*near to tears* I... I didn't update last week! ;-;
I actually had finished the chapter and an alternate within the week, but it was really late on Saturday. Even if I had finished earlier, I wouldn't have had the time to post it since we ended up busier than I expected.
But, since I had actually thought of 3 alternates... I figured I might as well write the rest of them, too, and just make sure this chapter is well-edited by the end of this week. :3 Of course, I've been focused on this and haven't really thought of what to write for the next chapter... Well, ain't that just fan-diddly-tastic? ;-;
On with the story!
Rillie took a breath in, then let it out. Then she opened the door and entered.
She hesitantly stepped into the unfamiliar building, searching for the spot they'd most likely be. Where's the tables?... Or maybe they're on the second floor? She located a group of computers, and continued skimming about with her eyes at the sitting areas around there. Where can they- Oh!
She sighed in relief and speed-walked over to a small table piled high with books and loose leaf paper.
"Hey, guys!" she chirped to the two leaning over their work.
"Hey, Rillie," they automatically replied. Then they blinked and did a double-take, causing her to slightly smirk.
"Rillie!" the younger repeated, now with a more surprised and pleased tone.
"What're you doing here?" Ed, the older, raised his brow and looked around, making sure they were indeed in the place he thought they were. Yep, they were in the West City Library still- quite aways from the girl's home.
"I came along with Milo, who was coming to West City anyway," she replied simply as she dragged a chair over from another table to sit by them. "Figured I might as well look for you guys."
"Guess you found us," Al said, looking like he was conflicted between taking a break to chat with Rillie or telling her to go away so they could keep working.
"Yeah. I'm so glad you guys are so predictable."
"Predictable?!" Ed started to stand up to defend himself, Rillie laughing upon his reaction, but Al quickly caught the motion and pushed him back down into his seat. He glanced around to signal to his brother that they were kinda in the middle of the library- not the most ideal place to be loud.
"At least, predictable in where you hang out," she amended as her giggles died. "I was pretty sure you'd be in a library as soon as possible."
Ed stared at her for a moment, then just huffed in defeat, understanding her point.
"Sooo..." Rillie started, signaling a change in topic. "How's your studying going?"
"Well, due to recent events, we know now that not only do we have to figure alkahemy out, but have it work on someone with a different chemical makeup," Ed explained in a low voice.
She turned that statement over in her mind until she got what he was implying. She did a little, quiet, excited gasp. "So you are really that different from Amestrians?"
Both just simply nodded in response.
"Do you know the exact measurements your bodies have, then?"
That was when both frowned and shook their head no instead.
"At this point, I can't really remember anymore since we've been looking at Amestrian books lately," Al admitted, face dropping. "So now we're not sure if we should try to figure out what they should be for us before attempting medicinal alkahemy or make sure we've got alkahemy down then figure out what should be changed so it works on us."
Rillie looked at the two brothers as she considered the dilemma herself. At a shift her arms made she felt a small, but stinging, pain on her left forearm. She winced, but then a realization came to her, and a lightbulb nearby brightened as she thought up an idea. With an ecstatic grin, she held out her arm to them.
"If you guys go with the second choice, you can start by practicing on me!"
"Wuh?" both brothers blurted before they glanced to her appendage and noticed a red streak running diagonally across the inside of her forearm, about 6 inches long.
"What happened?!" Al cried worriedly as her inspected her cut.
"Don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks," she said to calm him down, but then her tone suddenly changed to bitterness as she explained the cause of the small injury. "It happened at Milo's friend's party."
The brothers glanced to each other and silently decided it might not be the best idea to ask her to elaborate.
"So you want us to try to heal it?" Ed asked, glancing between her arm and her eyes unsurely.
"Sure! I trust you guys won't mess me up instead. And starting small is probably better."
Even though they actually hadn't done any transmutations before their big world-crossing one and it had worked anyway... they agreed it'd be better to go slow. Or at least as slow as their impatience for the matter would allow.
"O-okay, if you're sure..." Al quickly flipped through some loose papers until he found the one he wanted. "This has a pair of circles that should do the trick."
