Fullmetal Sorcerer

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Fullmetal Alchemist stuff. I do, however, own the rest of it.

Chapter 3: The Bradley's Problem

Ed woke up when the morning light started to shine right in his eyes. He sleepily sat up and wondered what time it was. The little windup clock by his bed told him ten seventeen. Ed wondered what happened to getting an early start. Still, he had slept for almost fourteen hours. Interdimensional travel must have taken more out of him than he thought.

He left his room, made a quick stop at the bathroom, and then started downstairs to try and figure out what happened to his early start. The downstairs was quiet. He didn't hear anyone bustling about. Did Thomas forget about him or something?

"Hello?" he called out.

He heard someone stir in the room behind him. Moments later, Anna emerged from the back. She had a half read book in her right hand.

"Oh, Edward. You're awake. Would you like some breakfast?" she said as she started towards the kitchen.

"Yeah. Breakfast sounds great," he said as he followed. "Say, what happened to leaving early for Four Rivers?"

Anna's eyes crinkled ever so slightly. "Last night after you went to bed, Elaine came down with a high fever. Thomas drove her to Centerville see a healer. He's not back yet."

"Centerville?" Ed asked.

"A small town to the south of here. It's about an hour closer than Four Rivers." She said.

"Does this town not have a healer or something?" he asked.

"No. That's not it. Thomas and the healer don't get along. He refuses to treat anyone in our family." She responded.

"Some doctor he is." Ed said.

"Ham and Eggs ok?" she asked him, changing the subject.

"Perfect." Ed responded, deciding not to pry.

"This will take a few minutes. If you want you can go get cleaned up. Breakfast should be ready by the time your done." Anna said.

Ed saw her turn on the stove. It clicked twice before a flame sprouted in the middle of one of the eyes. It seemed to be gas powered. So, not every piece of technology in this world was based upon sorcery. Gas power did mean that the shower would probably be hot. Ed thought that sounded like a wonderful idea.

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Ed watched the landscape zip buy from the seat of the sleek black skimmer he had fixed the previous day. Much of the area was farmland. They had passed three larger farms and a half a dozen smaller ones while driving into town. In the fields of most of the farms, Ed saw the same kind of golem like things he saw in the Bradley's barn working the fields. They apparently served the same function as golems did in his world, except that they were far more common.

Despite the fact that he was being delayed in his search for Al and Noa, Ed had to admit to having had a pretty good morning. Breakfast was tasty. The hot shower had been a small piece of heaven. At about noon, Anna come down to the basement and told Ed that Thomas was not going to be back until nighttime. She offered him another night's room and board, and promised that in the morning he would get his ride to Four Rivers.

Ed wasn't happy about having to wait an extra day, but the time spent with Anna's books would prove valuable.

Then she asked if he wanted to go into town with her. She had some errands to run, and figured that he would probably at lest like to ask around to see if anyone matching his brothers description had been to town recently. Ed really did want to see the town, and he did need to look for his brother. It seemed to be a win-win situation for him. Before they left, Anna gave Ed five ten-bit notes.

Peach Grove turned out to be very similar to a hundred other small towns Ed had visited. He guessed that if you counted all the surrounding areas, the population of the town might reach 400 to 500 people; small enough where most of the inhabitants knew most everyone.

It was about one in the afternoon when they first got to town. Anna got her errands done quickly. She stopped by a bank, bought few things at the market and stopped at a candy store to get Mark a chocolate bar. He squealed happily when she handed it to him.

Next they went to Millie's, a small outdoors cafe where the townsfolk gathered and swapped stores, roomers and gossip. Most of it was small town chatter, who was seen doing what inappropriate thing with who, who was getting married, that kind of thing. Ed could hear very little real news. It all bored him terribly. After only a few minutes of chatter, he learned no one new had come through town recently. No one had seen anyone who matched Al's or Noa's description, except for a few older folks who said they knew someone like that "a log time ago."

Anna met up with a few of her friends and started gossiping as badly as the rest of town. Mark was playing jacks with a couple of the younger children. Ed just stared out across the street. He saw a clothing store across the way and decided he would go try and find a nice jacket. He hadn't packed one when he went traveling through the desert, and the nights were pretty chilly in these parts. Ed knew they would only be getting colder as winter set in.

Ed excused himself and crossed the street into the clothing store. The shopkeeper, a round little man with a pencil thin mustache, helped him find a coat that would work. It was similar to the red coat he used to wear, but made of black leather. It set him back five bits, which was actually cheaper than he thought it would be.

