(A/N): Finally we get to meeting Teacher Izumi for the first time. Expect lots of cute Elric sibling moments, as well as fighting! Since it'll be a long flashback, I'll have a note when it begins instead of placing the whole chapter and next ones in italics. Enjoy as always :)

"My train's broke. Help me fix it!" The boy with the train lifts the damaged toy for her to see and Izumi inspects it.

"Come inside. I've got tools that'll do the job." Izumi heads into the house as the boys follow after her seeming confused.

"Huh? Aren't you gonna use alchemy?"

"No." She informs them plainly as she gets out a toolbox.

"Why? My dad said you're a real powerful alchemist."

"The axle is just broken. Why use alchemy when you can do it yourself?" She pulls out a screwdriver and begins to repair the axle by hand.

"'Cause its easier and faster!" The other two boys argue, only to be silenced by a compelling 'Shut up!' from Izumi as the train is fixed.

"Aw, now it looks weird." The owner of the toy whines as he looks over Izumi's work.

"If you don't want it fixed, then take better care of it." Izumi scolds in annoyance. They return back to the outside, the Elrics quickly getting out of their Teacher's way as the boys run off.

"Thank you! We'll come back if it gets broken again!" The children call back, evading a scolding reminder of just being told to care for the toy.

They don't know how lucky they were. The recently beaten Elric males jealously think as the boys are quickly out of sight and Izumi lets out a sigh. Soon after, there's a voice at the gate.

"Mrs. Izumi?" The visitor, a lone little girl with an unmoving cat in her cradling arms, approaches Izumi who can only see where this will go as the child begs her to fix the animal. "Please make Chiko better."

The poor thing. Elena watches as Izumi kneels down to the girl's level and explains that poor Chiko is dead.

"B-But you can fix anything, right? Mrs. Izumi fixes everything. Even Chiko?" The girl continues hopefully, too young and naive to understand as Izumi gently removes Chiko from the girl's arms.

"We all have life, and Chiko's has ended. I can't bring her back, but I can make a grave for her. Okay?" Izumi offers with a sad smile and the child begins to cry, understanding enough that her beloved Chiko is forever gone.

The Elrics help Izumi and the little girl dig a spot at a peaceful looking area, the child's mother having found her as the job is complete. Saying her last goodbyes to Chiko, she continues to sob as her mother thanks Izumi and the two begin leave.

"All life will come to an end, each of us to return to the dust of where we came." Izumi says, watching as the mother comforts her daughter. "Our spirits to become memories in the minds of those living who knew us. Everything changes. I knew that, but still couldn't explain it to her."

"Teacher...do you think we could revive a dead person?" Edward asks her, clearly having thought about it ever since hearing Izumi talk to the child.

"Do you think it a good idea to be the military's dog?" She counters, though the fire of the touchy subject seems lost in her words.

"Since I joined, they called me a living weapon. I don't know if I'll have to take a life." Edward replies honestly, and Elena can tell that it's been bothering him.

It's inevitable with our travels. We...we'll have to take lives if we have to. Elena shivers, thinking of having to do such a thing. Fighting, she had been prepared for, but going all the way? Can I even do that? Can I...kill?

"But you'll do it if it means reaching your goal?"

"I'll fulfill our goal, no matter what." Edward confirms, determined to obtain it by whatever means. Despite accepting his confident affirmation, however, Izumi still nails him in the face with her foot.

"Looks like you did more than breaking my rules!" Izumi snaps, pointing at Alphonse and Elena who hold back on trying to help Edward back up. "Al's armor is empty, Ellie doesn't speak, and you have automail limbs."

"How?" Alphonse dares to ask.

"How do I know? I heard the echo when I threw you, Ed sounded different when he fell on his right side than his left, and Ellie has said nothing at all." Izumi explains, getting angrier from each point. "Do you think I'm a fool? Tell me what happened. Now."

