Home, Chapter Nine
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"Wait! Patri—Revenge! Why?" Alphonse asked, just as Patricia's knife shot out at him. She had thrown it, but had strengthened it with alchemy to make it rebound like a boomerang. Revenge caught the knife back in her hands.
"Why?" Revenge smiled, as she attacked Edward now. He blocked the attack with his automail arm, but the knife knocked the automail out of shape. Edward was shocked. He checked it quickly while dodging AND protecting Elysse, and groaned.
"Oh Fudruckers! (That's a burger shop!) Winry's gonna kill me…" He accidentally dropped Elysse…and groaned in pain.
"You asked, why, correct? Well…Miss Elric here was the one that introduced the game of stabbing knives between your fingers, right? And I was obsessed with stabbing…until one day, I stabbed myself…"
"That's no reason to take it out on me!" Elysse cried out, clenching her teeth against the pain. Reaching towards the back of her belt, she pulled out a single shot pistol that she had received from Riza Hawkeye…She remembered her saying, "One shot is all you get…"
-Flashback-
"Hey, kids!" Peter called, looking up the banister. "There are some visitors!"
"Coming, Grandpa!" Elysse pounded down the stairs, along with Ed and Alphonse. She tripped on the last step, Ed fell on top of her, and unfortunately, Alphonse fell on all of them.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the Fullmetal Shorty…" a sarcastic voice that Ed hated down to his guts…
"I don't even need to look…it's Colonel A------ right?"
"And me," the second, more proper and down-to-business voice added on.
"And 1st Lt. Hawkeye, right?" Al asked. His head had rolled to the other room, so he couldn't see. But he still knew that voice.
"Woof! Woof!"
"And Black Hayate…" Ed and Alphonse said together.
Moments later, everyone was settled in the living room, with Black Hayate, Riza, and Roy sitting on couches opposite Peter, Elysse, Ed. Al had to get a separate chair for himself. Then, a mass conversation of voices started, with Elysse being introduced to Riza, Roy, and Hayate, Ed getting pissed off at the Colonel, the story of meeting Peter, and etc.
Riza and Elysse left the room for "feminine" chatting. Elysse found Riza actually quite nice, despite her cold outlook. And she was someone she could trust. Soon, Elysse found herself pouring out everything that happened in her past years to Riza.
"I'm sorry those happened…" Riza soothed.
"I'm fine, really. I just have a jerk twin who's full of airs, and a younger brother who lost his body…but I'm fine…really…" Elysse replied.
Shouts from the living room started, with Colonel Mustang yelling, "Fullmetal's girlfriend is his sister!" repeatedly.
Then Ed shouted back, "Mustang married Hawkeye!" repeatedly. Black Hayate started barking, and Riza sighed, and rolled her eyes.
"Excuse me for a minute…" Riza took out her shot gun, and shot into the living room three times. All fell silent. "Men are like dogs…dumb, but trainable…"
Elysse giggled, and noticed Riza blushing, even after Ed said that Colonel Mustang Riza married. "You married Mr. Colonel Mustang, right?"
Riza blushed fiercely, and muttered, "Yes, but we technically aren't allowed to be a couple. There's no fraternizing between military members. It's a law…And it's hard to keep it secret too…but we have great military friends, Fury, Havoc, Armstrong, Ross, Bloche, Hu—no…, Sheska, Falman, and Breda…You've met them before, when you came to our office. They keep the secret for us. But if King Bradley knows, that's one shot…But go ahead and tell Ed and Al and Peter…they might already know that though, from the others…"
She continued, "Many things, in life, Elysse, are one shot. Ignore the pun about me as a shooter for a second. Life itself is one shot. Breaking a porcelain vase is a one-shot…Homunculi killing your friends are one shot…" Riza was pained when she though of Maes Hughes, who had been killed by Envy. "And new lives born are one-shots…"
Elysse thought a minute, and two things dawned on her, "Miss Riza, surely you're not…"
Riza smiled gently, and patted her stomach. "Yes, I am… Roy doesn't know yet…but they're triplets…Two girls, one boy. I'm going to plan a fake sick leave later on…just so I can hide my stomach…"
"What're their names?"
"We're still thinking, but they might be: Rena, meaning Song for the first girl who is born. Rhea, a Greek Titan name for the second girl born. And Ray, a name for sunlight for the boy. Roy says that he plans on having a girl with me, but I know two things: 1. He doesn't care which gender, as long it's a child. 2. He obviously doesn't know I'm pregnant…"
They laughed, and as they did so, Ed and Mustang were at it again. Apparently, Al and Peter and Black Hayate were the commentators for the verbal match.
"And Roy Mustang starts it out!" Peter shouted.
"Yo momma was so black, that…Hey! Where'd she go!" Roy cracked out.
"Don't say things about my mom! You DID it with Riza, I know you did!" Ed screamed.
"We're not even going out, fool!"
"Liar!"
"Shut up!"
"Excuse me, Elysse…" Riza took out her gun, and shot in the room six times. She checked the gun. "Shoot, one bullet left. It won't be any good if there's a battle within that room…" So she handed it to Elysse. Elysse's eyes widened. She had never been trusted with a gun before.
