SHONEN ALLIANCE
RE:BIRTH
OPENING THEME: HOLOGRAM (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
Back in Central, Vine was looking over some reports at his table. His humble home was quite a bit more crowded then he was used to. At the moment, his bed was being shared by Cosette Coalhearth and Alicia Melchiott, making him glad he had splurged on a king sized bed he barely used instead of a more modest single bed he barely used, while Aliasse was sprawled out on the couch, letting out the occasional snore that broke the silence of the night.
Even his favorite chair, where he usually caught the handful of hours of sleep he could be bothered to snag, had an occupant in the form of the amnesiac space woman, Shantella.
Fortunately, sleep wasn't on Vine's mind. He was far to focused on increasing reports from across Amestris. Obelisk Force had reportedly attacked five different Amestrian cities, skirmishing with Amestrian forces before vanishing. Adding to the issues ensuring Vine's mind was far to troubled for sleep, were rapidly incoming intelligence reports from across the border. Spies inserted in Drachma, Xing, and the Imperial Alliance indicated attacks in those regions as well, and on the allied side of foreign powers, Gallia and the Federation had both indicated they had been attacked as well. Whoever Obelisk Force were, and wherever they came from, they were starting fires all over Europa and Vine wasn't looking forward to the work it was inevitably going to require to put them out.
And all of this only added to the other recent worries. Edward and Alphonse had had two recent encounters on their journeys that were concerning, and it didn't comfort the Darcsen Colonel that encountering a Xingese prince and his body guards was the less troubling of the two encounters. Long was a pain in the ass and his subordinates were a bit overzealous, but Ed had gotten the impression they weren't dangerous, and Vine was inclined to agree.
Which was good, since the encounter with a real life Homunculus was more then enough trouble to make up for Ling's lack of such. Edward and Alphonse Elric seemed to have a knack for encountering the bizarre, ouroboros tattooed beings, but the recent encounter with Greed had brought light to just how dangerous these creatures were. Vine had joined Hughes and Armstrong when they accompanied the Füher, King Bradley, to deal with a supposed insurgency cell.
The story had been a farce. The Füher had actually intended to wipe out Greed's little gang before they could become a bigger threat. Vine, Hughes, and Armstrong had focused on evacuating the captured Elrics, but he had heard from the soldiers involved that the events that followed were less a battle and more a bloodbath. Most of Greed's cronies were mowed down before they even knew what was happening.
Of course, Greed himself, along with his closest allies, were systematically slaughtered by Bradley himself. One of them, a woman, had been inside of Al's hollow, armored body. Cleaning the blood out of the poor boy's armor had been difficult, especially since some had splashed onto the seal of blood that was the only thing keeping the boy's soul bound to the armor, but in the end, they had managed.
Unfortunately, what they hadn't managed to do was keep King Bradley from discovering the Elric's secret. Vine and Hughes weren't certain if Bradley had pieced together enough to know that attempted Human Transmutation had resulted in the loss of Ed's arm and leg as well as Al's entire body, but it hardly mattered in the end. It wasn't like a soul bound to a suit of armor was something all that common. Bradley didn't need to know specifics to know the Elrics were hiding something, but that only made it more odd that he hadn't done anything. Vine, Hughes, and Armstrong were under orders to keep the situation a secret, but they'd already been doing that, so nothing had really changed.
And if anything, that made Vine more anxious. He didn't particularly like Füher King Bradley. Usually, the man seemed friendly enough, but under his leadership, it seemed State Alchemists like the Elrics or himself suddenly had a lot more fires to put out. It didn't help that the Central forces under his direct command often proved to be unnecessarily brutal.
Vine had heard of incidents in almost every quarter of the country where Central forces, always acting outside of their territory, had taken situations, many of which had already been settled by local forces, and escalated them to the point of brutal bloodshed.
The recent incidents in the eastern city of Reole was the most haunting to Vine's recent memory. After the Elrics had dethroned a treasonous priest who was trying to turn the city into the seat of his own personal kingdom, Southern forces had initially occupied the city and maintained the peace pretty effectively. This had changed when Bradley had directly ordered Central forces to take control. Tensions quickly ramped up, until the city became a powder keg, waiting for a match.
The match came from an unexpected source. The priest, Cornello, suddenly re-emerged from hiding, and proved that even his direct confession of being a fraud hadn't dispelled the misplaced faith of his more zealous supporters. Conflict was immediate and bloody. Bradley's response was far from as immediate.