"Where do I even start?" Edward says after a moment, the memories from all of them coming back into light.

*Flashback*

"Ed? Al? Ellie? Where are you?" The voice of Trisha Elric calls out in the home as she searches for where her children could have gone off to. "Oh."

She finds the sibling trio in her husband's study, the books scattered about all over the floor and the youngest two huddle over one as Alphonse points out words and reads aloud for Elena. Edward copies an image off another as he draws a chalk circle on the floorboards.

"What a mess. You must really enjoy reading, huh?" Their mother sighs, not sure whether to encourage the behavior or not as she observes the sight. Seeing Edward's drawing, she scolds. "Ed, not on the floor. Your father will be-"

"But look!" Edward insists, the tiny transmutation circle complete as he claps his hands and touches the floor. The first alchemy either of the Elrics see is performed as a small clay bird rises from it.

"Oh, my." Trisha is impressed as she gets to her knees, examining the creation. "You did alchemy. Did your father teach you?"

"How can he teach us when he's not even here?" Edward scoffs with a frown.

"We learned from the books." Alphonse explains, holding up the book he had been reading to Elena.

"Yeah, books!" Elena repeats with a smile as their mother takes the book from Alphonse and looks through it.

"You...you can understand this?" She asks, hardly understanding the large complex words and concepts herself.

"A little bit." The brothers nod as Elena mirrors them.

"Lil' bit."

"If professional alchemists found out, they'd be very jealous." Trisha says partially to herself, wondering just what her clearly talented children would get into as they suddenly look worried from her troubling expression.

"Did we do something bad?" Edward asks for them, but their mother surprises them with praise and a smile as she holds them close.

"You really are your father's children. I'm so proud of you three."

That's why we started to do alchemy, for Mother's praise. She was so happy, and so we were, too.

But then, she got sick and it couldn't make her better. Nothing did.

Then she left our world.

We thought we could bring her back. We just wanted to see her smile, hear her voice, feel her touch, just one more time. So, we studied all we could on human transmutation, but it still wasn't enough.

"Why do you think its forbidden?" Alphonse asks as he and his siblings camp out in the living room for yet another night. "Human transmutation?"

"Because no one's successfully done it, or that legend where a whole country disappeared in one night?" Edward answers, rolling on to his back as he thinks about it.

"Xerxes." Elena pipes up, recalling the name of the eastern country that had vanished over four hundred years ago.

"Yeah, that one." Edward thanks her with a pat on the head.

"But if a perfect human were made, wouldn't everyone revolt?" Alphonse questions, trying to figure how they hadn't heard of a human transmutation working despite all the information they had found on it.

"Maybe it makes zombies." Elena shivers, not wanting to see such a thing take the form of their mother.

"That's just...a rumor." Edward shakes it off, daring not to think of it going wrong. Logically, he responds. "Adults can't do it, so that's why they forbid it. So if we revive someone, everyone would be happy."

"Mommy'll be happier." Elena smiles with child innocence as she pictures the moment when their mother sees them again.

"But there's so much we don't know yet." Alphonse reasons, still finding it hard to believe it could be so easy. "Maybe if Dad-"

"Don't mention that bastard!" Edward snaps. "It's all his fault that Mom got sick. He didn't even come back for her funeral!"

"He made Mommy cry." Elena vaguely remembers the event or their father, only that their mother had been so sad. If he had done that, and Edward didn't like him, then she did too. But she couldn't think of a bad memory of the seemingly kind man, either.

"I'm just saying, it's really hard learning on our own." Alphonse admits, and there's no way Edward can argue with that as a storm crashes into the night.

The storm blasts through the night and into day as the Elric siblings brave it. Where there once was a calm river is now a disaster zone as it threatens to flood past its banks as men struggle to keep it at bay.

"It's no use! Get to higher ground!" One of them shouts as another warns the siblings to get away.

