SHONEN ALLIANCE
RE:BIRTH
OPENING THEME: RANBU NO MELODY (Bleach)
Edward Elric felt exhausted. Central Amestris was a war zone and had been for nearly five hours. All over the city State Alchemists and Amestrian soldiers were clashing with Obelisk Force, and holding them off, though it was still too early to say who was winning.
Colonel Vine was giving orders, directing a large contingent of the defense force who were working to evacuate civilians away from a battle line that was in constant danger of shifting to endanger them. Obelisk Force clearly had no qualms about endangering the innocent.
"They're looking for Zuzu," Ed suggested to Vine.
"The thought had crossed my mind," Vine admitted, "though I doubt they'd fall back even if they found her. Not when they're completely dropping what little subtlety they were employing before."
"Still, that might have saved us. It's probably the only reason the being that destroyed Planeptune hasn't done the same to us."
"Hopefully, it stays that way," Vine prayed as an Ancient Gear Golem suddenly appeared, towering over the homes and businesses of the city.
"And now there's one of these guys," he cursed, "we've gotta take that thing down!" he ordered his troops.
The Ancient Gear Golem was a massive target, but it was a durable one. Mortar shells, cannon blasts, and gunfire pelted the metal surface of the giant, but the damage was minimal. Vine clenched his teeth as a high-explosive tank round struck the Golem square in the chin, blowing away most of its head without actually stopping it!
"Aim for its leg joints!" Vine ordered the cannon crew, "keep it from walking!"
Vine and Ed's attention were drawn elsewhere as five new Ancient Gears emerged into the street, this ones boasting large drills for their right arms, Ancient Gear Engineers.
"Damn it," Ed cursed, transmuting his automail into a blade as Vine drew his sword. The two alchemists didn't wait for the Engineers to make the first move, rushing right at them.
Vine reached the first one and nimbly slid under its drill as it tried to impale him. A red glow engulfed his blade as the air around it superheated through alchemy. The blade melted through the metal of the engineer's drill arm, severing it and dropping the drill to the ground as Ed reached it.
Clapping his hands together, Ed placed them on the drill as alchemical energy surged. The drill seemed to be absorbed into the ground, then re-emerged attached to what looked like a wheeled cannon with a hand crank on its side!
"Let's see how you like this!" Ed shouted, grabbing the crank and spinning it, causing the drill to begin spinning as well.
Ed charged forward, slamming his drill into one of the Engineer's torsos, ripping through it like paper as Vine sliced his disarmed opponent clean in half, causing both to burst into smoke.
The remaining three were more cautious, but this only served to encourage more aggression from the Alchemists who made quick work of two of them just as they had disposed of the first two.
The final one decided to late to rethink its passive approach, switching to attack mode only to be destroyed instantly.
Unfortunately, the defeated Engineers were almost immediately replaced by the arrival of two Ancient Gear Soldiers, one of whom fired its cannon, destroying Edward's drill!
"Damn it!" Ed cursed as his drill exploded. Jumping back, he clapped his hand and transmuted a stone wall to protect Vine and himself from the cannon fire from the soldiers. Vine placed his hands against the wall, transmuting four cannons from the other side of the wall which proceeded to bombard the Soldiers with stone bullets. They withstood the barrage for awhile, but finally buckled, collapsing from the damage inflicted by the barrage.
As the wall lowered, both alchemists dropped to their knees, winded from the constant fights. Vine rose to one knee, trying to regain his feet before more opponents arrived, and realized with some horror that one of the downed Soldiers hadn't been destroyed and was now raising its cannon to point at the alchemists.
"Shoot, shoot, shoot!" he cursed, raising his hand and hoping the Soldier's damage was sufficient to slow its firing.
"No you don't!" a woman's voice shouted as a flash of blue light streaked between the two alchemists. Her usually brown hair turned a bluish silver and her usually brown eyes glowing a feral shade of red, Alicia Melchiott swung a metal pipe, making contact with the cannon, and batting it aside, causing it to harmlessly discharge into a wall. Vine's blast shot just far enough to the left of Alicia's hip to blow off the Soldier's head without touching Alicia.
"That was too close," Ed huffed.
"You're exhausted," Alicia lamented, "if this keeps up, next time might not just be close!"
"That'll happen after four hours of fighting," Vine quipped as he rose shakily to his feet.
"It's been five hours," Ed replied, his own rise equally shaky.
"Really? My how the time flies."
"These guys are endless," Alicia cursed.
"Not quite. We learned last time that if something damages the duelist's, what did your android call it?" Vine questioned.
"Duel Disc," Ed replied, "if we destroy their Duel Discs they can't summon their machines or turn people into cards."
"Right. Destroying their machines isn't going to get us anywhere."
"Good to know, but there're still so many of those machines, it won't be easy," Alicia lamented.
"Doesn't matter. We don't drive them back here, a lot of people are gonna die. Fullmetal, link back up with Alphonse and help hold the line. Alicia, keep these civilians moving. Keep as many safe as you can."
"What're you going to do?" Edward asked.
"I'm going to see if I can't rally enough of a fighting force to mount a counterattack. We'll never win playing defense."
"Vine, I can help!" Alicia promised.
"Right now, you're far from full strength," Vine replied, "take care of yourself, and let the next generation of Valkyria pull her weight."
Alicia hesitantly relented, nodding her head in acknowledgment as she went to work on her assignment.
"Not at full strength?"