As he crossed the street back, he noticed that a small crowd had gathered at the café. He pushed his way through the crowd to see Anna in the center and three men surrounding her. None of the men were that large. Two or the men had dark hair and one had light hair. One of the dark haired men had a beard. The two standing off to the sides had on workman's clothes. The man in front, the one with the beard, was wearing a cheap suit. Mark had a scowl on his face and stood protectively in front of his mother.

"Bastard. Stop calling my daughter a witch. Leave us alone. She hasn't done anything to you." She screamed at the man in front.

The man in the cheap suit took a step forward. "That's no way to talk to a gentleman such as my self." He said.

Mark darted forward, standing in between the man in the cheap suit and Anna. He looked terrified, tears streaming down his face. The man in the cheap suit reached down and roughly shoved Mark out the way. Anna moved to go to her son, but the man in the cheap suit grabbed her by the shirt at her neck.

"We are not going to tell you many more times. Take that little witch and leave this town. If you wait too much longer something bad might happen to your whole family." He said, shaking her every few word as if to punctuate his meaning.

Ed had enough the moment the man in the cheap suit's hand touched Mark. He pushed his way through the rest of the crowd and hurried over to Anna. Moments after the threat left the man in the cheap suit's mouth, Ed grabbed the pinky of the hand the man had on Anna's collar with his automail empowered right hand and twisted. The superior strength of the automail broke the man's grip in an instant. Ed then twisted the man around, and kept his hand in a lock.

"Apologize to the kid," he said.

"Who the hell are you?" the man grunted.

Ed twisted the man's pinky hard enough to cause a good deal of pain. "Apologize to the kid, now."

"I'm sorry!" the man yelped.

Ed let go of the man's pinky and shoved him roughly away. The man stumbled forward a few steps and then turned to face Ed. He really didn't look like he meant his apology.

"You little brat!" the man in the cheap suit yelled.

The man charged toward Ed, swinging wildly. Ed calmly stepped out of the way of the punch. As he did, he tripped the man sending him sprawling to the floor. He saw the man on the right with the light hair charge forward with a punch as well. Ed aimed a punch to the other mans outstretched fist with his automail arm. The two fists met, and the light haired man recoiled back in pain. He sank to his knees nursing a newly broken hand.

Ed glared at the third man, who took a nervous step back. "Get out of here before I decide to actually hurt you."

The three men who had been accosting Anna turned tail and ran. First, Ed went to check on Mark who no longer had tears streaming down his face. He was looking up at Ed like Ed was some kind of hero.

"Are you all right Mark?" he asked.

"That was wicked." Mark said.

Ed ruffled the boy's hair and then went to go check on Anna. She had her hand clutched to her chest and was breathing heavily. Ed looked closer and saw she was shaking slightly.

"Come on. Lets get out of here. Guys like that sometimes like to come back with friends." Ed said.

Anna nodded, but otherwise remained silent. She then hurried over to Mark and scooped the boy back into her arms. They rushed out of the café and back to the black skimmer.

She drove out of town quickly. Ed kept glancing back, making sure no one was following them. Violence often brought more violence, even when it was the best decision.

"So," Ed asked, "What was that all about?"

"I… I can't tell you." Anna said. She looked guilty and afraid.

"It's because Elaine can see the future." Mark said from the back.

Anna jerked back so hard that she almost ran the skimmer off the road. "Mark!" she yelled.

Ed was a little taken aback from Anna's out burst. It meant the boy was probably telling the truth though. Or at least Anna believed it was the truth.

"It's ok momma. Elaine said last night that Eddie would help us."

Ed nodded, smiling slightly at Mark's mispronunciation of his name. "Yeah, I want to help you. Tell me what's going on."

Anna was silent for a moment. Then she said, "For as long as Elaine could talk, she has been telling us things that were going to happen. Mostly it was small and silly things. Daddy is going to be home late, or I'm getting a new doll for my birthday. When she was three, she wore a raincoat to a picnic on a sunny day. She was the only one who stayed dry.

"About six months ago she met Christopher Hurst. He has a large tennason farm north of the city. He's the richest and most powerful person in the town. About fifty people work for him at his farm, as well as over two hundred constructs. When she met him, she hid behind Thomas and yelled over and over again that he was going to kill everyone.

"A lot of people thought she was just being silly, and ignored the whole incident. But those who know her, that know us, kind of believed her. They had seen her ability before. Then a roomer popped up that Elaine was actually an escaped experiment from the central government; a very dangerous experiment that would drive everyone in the town crazy eventually. Not many people believed the roomers. A few did.

