--- This was original idea for chapter 1, more or less, but I ended up doing something different, so here it is as chapter 2. Hope you enjoy it. ---
Oh and Disclaimer: I don't own Hagaren/FMA. Hiromu Arakawa (I think that's her name) does. Probably some big faceless corporations do too. But not me.
Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Fullmetal Alchemist
'Ed is nice' Part 2
We last saw our hero in a classroom pointing at a black board and rambling on and on about how many nice things he has done. It wasn't very exiting. Thus, Ai has packed him off to make himself useful and do some nice things for other nice people.
We join our hero walking down a random street in some village, ever vigilant for nice things to do. Alphonse has joined him, to assist him in the doing of said nice things and to stop him beating up people who call him short.
"Look over there, niisan!" says Al "That little girl is crying." The brothers walk over to the little girl, who is stood under a tree, sniffling.
"Hey there!" says Ed "What's wrong?" The little girl sniffs and points up a tree.
"Mister!" She sniffles and grabs Ed's jacket "My kitty ran up this tree and she won't come down! I think she's stuck!" Ed pats the little girl on the head.
"Don't worry, I'll get her down!" The little girl stops crying and smiles up at Ed.
"Thank you, mister!"
The kitten is fairly high up the tree, on the flimsiest branch that can support it. Ed climbs up the tree, branches that get in his way being snapped off and raining down like..well, rain.
"Stupid branches!" shouts Ed wrenching another branch out of the way.
"Mister! Are you okay, mister?" asks the little girl.
"No problem!" Ed manages a thumbs up while precariously clinging to a branch near the kitten "just a little more!" Ed shimmies his way as near the cat as possible.
"Here, kitty, kitty!" Ed calls to the kitten, reaching out with his hand and making those 'ch ch' noises. The kitten hisses and backs away, just out of his reach. "Damn!" Ed crawls as far as he can up the branch. It wobbles dangerously.
"Niisan, are you okay?" Al calls up to Ed as he can hear worrying cracking noises coming from up above.
"I'm fine, I've almost got it! C'mon kitty..." he kitten refuses to budge. Cooing having failed, Ed lunges at the kitten. "Gotcha!" Ed misses, and the branch cracks alarmingly. The kitten runs forward, scratches his nose hard and shoots down the tree. "Argh, you STUPID CAT!" Ed screams as the whole branch goes crashing down.
"Thanks again, Mister!" The litte girl waves as she walks down the road, holding her kitten. Ed manages to smile and waves back. He has a badly scratched nose, a bump on his head and a large twig complete with leaves stuck in his hair.
It is in the aforementioned condition that Ed sets off to look for more good deeds. Before long, he comes across a whole crowd of sad children, crowded near a brightly coloured booth. A worried young woman looks up as he approaches. Warily, he asks -
"What's wrong?" The woman gives him a Look. Al holds up a finger;
"Er, niisan..." he points at the twig. Ed pulls it out. The woman hands him a note.
" 'Sorry, there will be no puppet shows for a while as Mr. Nelson broke both his arms rescuing a kitten from a tree' " Ed reads. He looks at the teacher. She's almost in tears.
"It's my first day and it's all gone wrong! I knew an outing on my first day wasn't a good idea!" the teacher wailed " I didn't plan anything else! I'm such a failure!" She bursts into tears. Ed looks at all the kids and the tent. He scratches his head, then takes a deep breath.
"No problem." Ed thumbs at himself and grins "You just need someone to do a puppet show right? I'll do it!" Al looks like he might die, but the teacher is ecstatic.
"Really? Oh, i'm saved! Thank you!"
Ed rummages around in the tent and finds the puppets. He reckons he can do better than that, so he transmutes some new ones. He ends up with a dragon, a princess, a priest and knight. They look a bit funny because he made them out of Punch and Judy puppets, but they were still an improvement. He throws the dragon and the priest to Al.
"Here, you can help." It's a bit of a squeeze, and the kids can SO see Al underneath the tent, but finally they're ready. "Ok kids, the shows about to start!" Ed calls from under the tent.
"Yay!" several children cheer and they all sit down to watch. This is when Ed realises he actually needs a story to tell.
"Uh oh."
"What's the problem, niisan?"
"Er... I don't really know what to do... just..er.. follow my lead, ok?" Ed holds up the Knight puppet. "I am Sir Alphonse, defender of the far away kingdom of.. er... Somewhere!"
"Niisan..."