"Without a Valkyrian lance she can't bring her full power to bear. If she could, this would be a lot easier. As it stands, we need someone to protect the civilians. Alicia'll do her job, we need to do ours."
/\/\/\/\/\/\
The front line's cannons let out one explosion after another as Edward tried to steal a few moments of rest during the lull in the fighting. The garrison was doing as well as could be hoped with keeping Duel Academy's machines from wreaking havoc in the city, but they desperately needed something to turn the tide in their favor.
"Brother!" Alphonse's call broke Ed away from his thoughts, and he looked up to see his younger brother towering over him. "Are you alright?"
"Any word yet from Vine?"
"No," Al admitted, "do you think something happened?"
"Not likely. He's probably just having trouble rallying enough of a force for a counterattack," Ed cursed, punching the ground with his automail, "Damn it, we have to do something."
"Ye of small stature and little faith."
As if on cue, Vine arrived, accompanied by Major Armstrong, Hughes, Aliasse, and a dozen Amestrian soldiers.
"Not much of a strike force, but it's all we can muster," Vine acknowledged, "we're on the back foot right now."
"Be honest, how much trouble are we in?" Ed asked.
"Hard to say," Vine sighed, "but it's bad. We're losing. We may have already lost if something doesn't change dramatically."
"Do you think we can pull that off?"
"I have no idea," Vine acknowledged, "but we're gonna try."
"Count us in," Alphonse vowed with Edward nodding in agreement.
"Then I believe we have a job to do."
No one had expected the new voice and quickly turned to its source. A man with jet black hair, a mustache, and an eyepatch over his left eye approached.
"Füher Bradley?" a soldier exclaimed in surprise.
"What's he doing here?" Hughes whispered to Vine.
"Can't kill us later if Duel Academy kills us now," Vine suggested, "still, Bradley might not be on or… really anywhere near my list of most trusted people at the moment, but if he's going to help us, we kinda need it. Especially since there's no sign of the help Histoire promised or Fullmetal's new acquaintances."
"I'd hate to agree with you on this one, but…"
"But you don't have much choice. None of us do."
"Three State Alchemists and the Füher," a soldier spoke up, "there's no way we can lose now!"
"Hey, don't get cocky," Vine ordered, an uncharacteristically harsh tone to his voice, "complacency is death in a fight. The battlefield has no guarantees, least of all a battlefield where we're already on the back foot."
"Well said, Raging Blast," Bradley admitted, "though I don't believe a bit of optimism will cause any harm. I trust after all that you already have a plan."
"Sort of," Vine admitted, surprising Edward.
"Care to share."
"The devices on their wrists are the source of their machines. They call out the machines using those devices," Vine began.
"We've all seen the report, Colonel," one soldier spoke up.
"Good for you doing your job," Vine's sarcastic reply silenced the heckler, "we destroy them and we take away the soldiers' abilities to call their machines. We know that much, but I think we can use them to our advantage."
"What do you mean?" Bradley demanded, prompting Vine to reach into the pocket of his army jacket and pull out the Ancient Gear deck he'd confiscated during the last attack.
"I think if we can get our hands on a working disc, we can use it just like they do. Turn their own weapons against them."
"All of the discs we captured after the last attack were to damaged for us to try using them ourselves," Hughes observed, "it might work."
"Or the machines might just turn on us," one of the soldiers retorted.
"Explain to me how that makes our situation any worse," another soldier demanded.
"It wouldn't," Bradley admitted, "if it works it could give us the edge we need, even if it doesn't, nothing changes. Not a bad plan, Raging Blast.
"Let's save grading the idea for after we see if it works. First, we need a functioning disc."
"Funny you should mention that. On my way here, I happened across a group of those Obelisk soldiers. They seemed to think they were going to trap me in a card, so I had to inform them otherwise. Their 'discs', as you call them, weren't harmed," Bradley revealed.
"How many?"
"There were three of them," Bradley admitted.
"That'll be enough to try it out. Ed, Aliasse, you're with me."
"Alright then. The rest of us," Bradley ordered, drawing his sword as anger flashed across his visible eye, "will teach Obelisk Force just how poor their decision was.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Bradley hadn't lied. The Duel Discs of the three Obelisk soldiers hadn't been damaged. In fact, based on the shocked expressions still etched on the soldiers' lifeless faces, the two alchemists wondered if they'd even been able to use the things before Bradley's sword had separated their heads from their necks.
"I really hope we don't ever find ourselves with a reason to cross that man," Vine admitted as he retrieved one of the Duel Discs. It took almost no time at all for the three to each be wearing a Disc.
"Let's hope this works," Ed sighed as he drew out the top card on his new deck.
"No time like the present," Vine admitted, pulling a card from his own deck, "here goes… what should quite literally be nothing." He held the card high in the air. "I SUMMON THE ANCIENT GEAR GOLEM!" he shouted as he played the card.
"What the hell was that?" Ed asked.
"I don't know. For some reason, it felt appropriate to be overly dramatic while playing these cards," Vine admitted, scratching his head as the disc roared to life and began to glow. "IT'S DOING SOMETHING!"
"Let's hope it's what we want it to do," Ed cursed as he held his own card as high as he could. "I SUMMON ANCIENT GEAR GOLEM!" he shouted as he played the card.
"What the hell was that?" Vine teased.
"Shut up!"
CLOSING THEME: SHUNKAN SENTIMENTAL (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood)