Ember Alchemist

Chapter 3- Pasts Uncovered

(Sorry for any typos, etc, and thanks for reading. I know the last chapter was called 'The State Alchemists Exam' and there wasn't actually the exam in it, but it was made so you know that Ember wants to become a State Alchemist. The Exam is in this one. I better also add that Chapter 1, 2, this chapter and the chapters to come were based around about episode six of Full Metal Alchemist, so if you havn't seen it, you'd be better to. has a bunch of FMA episodes to offer, so you can see it there.)

"What's going on!" Ember demanded, "Why the hell has Al not got a body? This is really freaking me out you guys"

"Shh," hushed Ed, waving his arms about frantically infront of him, "You'll wake Tucker and Nina up!"

"Answer me Ed!" snapped Ember.

Al sighed, "Ok Ember, sit down for this"

Ember shrieked, Al's head had just talked to her! She went to gently place the helmet back on the suit of armour, whilst at the same time feeling seriously weirded out. "Huh?" she said, noticing the weird red marking on the inside of Al's body. "A blood seal... Of coarse!"

"That's right," Ed replied, "That's the only thing connecting Al's soul to that armour"

Ember sat down on the end of Ed's bed, hugging her knees, "So... How did he get like that?"

Ed looked at her, his eyes full of sorrow, pain, memories he wished he didn't have. "The same way I got this automail"

Al continued for him, as strong as Ed was, he knew the memory of their mother stilll brought tears to his eyes. "Our mother... passed away when we were very small... At that time, we had learnt alchemy. We were good at it too, especially Ed, he was a child prodigidy"

"Wait a second... The Elric Brothers, I knew I heard the name 'Elric' from somewhere!" Ember stated, "So, you're famous..."

"That's right," replied Ed, feeling a little full of himself, "We're the Elric Brothers!" He made a victory sign with his fingers before going back to leaning back against his bed with his two hands supporting his head in a casual fashion.

"Heh, I saw superstar naked- go me!" joked Ember, Al laughed as she made the victory sign back at him.

"Hey, when are you gonna let that go!" yelped Ed, not feeling as confident as he was before.

"I'm sorry," said Ember, "As you were saying..." Both Al and Ed were back to being serious again.

"Al was ten and I was eleven when it happened," Ed told her, "I remember the day as if it were yesterday... We were standing infront of her grave when I said 'Let's do it... Let's bring Mom back!' I dragged Al into it... It wasn't his falt... "

"But human transmutation is forbidden!" gasped Ember.

"Well, we did it. I thought we could have done it, with our skills I thought we could do anything. We studied hard and didn't even let Auntie Pinako or Winry, our friends from back home, in on it. Then came the day we tried it... I remember, it was raining heavily, we headed into the barn, got out all the measurments, drew the transmutation and the result... it, it wasn't human!" Ed's mind flashed back to an image of their mother, then of her death, then another of the ugly creature that they had produced from the result of their alchemy all those years ago. The images kept coming up over and over and over again in Ed's mind like a giant slideshow that wouldn't stop. He gripped his head and yelled, a fountain of tears falling from his face. Gritting his teeth he tried to continue, "And then..." but he couldn't, he just couldn't.

"I don't have many memories of mother," said Al, staying as still as a statue. A shadow cast itself apon him, making the tale sound even more eeiry coming from him than it did from Ed. "But I know what we did was wrong. It wasn't Ed's falt, I should have stopped him, I had a bad feeling about the whole thing but I said nothing. Something went wrong during the transmutaion and I lost my body and Ed lost his leg... In an attempt to save me, he lost his right arm too, but managed to attach my soul to a suit of armour in the corner. We want to find something called the Philosopher's Stone, so we can get our old body's back. That's why my brother decided to join the military"

Ember glanced over at Ed, who was still struggling, he tugged at his shiney blonde hair, hoping that the physical pain from that would help get rid of the phsycological pain that was consuming him inside.

All of a sudden Ed felt two warm arms take hold of him, embracing him in a warm hug. It was Ember. She pressed her head lightly against his, her arms wrapped around him like a scarf. Ed felt something wet fall on his face: teardrops. Ember was crying too.

"You guys..." she choked through her tears, "I know almost exactly what you guys have been through. I'm even trying to join the military for the same reason as you two, although it's for a whole different reason I want that stone" Ember let go of Ed.

Something inside of Ed didn't want her too. It had been a long time since anyone had ever held him like that, he had missed the feeling.