"A few weeks later, we started getting harassed by Hurst's thugs. It has been getting progressively worse. Thomas has been in a good number of fights over it. Today was the first time one of the thugs ever touched me or the one of the children though."

Ed made up his mind as he listened to her story. He would help them with their problem before setting out to Four Rivers. He was anxious to find his brother, but he knew his brother was capable of handling just about anything the world would throw at him. These people needed his help now. For a moment, he wondered why trouble kept finding him.

"If you'll let me, I'll help you." He said.

"You will?" Ed watched the fear and anxiety evaporate off her face. "You believe us about her being able to see into the future?"

"I know a woman who can do something very similar. She can see into a persons past just by touching them. But even if her power is just a figment of your imaginations, I can't sit by and watch people get bullied. I'll do what I can to help you." Ed said.

Anna stared into Ed's eyes for a moment. "I wonder if I can trust you." She said, seemingly more to herself than anyone else.

"Elaine said he's a good guy." Mark said from the back.

"I'll have Thomas tell you the rest of the story when he gets home. He knows more than I do." She said.

"Yeah." Ed said as he stared out the window. It wondered what it was that made him always want to help people in these kinds of situations.

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Ed was in the Bradley guest room reading a book about skimmer technology, learning what the heck a tennason plant was. As far as he could tell, it was an herb that, when mixed with oil, made it easier to construct those web like structures he found in the skimmer. He also learned those web-like structures were actually called webs. He supposed something as common as they were would have to have a common name.

A knock on the door disturbed Ed from his reading. "Enter." He said.

Thomas walked in and sat in a chair near the bed. Ed sat up to face the older man. He had heavy and dark circles under his eyes. He looked tired.

"How's Elaine?" Ed asked.

"The healers fixed her up just fine. They don't know what caused the fever." Thomas said.

"Well, as long as she's ok." Ed said.

Thomas grunted, and then said, "Edward, I am thankful for what you did for my wife and son yesterday. But you shouldn't get involved. This is our problem. Tomorrow I'll take you to Four Rivers, like I promised."

Ed frowned. "Thomas, I'm already involved. I am already going to get even more involved. If you don't tell me what is going on I'll figure it out for my self. It will save everyone involved a lot of trouble if you just tell me your story."

Thomas leaned back in the seat and stared at Ed for several long moments. Ed felt like Thomas was trying to take a look into his soul. It was a really uncomfortable feeling.

"What the hell. The rest of my family seems to trust you. It doesn't feel right getting help from a kid though." Thomas leaned back in his seat and began his story.

"After my daughter said that Hurst was going to kill everyone, I naturally got suspicious of him. I had Elaine explain to me what she meant, but Elaine is still so young. She doesn't have the words to explain what she saw. She said everyone would get sick and then die. So, what could kill everyone?"

"If you share a communal water supply that would do it. So would a plague or a cloud of poison in the air." Ed answered.

"That's bout what I came up with too. So I did some investigating. I'm not very good at it, but I have a friend in Four Rivers who does exactly that. He gave me some pointers and checked around Four Rivers to see if he could learn anything.

"He found out that every week, one of Hurst's men would come to the docks in Four Rivers and pick up a shipment of unmarked boxes shipped from Chago. There was no record of the senders name in any of the ships registries. One week, I decided to find out what was in those boxes. I followed the man who picked up the boxes from Four Rivers all the way back to Hurst's Farm.

"I can't walk into Hurst's farm. There are too many people and most of them would not hesitate a moment to kill me for trespassing. I'm not very well liked among his employees. So for three weeks I followed the man who went to pick up the package. Finally I got a break when he pulled over at a restation to relieve himself. I opened up one of the boxes. Inside there were canisters of Relon.

"You are not in the business, so you probably don't know what Relon is. It is one of the most potent fertilizers known to man. It works particularly well on the tennason plant. However, it is highly toxic. In places where there is no ground water, it is widely used to grow things we don't eat. We have lots of ground water in this part of the country, so it is highly illegal here. With this knowledge, I rushed to the police. But Hurst is too powerful. They won't move on him without concrete proof. Now I don't know what to do.

"I would estimate that Hurst would have to use Relon for seven years before enough of the chemical got into our groundwater supplies to be harmful. About five years ago, he started making all kinds of money when his tennason farm started having excellent yields. He attributed his success to his new constructs."

Ed listened carefully. The plot was a very familiar one to him. A man with a lot of money was exploiting a town to gain even more money. Ed made a personal vow to punch Hurst really hard at least one time before he turned him over to the police. Maybe he'd even punch him twice.

"That's a lot to take in. Let me think about how to handle this for a while. I'll have a good plan ready in the morning." Ed said.