"I shall be your guinea pig," Rillie announced officially, moving her arm to cover the transmutation circles drawn on the paper.
Ed had raised his hands to clap or something, but then he paused in midair. "Wait, are we allowed to transmute in the library?"
The three blinked, then looked around for any indication that stated otherwise. Ed eventually shrugged and figured it probably didn't matter as long as they didn't mess with the property.
He and his brother discussed the circles for a few minutes before they decided to try it. They placed their hands on the first circle, touching the edges that were not covered by Rillie's arm, and nodded to each other before activating it.
"WHAT are you kids doing?!"
"RUN!" John shouted as he fumbled out his chair and sprinted away from the librarian.
Ed returned to the hotel room after having picked up some food-to-go from a Xingese restaurant down the street. He opened the door, and blinked as he found Al frozen in the middle of the room, looking like he was holding his breath- clearly guilty and wishing they weren't in the same place together at the moment.
"Heeeeey, Brother!..."
"What'd you do, Al?" he said with a deep sigh, closing the door behind him.
Al let out his breath and paused, thinking about what to say. "...You know how there's no animal shelters around here, ri-"
Mrowr.
Al's mouth quickly snapped closed.
A tiny fluffball jumped onto the bed, coming into view of both Elrics. It found a spot it liked on the mattress and sat down before meowing at them cutely.
Mew!
"Wow." Ed freed one of his hands from the bag containing food so he could facepalm. He slid his hand down his face slowly, groaning in disbelief and annoyance.
Mew!
"Once I can find a good owner for them, they'll be out of our hair, I promise!" Al said quickly. A bigger cat with darker fur chose that moment to appear, rubbing up against the younger human's leg with a loud purr.
Mrowr.
"How many did you sneak in?" Ed asked, sighing in defeat.
"Just these two."
Mew!
Mrowr.
"All I have to say," the elder finally stated after a moment, "is that... We really are predictable."
Hey- if one Al can do it, so can another!
Now for the alternates! The first two relate to memory, and the last one... My mind kept bringing up the idea for a while now, and I finally succumbed and wrote it. It's more of a silly omake than anything, but IT STILL COUNTS AS AN ALT!
So... uh... I'm just gonna talk about my personal life for a bit, if that's cool with you...
I joined my first club, like, ever, earlier this week- the Drama Club. I'm planning on maybe joining one or two more. This is mainly because I basically didn't participate in any extracurricular activities as a freshman or sophomore, so I should really up my game, at least for my upperclassman years. ^^'
I finally learned exactly what NaNoWriMo is this morning! :D Surprisingly, from the lady carpooling me and a few other kids to school. XD Now, my goal is to participate!... next year or year after that. First, I really need to get better at planning, and I need an idea to plan before I even attempt.
K, bai!
Alternate (Route) O:
He dropped onto solid ground, but he didn't realize it. He passed out from the exhausting, agonizing experience.
"Brother!"
...
"Brother!"
...
"ED!"
John woke up at Matt's yelling, wondering how long he'd been yelling and why he hadn't heard said yelling earlier.
"What's wrong?..." he muttered blearily. That was when he focused more on the face of his sibling and realized they were in a dire situation.
Panic was written all over him.
John lifted the top half of his body with his arms and looked around him, expecting to see blood or something, but there was just cement and dust. He looked to see they were in an alleyway, but not deep.
When'd we get here?...
"Brother, do you remember anything?" Al asked hurriedly, focusing Ed's attention back on him.
"...Like my name? Yeah," he replied with an odd look. Where was this going?
"No, you idiot!" Al didn't give his brother the time to retaliate with another insult. "Like the last thing to happen to us!"
He was about to react sarcastically, but then he paused to think about it and realized he really couldn't remember.
"I think we were gonna start the transmutation... And that's it. That's all I got."
The younger brother nodded furiously. "I can't remember visiting the Gate, either!"
"I don't even remember if the Gate was the one with Truth or the other one!"
"Will our memory come back with a trigger?"
"Or is this the price we paid to come here in one piece?"