A week of bloody fighting had passed before Vine, Armstrong, and three other State Alchemists arrived in the city.
All five were veteran State Alchemists who had fought in Ishval. Vine had gone on to fight for Gallia in two wars after, and all five agreed that Reole was in as bad or worse condition then any city they had fought in.
The streets were stained red by the blood of men, women, and children, most of whose bodies had been left where they had fallen. The Central forces seemed to be treating every civilian in the city as an opposing combatant, and the bodies were piling up faster then the soldiers could be bothered to throw them into mass graves.
Worse yet, it would soon become unclear whether or not the dead were actually among the lucky ones. Several citizens had found themselves taken prisoner by the commanders of the forces. What had probably seemed like a mercy proved to be anything but, as the prisoners were quickly repurposed into "stress relievers" for the soldiers. When the Central forces' prison was finally broken open by the State Alchemists, the place smelt of rot, due to the corpses of three men and one woman whom the jailers had beaten to death.
The rest of the adults all showed injuries from brutal beatings, some severe. The bastards in charge had shown some mercy to the children, if being severely malnourished to the point of near starvation could be considered a mercy. Only later would they learn that no indignity was to horrendous for the monsters masquerading as soldiers to inflict.
And yet, Vine had never heard that the Central Forces involved had suffered any meaningful consequences. A few grunts discharged as a meaningless song and dance routine meant very little when the leadership involved in the fiasco all still had their cushy, high-salaried jobs at Central HQ. If Gallian soldiers during the second Europan war had done to Imperial soldiers what Amestrian troops had done to their own citizens, at the very least, squad leadership if not the entire squad would have faced a firing squad, yet the worst anyone had gotten amounted to a slap on the wrist.
So far, only Northern Amestris lacked a violent incident involving Central Forces and Amestrian citizens, though Vine had to wonder how much of that was due to even Bradley being hesitant to trespass into General Armstrong's territory.
Vine's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden knock on the door that coaxed a disturbed snort from Aliasse despite failing to wake her.
"Who the heck is here at this hour?" He wondered aloud as he slipped out of his chair. He reached the door just as a second knock began, pulling it open just as Hughes pulled back his hand to hit the door again.
"I didn't wake you up, did I?" he asked.
"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to," Vine replied casually, "what's up?"
"You're going to want to see this," Hughes replied, pulling a photo out of the front pocket of his military jacket." Vine got a sinking feeling.
"Why do I get the feeling I should be hoping you walked all the way here at two in the morning just to show me your latest photo of Elicia doing something cute?" Vine sighed, a concerned edge to his voice as he took the photo.
"Don't worry, I have those too," Hughes promised proudly,
"Why am I not surprised," Vine muttered to no one in particular as he looked at the photo. His brow furrowed with confusion as he looked over the photo, flipping it a couple of times as though he were looking for the punchline of a practical joke Hughes was playing on him. Finally, he looked at Hughes, confusion still clear on his face.
"That photo arrived at Central HQ a few hours ago. Nobody thought much of it at first, but then somebody pointed out the obvious fact that you were still here in Central when this was taken in a town to the east."
The photo showed a man who could have easily passed for Vine himself, except that instead of Vine's military uniform, he was dressed in a black variant of the same uniform Obelisk Force wore.
"Another enemy?" Vine asked.
"Doesn't look like it. Apparently, he's been seen at several of the sites where Obelisk Force attacked, but he was always battling against them," Hughes revealed.
"Several? These sites are spread all over the country. How did he…?" Vine questioned.
"We don't know," Hughes admitted, anticipating the obvious question, "where he's shown up, he showed up, fought against Obelisk Force, and was gone as soon as we beat them back."
"So he's Obelisk Force's enemy then?" Vine mused, "I like this guy already."
"It looks that way," Hughes admitted, "thing is though, the way he fights. He uses the same weapon the Obelisk Force soldiers do," he revealed, indicating the Obelisk Force Duel Disc Vine had carelessly placed on a counter top in his kitchen, "the machines he summoned with it were different, but the weapon was definitely the same."
"Huh, well if Fullmetal's and my theory that these cards are for some kind of game is accurate, I guess that would make sense. There would probably be different kinds of decks."
"So I guess that adds some credibility to the idea of the cards being for some kind of game then," Hughes summarized.