"I am on my way to visit my fiancee, Princess Winry of Somewhere!" Ed holds up the princess puppet and waves it around a bit. Then he does a very, very poor impression of Winry in a squeaky voice - "Sir Alphonse! You have returned! Now we can get married!" Ed does a dramatic gasp and returns to his knight voice "Look out, Princess Winry! A dragon!" Nothing happens. Ed nudges Al, who is busy not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "Ahem, I SAID 'Look out! A DRAGON!' "
"Oh right.." Al holds up the dragon puppet "Rraaagh!" Ed goes all squeaky again.
" 'Eek! Help me, Sir Alphonse!' shouts Winry as she is carried off by the dragon." Ed nudges Al again. The knight is left by himself on stage. " 'Oh woe is me!' " There is a good deal of whispering and shoving under the tent. The Priest puppet pops up. Al announces hesitantly -
"Er... Don't worry, Sir Alphonse! I know where the dragon lives! I'll help you rescue the Princess!"
"...er, we're in the dragon's cave, ok? Hang on..." The Knight disappears and transmutation light can be seen within the tent and then a 'cave background' is shoved up. The Knight re-appaers. "So this is the Dragon's cave! Come out and fight, Dragon! Return the Princess!" Al can be heard laughing in the tent. "Er... stop laughing and come out and fight, Dragon! ...Al, what's wrong with you?"
"Sorry, niisan, but you looked really funny doing alchemy wearing those sock puppets!"
"...I'll give you one last chance, Dragon! Come out and fight!" The dragon finally appears on stage, wobbling rather a lot.
"Hee hee... er.. Raagh! I'll never give you back the Princess!"
"You fiend! I, Sir Alphonse, shall defeat you! Hiyah!" The Knight smacks the dragon on the head. Al makes a choking noise.
"Argh, oog, I am beaten! Help me, Master priest!" The priest pops up and smacks the knight on the head.
"Ouch, why you treacherous bas-" The dragon disappears and there is a vague choking noise.
"Niisan, they're little kids, you can't say that!"
"Er... sorry. You treacherous ...guy, Priest Cornello!"
"Niisan, if this turns out to be Liore, you'll upset people again!"
"Oh it is NOT Liore! Why did you do this, Cornello?"
"I need to get rid of you, so I can marry Princess Winry!"
"Never!" Back comes the squeaky voice as the princess re-appears "That's right! I'll never marry you!"
"Oh and how will you stop me?"
"Easy! I can do Alchemy!" Some blue dust is thrown up to represent alchemic light which is followed by some cursing and real alchemic light as Ed found out he didn't have the props. Cardbaord bars trap the priest and the dragon.
"Curses!"
"And now you shall marry me and Sir Alphonse right here against your will! Think of the irony!"
"And if I don't?"
"We won't let you out until you do and that dragon is bound to get hungry sometime!" Ed switches to his knight voice again "Woah! Princess Winry is scary! Maybe I shouldn't marry her after all! " Back to princess voice "You'll marry me or else i'll beat you up with this spanner I have hidden in my corset!" Finally, Ed uses his normal voice. "And so Princess Winry and Sir Alphonse - at spanner point - lived happily ever after! The end!" There is a deathly silence. Then a cheer, probably from the little girls, whilst the little boys were annoyed that a girl saved the day and felt like they had been duped.
When everyone had skipped happily back up the street, Ed and Al emerged from the tent.
"Man, my back hurts. And my knees. Let's go find something to eat... I've had enough of being nice for one day..." They set off up the road into the sunset...
And so our heroes live on to do more nice things! Fight on, Edward Elric, Fight on!
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Al: Hey, what about me? I can fight on too.
Ai: Even people who hate Ed appreciate that you're nice, Al. It's Ed's battle alone.
Al: Oh, ok.
Ed: That is so unfair... pouts
--- I hope you enjoyed that, I totally winged the whole thing. How you can wing a fanfic, I don't know, but I did! Perhaps Ed's next nice adventure shall be.. babysitting! Aaaha ha ha ha ha haaa! Perhaps. I don't know... By the way, this isn't a shot at pairing up Al and Winry. It just seemed a funny thing for Ed to pick the first names that popped into his head for the main characters. On a random note, I had a dream with Ed in it last night... He was staying next door at my cousin's house and I desperately wanted him to come and visit me, but he wouldn't come round, no matter what! Said he had too much research to do. Damn you, Ed! Why wouldn't you visit me! ---