Ember sat beside Ed, she went back to hugging her knees again and looked down at the bedspread, avoiding eye contact with Edward and Alphonse.

"My parents abandoned me when I was a baby. A woman adopted me, I called her 'Mom' because I never thought of her in any other way other than a mother. I was her life and she was mine. However, she was quite young - only sixteen when she adopted me. she had dropped out of school because of bullying, but it wasn't just any ordinary bullying. A large-scale gang known as 'The Nightriders' had given her trouble from day one. Something about her father, who was a police officer, locking most of the gang members away in jail. They wanted revenge and killed him, then they went after Mom. They succeeded in killing her when I was only eleven and i've been on my own ever since. I want to avenge her death by becoming one of the most powerful Alchemists around, but I can only do that with The Stone. That's why I was so badly wounded back when Tucker, Nina and you Al found me on the doorstep; The Nightriders had been trying to kill me. I thought I was going to die... I.." She trailed off.

More tears came, now it was Ed's turn to comfort Ember. He held her tightly and let her lean on him, her head lying still against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. The room filled with silence.

Soon after that, the three drifted off into sleep.

"Woah, what did you two do last night while I was asleep?" sniggered Al.

Ember and Ed awoke to find that they had fallen asleep with Ember ontop of Ed, their faces pressed together softly, somehow Ed's arms were also still around Ember. They both jumped up, blushing like mad and Ember rushed straight off the bed in a fluster as if Ed might have some sort of catching illness.

Their small sighs of relief as they remembered what had actually happened made Al laugh harder.

Ed had been comforting Ember with his arms round her whislt Ember rested herself on him. Ember must had fallen down ontop of Ed after they had both fell asleep.

"Ah, you should have seen you two last night. You both looked so sweet!" Al joked again. Ed knew they might be hearing about this for a while, on the bright side though, it seemed that Ember's 'I saw you naked' jokes were over and done with now, but it was still a wonder as to how any of them could joke around after the seriousness of last night.

"Come on, we'd better get ready for the exam," Ember said, leaving to get breakfast, Ed and Al went to join her.

Breakfast, pancakes with maple syrip, was already waiting for them on the table. Nina was done and was busy sitting on the floor, colourful crayons scattered around her. Tucker had been politly waiting for the three kids before starting on his meal.

"What's that you got there, Nina?" asked Ember as she pulled up a chair beside Tucker.

"It's a drawing! Wanna see?" Ember nodded and so Nina proudly showed off her picture for everyone to see.

On the picture were the crayoned faces of five people; Nina, Alexander the dog, Ember, Al and Ed. "That's a very good drawing, hunny" Tucker told his daughter.

"I'm gonna send it to mommy with the letter I wrote... " announced Nina, "Hopefully she'll reply this time," she added sadly.

"Mr Tucker, whatever happened to your wife?" asked Edward suspiciously. He remembered something Roy Mustang, a man from the military he would be working with if he passed the State Alchemy Exam, had said... Tucker's wife had died. Had Tucker been telling Nina she was still alive? And if so, why?

"Oh, she couldn't stand being poor and being an Alchemist's wife so she moved back with her parents," was Tucker's reply.

'something's up...' thought Ed to himself as he ate up his pancakes, letting the syrip slide down the back of his throught. It tasted sour to him, much like the atmousphere in the room with Tucker that morning. "Well you kids better get going, don't want to miss the exam do you?" Tucker told them, sensing the uneasy aura.

Al came along with Ed and Ember for moral support. When they got to the exam, Mustang and Maes were there too. "Hi everyone! Hey Ember, nice to see you again!" Maes waved at them cheerily. Mustang didn't say a word, he never usually greeted Al or Ed very warmly anyway. You could tell by his narrow eyes he wasn't the sort of person that would say everything sugar-coated and sun-shiney anyway.

"Alright Alchemists," the announcer began as everyone took their positions on the feild.

"Pft," Ed and Ember heard another Alchemist from behind them mutter, "I can't believe they're even letting pipsqueaks try out for the Exam!"

Ed snapped, (as he usually would whenever someone insulted his size,) "Hey, who you calling a pipsqueak!" he exploded, waving his arms in the air like a loonatic. The man gave him a dirty look, Ember tapped his should and whispered for him to calm down.

They focused their attention back onto the exam. It was just a large area covered in rocks, trees and water; everyting basically they needed to create transmutations.

The announcer spoke again, "We've provided you alchemists with everything you should need, all you all need to do is impress us..."