"Yes, but…" Vine continued pointing Hughes' attention towards a coffee table in front of the couch where Aliasse was still letting out an occasional snore, "Ali had a bit of a field day today. We were at the store buying all the card game sets they had. She was having a ball earlier, playing all the new games we picked up, yet none of the cards we picked up were anything like Obelisk Force's. Doesn't seem the card game they used is one sold in Amestris. A Randgriz game shop owner is going to have an unexpected surprise when the Archduchess stops in to buy cards once Cordelia receives my request, but I'm already betting we'll get a dead end in Gallia too."
"Our prisoners aren't all that talkative either. They're all certain this 'Duel Academy' is going to come to their rescue," Hughes revealed, "do you think we'd have any better luck with your new twin?"
"Maybe," Vine admitted, "but how are we going to find him?"
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Vine and Hughes couldn't have known that now, less then 24 hours after they'd had their late night conversation, Edward and Alphonse Elric had answered the question they'd posed. The very man from the photo now stood, facing off with them and 4 other strangers, demanding to take the young woman who had emerged from a portal minutes before, followed by 3 Obelisk Soldiers who had attacked the Elrics and the girl, only to be easily dealt with by Yugi Muto.
Those three soldiers were now entrapped in three separate Duel Monsters cards, which the newcomer was now placing in a deck case attached to his hip. Yugi noticed as the man slipped the three cards into the holder that it was full of cards, even though his Duel Monster deck was already firmly locked into the deck slot of his Duel Disc.
The Duel Disc was an oddity to the King of Games. Jaden and his classmates used a special Duel Academy Duel Disc, so it wasn't that their Duel Disc models were different that surprised Yugi. It was the complete lack of a field that stood out. Yugi, Jaden, and Yusei's discs all had solid fields that socketed into place when it was time to duel, but the fields of Yugi's three most recent opponents had seemed to be formed of an energy of some kind. Looking over the newcomers disc, as well as the one he had seen attached to the girls arm, they were clearly the same.
"Who are you?" Yugi inquired.
"That is not your concern," the man declared, "the woman beside you. She is the one whom Obelisk Force seeks. You have no reason to endanger your dimension further for a stranger. Stand aside."
"Her?" Edward replied, shocked as he looked over the girl. Everything was happening so fast, he hadn't had time to really analyze the girl or the four men who had come to their rescue, but none of them looked like they belonged in Amestris. Their clothing and fighting techniques were unlike anything he'd ever seen. There was one thing, though, about the girl specifically, that Edward did recognize. Fear. Despite appearances, this man was not his friend, and the girl he was demanding they turn over to him was visibly frightened by him. Even to save Amestris from further attacks, was it right to ignore her?
"Zuzu Boyle, do you intend to further endanger this world!?" the stranger shifted his attention to the girl, "you are terrifyingly well aware by now of Yuri's power. Tell me, if he finds you again, are you confident in your ability to evade capture a second time?"
"Yuri?" Yugi repeated the name. He hoped no one noticed him shudder, since even he had no idea why the name made his blood run cold. It was if his instincts were on high alert, warning him of a threat.
"Hey!" a voice called from behind Yugi's group, drawing their attention to it momentarily. Jaden was waving frantically as he ran to join his friends. "What the heck, guys," he gasped between breaths, looking like he'd run quite a distance, exhausting himself, "why'd you all take off like that? What happened to 'scouting the area' or whatever it was we were doing?"
"Sorry, Jae," Ichigo apologized.
"How come you were so slow?" Luffy asked, nonchalantly.
"I wasn't slow! You guys said something about trouble and took off! I didn't know what was going on!"
As Jaden and Luffy argued behind him, Yugi's attention was locked on the stranger, and what he saw concerned him. The stranger had visibly tensed at Jaden's arrival and was now glaring in shock at the Slifer duelist. Yugi pieced together to late that if the Duel Academy this stranger spoke of had an Obelisk Force, it might also have…
"Is Duel Academy so desperate they have sent students of the Slifer class as well!?" the stranger roared, drawing everyone else's attention back to him.
"What about Duel Academy?" Jaden responded as the stranger's Duel Disc suddenly came to life, the same energy field as the Obelisk discs used emitting from the bottom of it.
"Hold on! We're not…" Yugi protested to no avail.
"I WILL avenge Dr. Gunther's companions!" the stranger vowed, challenging Jaden!
CLOSING THEME: NEVER GIVE UP (Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters)