me, and this girl might be a homunculus. They're attracted to Philosopher's Stones, alright, Ed pursed his lips, "What's are you called, huh?"

"E. As in the f***ing letter E," the dark blue-haired girl grinned. Then, a familiar girl entered, arms sprouted from her back.

"NIKUMU!" Ed snarled, realizing they must have come from the cave passage he had, "WHAT'VE YOU DONE WITH MY FRIENDS!"

"Oh, you brought your friends here?" Nikumu titled her head to the side, "Okay."

Dammit!

"E-sama, I'll take care of him," Nikumu bowed to E, "I am sorry if I offend you, but-"

"I shall destroy him," E snarled, "Destroy Fullmetal-teme. I'll target his friends."

"Thank you for the privilege, E-sama," Nikumu bowed until E disappeared in the shadows, then she smiled evilly at Ed, "Get ready."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

~*~Thus!~*~

"I wonder where Ed-sensei is," Kaori wondered out loud.

"Yeah, he's been gone 20 minutes, approximately," Pitt checked a pretend watch and grinned a lopsided smile, then frowned when he saw he didn't lighten the mood any.

"Should we look for him?" Havoc half stood up, arms limp by his side in uncertainty.

"You can if you want. I'm not getting up," Carrie sighed, filing her nails, "See, I have to file my nails, I'm so bored."

Havoc rolled his eyes and sat back down.

"Then again, we could figure out where that weird light is coming from," Carrie stood up and threw the makeshift nail filer away, and into the darkness where Kaori couldn't see.

"Let's all go. We know Fullmetal went ahead, so why not catch up?" Roy stood up and straightened his uniform, "He's probably shivering in his pants, hanging onto something."

"Okay…" Kaori stood up and dusted herself off, "You coming, Al-san?"

"Er…yeah, I guess," Alphonse slowly stood up and sighed, stretching. Many of his bones cracked, which made Kaori flinch.

"I sure am stiff," Al looked at his shoes in embarrassment, obviously worried at how long he had sat down and hadn't been moving around and being useful.

Carrie smiled, "Yosh! Okay, let's go-"

Something shot out and knocked Carrie down. She screamed as her skull cracked against the cave floor. Blood spurted out from the back of her head as she lay under the dark creature that had attacked her.

The girl who was on top of her reminded Kaori of Nikumu, and looked a lot like her, too. She hissed at everyone, "Die!"

"Who are you?" Kaori snapped, "Do you work for Nikumu?"

"Work for her? That piece of crap could wish," the girl hissed again, "I am E."

"E!" Kaori's eyes widened, "Nikumu mentioned you!"

"Mentioned? She should have killed you in my name. Dammit," E spat in Carrie's unconscious face.

Roy snarled, "Stop there. Get off of our comrade."

"I'm here to kill you all. I will not get off of her until she dies," E snarled happily, and that's when Kaori noticed that E actually weighed a lot. She was sinking into Carrie's quickly flattening chest. Hopefully she was fragile, though, because…

"YAHHHH!" Kaori lunged forward and head-butted E. E screeched and fell backwards, off of Carrie and onto the ground.

Alphonse grinned and clapped his hands. He placed them on the cave floor and spikes quickly rose out, heading straight for E. E suddenly leapt up, though, and landed on a spike, crushing it completely.

Al gasped, and Roy took his place on the battlefield, snapping with the glove that was meant for targets and not mass destruction (well, I mean, both of them are, but…). E flipped backwards as a huge explosion threw shards of spikes all over Carrie.

"You idiot!" Kaori blurted, rushing towards Carrie, "Wake up! Wake up, Carrie-san!"

"Urgh…" Carrie's eyes fluttered, "My head…is wet…water…?"

"No, it's blood," Kaori whispered as E fluttered past, the homunculus not bothering to attack them just yet, "You'll be fine. Let me…"

Kaori sighed and drew a transmutation circle on the wall, I hope this works! A golden light flashed, and E stopped in her tracks, just in front of a gun-ready Riza. A dirty bandage rolled out from the wall, and Kaori wiped it off before wrapping it around Carrie's head, "There. All better. We need to get out of here."

E snarled and leapt at Kaori, "ALCHEMIIIIIIST!"

"Wha-?" Kaori's eyes widened, but E seemed to slow down, and time did as well, as the golden light continued to shine, and shone way brighter than any time before. The black-haired novice alchemist could see every single chip in E's sharp, jagged teeth, and the blood that hadn't been cleaned from the monster's mouth.

She saw that Roy had been checking out E's backside, and even his eyes were wide. Kaori giggled, then got serious again. She didn't have a clue what she was doing by acting this out, but she spread her palms out in from of her and stretched her arms out as far as they could go. The golden light shone even brighter, and she heard an explosion as she was blinded by the light. Then, she went unconscious.

A/N: And…that's the end of Part 1! I will be making chapter titles-if I remember-in Part 2! I'm just going to put all of the parts together in one fanfic so it's simple to find instead of having to go on Search or my profile to find the second or even third book (I don't know how many books I'll make-I just know it's going to be a while before it's done).

Also, I'll be gone from July until the start of school, which I forgot (either August or September) 'cause of Eid (Muslim holiday-it's awesome! Sweets and presents) 'Kay, that's all. I haven't A/N-ed in a long time! Soooo…I'm wondering when Al'll get to kiss Winry again…*sigh*…