They both went into silence, pondering what was going on.
"At least we don't need to remember the Gate, right?" Ed eventually suggested. "We can still find what we want and get back home without any knowledge we could've attained there."
"Yeah. We're in a new place- most likely, Amestris- so that means the transmutation worked. If we got here, we can just go back the same way," Al said, starting to relax.
"Yeah." Ed wore a thoughtful look, but then panic suddenly started to grow into his expression like on his brother's just a minute ago. "I don't remember how we did the circle!"
"What?" Al searched his own brain and came up with nothing- not even that they had used chalk to draw it. "What?!"
"How do we get home now?!"
"Uuuh... Oh! Maybe there's a sketch of it in our backpacks! We would've done that just in case," Al said, quickly reaching into his backpack and digging through all its contents.
Both brothers dug through all the pockets, every nook and cranny, but they couldn't find any transmutation circles.
"If we don't remember or figure out what we did..." Both brothers looked to each other, knowing exactly how that sentence would end.
We can't return.
Alt. O: Whoever or whatever it was they met in the Gate, they demanded a toll- and memory was taken. Ed and Al may have to start over from the very beginning to make the Gate-crossing circle again... If they cannot succeed and/or find a loophole, they will be stuck in the alternate universe. (Quite an ironic fate, considering what happened to their ancestors.)
Alternate (Route) P:
"Good, you're awake."
Matt blinked harder, trying to wake up more, and frowned upon seeing his brother's concerned face. He started sitting up, but winced at the nasty headache he just barely realized he had. His body also ached, but it only took a moment to glance at the ground he was laying on to understand why.
Wait, why was I on the GROUND? His eyes widened and, trying to ignore how his headache continued to flare, he searched hopelessly around their current location, not finding anything he recognized.
"Where are we?" he asked his brother, trying to not sound too freaked out.
"I have no idea," John replied, trying to not show his worry through his voice either, but doing a better job of it. They gently helped each other stand up, wincing at how badly their heads pounded. They brushed off and slung on the backpacks they apparently had brought with them to... wherever this place was.
"So what do we do?" the younger eventually asked as they observed the crowd of people flooding the sidewalk in front of them, wondering how big of a city they were in. The noise of walking and chattering really wasn't helping their headaches.
"I dunno," was the response given as Ed massaged his temples, trying to hear his own thoughts. He blinked as he finally got a solution. "Duh! Just get our phones out and call Mom and Dad to pick us up."
Al sighed in relief. "Of course."
Both dug through their pants pockets, then, realizing there weren't any electronic devices there for some reason, they turned to the backpacks.
"Why is there extra clothes and stuff in here? It's like we were planning on staying somewhere," Ed commented, clearly confused. He was at least happy to find that his wallet was there, though with more money than usual.
"I can't find my phone," Al said with a frustrated sigh as he zipped up all the pockets again. "What about you?"
"Me neither," the other replied, worried about where his phone could possibly be. Few times could it not be found on or near him.
"Okay," Al said slowly, trying to get calm, "then we just find a phone. No biggie."
It was when they entered the nearest store...
...and asked about possibly using a phone...
...and got a reply in a completely foreign language...
...that they realized that getting home was not going to be so simple.
Alt. P: Instead of gaining knowledge, all their memory related to Fullmetal Alchemistis taken in the Gate. John and Matt have no idea where they are or what how they got there... Will they be stuck in the parallel universe forever?
Alternate (Truth) Q:
"AL!"
Matt yelped at his brother's not-so-subtle way to get him to wake up.
"What, Brother?!-" Just starting to get off the ground immediately alerted him to whatever was wrong.
"The toll..." Ed started with wide eyes. "Was..."
Al nodded, suspecting both got the same fate. He shifted uncomfortably, then quietly finished the statement. "Our underwear."
Alt. Q: Hiromu Arakawa's omakes are no laughing matter; they really are possible, at times. In this case, whichever sort of Gate the brothers encountered took their underwear instead of the toll usually expected. What if they can't get a new pair soon?! They're wearing jeans! This is truly horrible! The Gate is cruel!