"What do we do?" Alphonse asks, wondering if their alchemy could even put a stop to it. Before Edward can even voice a plan, a woman suddenly appears out of nowhere, wearing nothing but a jacket and a dress as she leaves the crowd and approaches the bank.

"It's dangerous. You better get out of the way." She calmly advises the men who frantically warn her of the same as all eyes are on her. She claps her hands and touches the wet ground as the bright light of alchemy crackles through the air.

"No circle." Elena breathes as everyone's jaws drop when large walls reinforce the bank in seconds.

"There. That should hold for now. I'd reinforce it, though." The woman tells them as she starts to walk away and towards an abnormally large man that holds a small umbrella.

"Who are you?" One of the men dares to ask as they all inspect the solid walls that arose.

"A housewife." She says simply and with a smile as the Elrics look at another with unbelievable luck, until a stream of crimson blood pours out of her mouth.

"Eeek!" Elena shrieks from the frightening sight as her brothers look like they'll be just as sick as a doctor is called.

After hearing about the woman who had stopped the flood, there's a crowd of grateful and amazed citizens that thank her as they enter the room where she rests on a bed. Questions are asked about their savior and she answers them modestly, saying that she's Izumi Curtis and just a housewife and that man with her is her husband, Sig.

"Brothers?" Elena asks, knowing just what they're thinking about the powerful alchemist from Dublith. The two boys nod as the three break through the crowd to Izumi's side.

"Granny, please be our teacher!" They beg, narrowly missing the bed that's thrown at them. Wasn't she sick? Clearly having recovered, she towers over them as the greatly concerned crowd watches on.

"Who are you calling 'Granny'? I didn't hear you." Izumi Curtis threatens the children, a complete opposite to the calm woman she had been only seconds before.

"Please make us your apprentices." Edward tries again, slightly shaken by the monster woman's outburst unlike Alphonse and Elena who are still freaked out. "We know alchemy, and we-"

"No way." Izumi denies them instantly.

"Why?" Alphonse questions innocently, not daring to get Izumi mad again unless she decided to throw something or maybe someone at them.

"I don't take apprentices, and we're going back to Dublith." Izumi tells Alphonse rather calmly, but the news doesn't stop the boy's brother and sister who've tacked onto her arm and leg.

"Take us with you!" Elena pleads while Edward demands that she make them her apprentices anyway. After much shaking, she manages to fling them off and they go flying at Alphonse. Taking a second for the siblings recover from the flight and landing, Izumi asks them a simple question.

"Why do you want to learn alchemy?"

"Um." We can't tell her about Mom. Edward thinks quickly as his little siblings look to him for an answer. "To make life better for people!"

"Do your parents approve?" Izumi hasn't seen any adults in the room show any parental relationship to the children, until now as a short elderly woman with a young blonde girl steps forward to the speechless siblings. So that was it.

"I'm their guardian, Mrs. Izumi. These children are orphans." Pinako explains for the Elrics.

Oh. Izumi frowns, suddenly realizing how harsh she had been to the poor orphans. Looking at them again, she can see the determination in the three pairs of golden eyes, and lets out a sigh knowing that she has no choice. Placing a hand on each brother's shoulder, Elena in the middle of the two, she makes her decision.

"One month. I'll give you month, then I'll decide whether to train you three or not." Izumi doesn't single any of them out, seeing their determination as one regardless of age and gender. "You have to show me that I can teach you and show me your intelligence and skills. Understood?"

"And if they don't make it?" Pinako is curious, but concerned for Trisha's children as Winry only watches her friends in the process of being taken away. "What then?"

"They'll be sent home immediately, but if they do make it then I will train them." Izumi tells Pinako and the Elrics, who aren't fazed in the slightest in the case that they fail. They won't.

"Granny, we won't be back in a month."

"I knew you'd say that." Pinako isn't surprised at all, unlike Winry as Elena waves the older girl a goodbye as they're taken away by their Teacher.