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Ed woke up coughing. He took in a lung full of air, only to find it full of smoke. His danger sense, born through years of adventuring swept his sleepiness away. This house was on fire.

He ran over to the window. The moon was full and cast more than enough light to see by on the yard below. He looked outside and saw five people standing in a group in front of the house. There were the three guys from before, and two more, much larger men. One of the large men had a wicked looking scar on his right cheek. Ed could see Anna on the porch holding a large and dangerous looking kitchen knife. Her two children cowered behind her. The men were blocking her from getting off the porch. Thomas was nowhere to be seen.

Ed picked up his pack, and was about to hurl it though the window when his door burst open. Thomas came in. His cloths were slightly singed and he was coughing hard. Ed cast one glance at Thomas and then threw his pack through the window. He used his right automail arm to clear the glass away.

"This way." He said to Thomas.

Thomas nodded through his coughs. Ed jumped out of the window. When he landed on the porch, rolled into the fall and came up on his feet. He doubted a circus performer could have done it better. Thomas landed far less gracefully. He plopped down onto his feet and then fell back hard on his rear. He proved to be made of very stern stuff though, because he popped back up, apparently unharmed.

Ed surveyed the men in front of him, all of who were looking at the two men with astonished faces. There were weapons, but none of them had a firearm. That would make this far easier.

"Your boss has gone too far this time. If any of you can walk by the time I'm through with you, let Hurst know he's going down."

Ed clapped his hands together and then sprang into action. He leapt onto the rail of the porch, and then jumped off and delivered a spectacular automail powered spinning jump kick to the large man without the scar. Ed watched scarless' jaw break when the automail impacted it. The man went down in a boneless heap. It would be some time before he was able to stand up again.

The man in the cheap suit and the light haired man rushed forward at the same time. Thomas blindsided the light haired man with a tackle, and both of them went down in a tangle of limbs. The man in the cheap suit slashed at Ed with a small knife. Ed caught the knife hand with his right hand. He squeezed hard enough to make the man drop his knife. He drew back his left, intent on punching cheap suit in the face a few times, but as he threw the punch, scar face hit him with a bat. Fortunatley for Ed, the blow landed on his automail, but it was still enough to knock him back.

Ed's punch missed his mark. Instead of a knock out punch to the chin, Ed punched cheap suit in the eye. The punch still knocked cheap suit down. Ed watched scarface raise his bat again. Ed kicked scar face in the knee with his automail. Scar face's kneecap shifted to the side, and then the large man went down screaming, clutching his now ruined knee. He saw the dark haired man from earlier, the only man who didn't try to fight, body check Anna. She was thrown roughly to the ground. Mark was fast enough to not get knocked over, but Elaine was hit by the man's leg. She flew through the air and landed a couple feet away and started screaming. Her arm was sitting at an unnatural angel, obviously broken.

Ed started to move forward to help Anna, but he was a step too slow. Thomas speared the smaller man and then drove him into the ground. Then Thomas started pounding on the other mans face. Ed couldn't help but cringe slightly at the ferocity of the attack.

Ed turned to check on Elaine, only to see cheap suit standing over her with a knife. "I know. I'll just kill this little bitch. Then it will all be over!" he yelled.

Before the knife started to cut through the air, Ed was in motion. As he rushed forward, years of battles made him clap his hands together. If he had his alchemy, he would have created a shield between the knife and the child. Without alchemy, all he could do is throw his arms up and hope the knife caught automail.

Ed was as shocked as cheap suit when the knife stopped four inches in of Ed's out stretched hands. There was a pale glowing blue circle between Ed and his attacker. Cheap suits eyes widened to the size of tires. Ed didn't stop to think about the nature of the glowing circle. Instead he punched cheap suit in the jaw with right arm hard enough to knock at least three teeth loose from his head. Cheap suits jaw was pulped, and his face forever ruined.

Anna, who had already gotten to Elaine's side, yelled "Thomas, the Constructs!"

Thomas let go of the man whose face he had been pulverizing, and sprinted around the back of the house. Less than two minutes later, half a dozen artificial men went about the business of extinguishing the fire. Ed got a length of rope out of his pack and used it to tie up the five men. While he busied himself with that, Anna had tried to comfort Elaine.

"Anna, you should take Elaine to the healer in central. Thomas, would you please take me off Hurst's farm."

Anna nodded, then scooped up Elaine. "To Hurst's farm? Why?" she asked.

"He sent his men to attack innocent children. That is something I cannot forgive. So, I'm angry and I have deiced to use a smash and grab strategy. I'm going to go get the evidence you need to put him away." Ed said.