"Shouldn't he be atleast a little more specific!" Ed whispered quietly to Ember, but the announcer didn't give her time to reply.

"Ready... go!" he yelled.

A geeky looking man went first. He drew himself a circle and produced a gigantic tower made out of stone, but he had used up too much energy and couldn't even stand up. All he could do was lie on the ground panting as the military tutted and shook there heads.

The next man was an expensive looking man who seemed chock full of himself. He ripped two trees out of their roots and placed them inside a transmutation circle, then he added a bucket of water to it.

A large hot air balloon bobbed into the sky. The Alchemist had created paper and hydrogen from the trees and water!

Suddenly there was a loud popping sound, the balloon had burst! Then there was a crumbling noise. As Ed, Ember and all the other people gazed up they saw that the tower the first man had made was falling to peices because the second man's balloon had rammed into it. The second man screamed loudly as he spotted a large grey rock falling straight towards him. "Help me!"

Ember and Ed went straight into action.

Ed clapped his hands, he didn't really know what he was doing, but there was no time for him to draw a transmutation circle, he needed to act now. Ember did the same, she didn't really know what she was doing either.

Ed slammed his hands down on the ground and suddenly the ground underneath the man turned into a large hand-like rock which swooped him away from the danger zone. "Ember, you take care of the rest," called out Ed to Ember, giving her a thumbs up.

Ember smashed the palms of her hands against the tower and suddenly the tower began to glow red until it began to smoulder. Scared that the small fire Ember had just created would get out of hand, she shouted to Ed. He clapped and slammed his hands back down on the ground again and created another rock hand, which scooped out some water from a man-made river in the feild and catapulted it onto the tower. A cloud of steam rose up into the air, atleast everyone now knew they were safe.

"How'd we do that?" yelped Ember, wiping the sweat from her brow and she went over to Ed, who was just as shocked at themselves as she was.

The military man in charge smiled, "Alchemy without a circle, eh? I think we have our State Alchemists"

The next day, Ember and Ed were goven there offical State Alchemist silver pocket watches from Mustang. They were now officially dogs of the military, but they didn't relise at the time what they were getting themselves into.

"So, now that you're State Alchemists, you'e gonna need names..." Mustang told them from behind his desk.

Ed and Ember just stood in awe before him, their faces totally blank. "What?" replied Ember.

"You know, like how I am the Flame Alchemist..." Mustang told her "Well, everyone seems to be calling you Ed the 'Full Metal Alchemist, so there's you... and you girl... Hmm, can't give you Flame Clchemist, that's mine... how about... Ember Alchemist"

"Um, that's actually kinda weird for me" Ember answered nervously.

"How come?"

"Well, Ember's kind of my name"

"All the more easy for people to remember your name then" he shrugged, and signalled that the two could go now. Ember's face fell, 'Ember Alchemist' wasn't exactly what she had in mind, but she supposed, it would do.

It was night by the time they got back.

Everyone was asleep, apart from Alexander who greeted them with afew mad barks and the snatching of Ed's watch.

"Hey, give that back, it's not a friggen chew toy you know!" said Ed chasing him indoors.

Ember just laughed at Ed fondly. She was about to follow them inside until she heard some curious rustling in the backround, "Is someone there?" she called out, worried they might be here to steal from Mr Tucker and Nina. She loved them to peices and wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them. "I can here you come out!" she shouted again.

Suddenly someone grabbed her violently from behind. "Ember, I knew we'd find you, now say your goodbyes!"

"Get away from me!" screamed Ember trying to get away from the dark man, but her screaming was just an exuse for the shadowey man to gag her so hard that she could barely breath.

Ember wasn't going down without a fight and she grasped hold of the pointed railings on the fence outside the Tucker household. "Stopthe struggling, you little bitch!" snarled the man, tearing her away. The was a ripping sound and the man relised his jacket pocket had gotten caught on the railings and had been torn off. "Look what you made me do, you worthless peice of trash!" Ember tried her best to scream but the peice of cloth around her mouth wouldn't let her, it was no use.

"Eeew," mumbled Ed trying to wipe the dog spit off his watch, "Stupid mutt! Hey Ember, you'd better come inside, it's getting chilly!"

His glance tried to find Ember, but all he could find was a peice of ripped cloth stuck to the railings outside where Ember had been standing with the words 'Nightrider' stitched in gold lettering on it.

Ed gazed into the darkness of the night... "Ember!" he cried.