"One shot, Elysse. Use it wisely to protect anything that's worthy to you. One shot is all you get…" Riza smiled. The fighting started up yet again, and Riza sighed deeply. She took out a rife from a bag that she had carried with her, and said, "Sorry Miss Elysse. Looks like we need to keep a guard on them. Would you like to come?"
"I'll join you later." With that, Riza fired into the living room. Elysse, thinking the second thing that she had thought about while talking about Riza's pregnancy, said out loud softly, "Life is a precious one-shot thing…anything that doesn't have a second chance, is one-shot…"
-End Flashback-
"Patricia…" Elysse softened. "You were my best friend…what have you become? You don't work under the master of homunculi, and you're the head of the homunculi. You're even in a higher position than Pride…that's King Bradley…but what are you now?" Elysse had managed a silent alchemy, and could use alchemy without the lights and sound. She alchemized the gun and bullet into more powerful objects, just in case.
Patricia's eyes slipped into a normal human's eyes for a split second, but changed back into a homunculi's right after. Elysse's compassion had worked, but only for a bit. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Elric. But I have to kill you…" She raised her knife, and threw.
"Elysse! No!" Al and Ed shouted. But they were both pinned down to the floor by large ropes that came out of the ground.
Everything went in slow motion. Elysse pulled out the gun, aimed, and fired at the incoming knife. It went off with a deafening BANG! The bullet split the knife in two even slices, and continued heading on towards Revenge. It caught her between the forehead, where blood spattered. Using the last of her energy, Elysse unalchemized Al and Ed, and blacked out. The poison was beginning to work on her.
Before Revenge regenerated fully, Ed alchemized a hole and Al threw her in. Then they covered it. It wouldn't kill her, but it would hold her off.
"How do we take care of Elysse!" Al yelled.
"I dunno…" Ed started, but was cut off when car swerved down the alley, and screeched to a stop.
"It looks like I got here in time, you silly Alchemists!" Peter climbed out, serious looking. He motioned everyone into the car, carried Elysse in, and drove off.
"How'd you find us?" Ed asked.
"Well, that's easy Edward. I followed you as you were traveling, 'cause I missed you guys terribly. But I got lost in the crowd in town and encountered Patricia's 'pretend' mansion. There I met a house cleaning woman, she had said you were trying to save your sister from their unknown owner who turned into a monster." Peter finished smiling at the two. "And for the 'poison', it wasn't poison. That monster who attacked Elysse was tricky, making the chemical feel like a poison, and duked you guys into thinking that it was a poison."
Elysse was sleeping peacefully, and the three others softly laughed. Life truly was one shot.
A year later, everything was back to normal, well, nearly… The servants from Patricia's home were invited to serve in Peter's house, and although they weren't treated as servants, but equal members of the household, they still preferred to do regular chores…And Elysse was doing just fine. The chemical on the knife was a sleeping drug. Patricia had not intended to kill Elysse with just poison. It would've been no fun. She had planned to decrease Elysse's moral of living to the point where she was weak enough to attack. And there was no news of Patricia, which was making Elysse more uncomfortable as the days passed.
Everyone had nothing to do. The servants finished their chores, Peter was gardening again, and Elysse was soaking up the entire library again. Al also read a random book and found it boring. Everyone was staring off to space; the day was not complete. They always like Edward bothering them, telling them psychotic stories of his amazing adventures but nothing really seemed to convince them to do anything today. Edward was still lying in bed also staring off in space. He had nothing fun and exciting to do for he still had an injured leg, and he just had to live with it for a while.
Elysse got up and had courage to make everyone's day bright and cheerful. She started with the servants trying to annoy him or her, but failed. The servants were lucky they didn't get their underwear alchemized off. She then tried Peter and Al, trying to do funny dance moves but nothing else worked. She walked up the stairs into her brother's room.
"Oh, forget it!" She said slamming the door shut, and thought that the day would be better if they could both tease him about Winry.
"Oh...ok..." Edward looked around the silenced room and sighed, not bothered. Elysse left the room in a huff.
Soon, Elysse encountered a big huge door which had colorful designs in it; some how, she had never seen this door before. Roses lay on top of the old looking door. Everything was spotless and Elysse thought it would be a great idea to trash the mansion, but that would only disturb the peaceful day, so she opened the huge door and walked in.
"By Ishbal…" She looked around, it was like a theater, and it was the Ballroom. Better then Patricia's Ballroom of course. She spun around the big empty room. There were bright colored chairs and designs she never seen before. They were so beautiful to the point where one could not describe them in words. The room was ten times bigger then the library, Elysse stopped and put her posture in dancing position. She began to ballroom dance alone, smiling and laughing cheerfully. So maybe the encounter with Patricia was not all in vain…she had learned to ballroom dance after all. The sound of laughter echoed through the room but no one seemed to notice it. The young blonde-haired woman had closed her eyes while dancing and soon crashed into the piano seat falling from the other side of it and knocking it down to the ground.
"Whoops!" Elysse picked the piano seat up and put it on its proper position. "There..." She glanced at the piano, and she sat down on the seat and began to feel the piano keys. Although she had never touched a piano, she began to play "Wakare no Kyoku", or known as Chopin's Etude 10, no. 3. Elysse never felt happier in her life.
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