"Ok. Good luck. Don't do anything too dangerous." She said.

"I'll go get the skimmer." Thomas said.

"How far is it to the farm?" Ed asked.

"About an hour from here." Thomas said.

Ed smirked. "Lets take the truck. I'm going to ride in the back and figure something out on the way."

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Hurst's farm was immense. Ed had Thomas cut the lights as they approached, and then requested to be dropped off a little way down the road so the guards would not hear his approach. Even with the moon as bright as it was, his newly acquired black coat made it easy to sneak through the shadows. The main warehouse, the place where Thomas said the unmarked packages of Relon were taken, was sounded by a fence. Ed could see one guard that walked around the perimeter of the fence, and another guard that stood by the door. He waited until the walking guard was near the front of the gate before he made his move.

He calmly walked up to the front of the gate. The guard shinned a flashlight on Ed. "Who's there?" the guard called.

Without a word, Ed reached out and grabbed the lock on the gate. He pulled hard, and the weak chain gave way to his automail. The guard scrambled back nervously; fumbling for a whistle he kept around his neck. Ed clapped his hands together and thrust them forward.

While Thomas drove to Hurst's place, Ed worked out exactly how he made that shield. When he tried to focus power for alchemy, he instead focused power for sorcery. They were so close that he could focus the power easily. But he didn't know what to do with any of that sorcery power. When he fixed the matrix he just let it linger in his hands. When he created the shield, he had unwittingly forced it out of his hands.

Fifteen minutes of trial and error later, he had learned that when he easily forced the energy out in front of him, it created a barrier. It would stay in place for about seven seconds, and then fade. During his trip, he also learned that he could project that power outwards. The more energy he gathered, the further the energy could be projected, and the more forcefully it could be projected. It was all very similar to forcing energy into an alchemy circle. Just instead of into a circle, he projected it into the air. Making the shield was akin to just letting the power go, while projecting it forward was like throwing it. Just before he arrived at Hurst's place, he managed to do some impressive and explosive damage to a large tree. He thought the tree looked very much like it had been struck by lightning. Best of all, the energy blasts themselves were silent, though the impact could still make sound.

The blast caught the guard square in the chest. He flew through the air, and the crashed to the ground. He didn't get up. Ed stopped for a moment to make sure the man was still breathing. He just wanted to take the man out, not kill him. The guard was out cold, and probably had a concussion, but he was alive.

The guard in front of the main door rushed forward to see what the commotion was. Ed blindsided him with another blast. This guard caught it hard in the side. He spun around a couple times before crashing down, unconscious, to the ground.

Ed threw open the large front door. Half a dozen surprised faces greeted him. They must have been the night shift.

"Who the hell are you?" A man with a gun at his hip asked. There must have been one more guard.

"Edward Elric. I'm here for the Relon." He said.

The guard must have seen his two fallen coworkers, because he drew his gun and fired three times. Ed clapped his hands together and formed his shield. The bullets impacted harmlessly with the shield and then fell to the floor. Ed clapped again and unleashed a blast towards the guard. To caught him center and blasted him into the sheet metal wall hard enough to bend it. The guard started to move, but must have thought better of it because his body went slack and still.

"Shit, he's a sorcerer. Everyone run!" one of the workers yelled.

The whole room was empty in an instant. So, sorcerers commanded the same amount of respect in this world as alchemist did in his. Perhaps he would try to learn some sorcery if he was going to be stuck in this world.

It only took Ed a couple of minutes to find a canister with the words Relon printed on it. He hefted the canister, and then walked out of the warehouse unopposed. He stopped at the first guard he felled, and took his flashlight. The light flickered four times through the night sky, a signal he had worked out earlier with Thomas.

Minutes later, Thomas pulled the skimmer-truck up to the gate. Ed had a little bit of trouble getting the canister of Relon into the back of the skimmer-truck. It was pretty heavy. Once he got it in, he climbed into the passengers seat.

"How'd it go?" Thomas asked.

"Mission accomplished." Ed said.

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A/N: Thanks for the compliments everyone. They make it much easier to sit down and write something :-)

And on the age question: At the end of The Conqueror of Shamballa Al gets his memories back. Ed says, "Al, are you telling me your memories back?" Al replies "Mmm hmm. When I left our own world I think." So. Right. Al's an 18 year old with the body of a 16ish year old.

Finally, to anyone wondering where the world of Sorcery came from, don't bother trying to find it elsewhere. It only exists in my twisted noodle, and on these pages.

Thanks for reading,

Andrew Cross