Chapter Nine

When she came to, Ed looked around to see that she was down in the mine shaft on the ground. She felt exhausted, though. Like she could take a nap for a week.

"Must've fallen down the mine shaft..." she trailed off, talking to herself. "Dammit, I can't let Kimblee get away..."

Ed tried to pull herself up before she felt a tugging feeling, preventing her from moving very much. "Wait..." she trailed off. Turning her head to face the back of her, she saw a large pole sticking right out of her abdomen. "No..." Suddenly she could feel all the pain. She collapsed back onto the ground from where she had been able to pull herself up to and allowed her eyes to slip shut.

She had probably been there for a good five minutes before she decided she wasn't going to let herself stay there. If she was gonna die, it wasn't gonna be in a damn mine shaft with chimeras a few feet away. And besides... "I won't make her cry... Especially not over something this stupid."

In a fluid movement, Ed managed to gather the strength to transmute the pole sticking out of to break off, leaving a small piece of the pole inside of her. Afterward, she transmuted the ground to lift the rubble off of the chimera not far from her.

"Hey, Fullmetal kid," Darius spoke. "You still alive? What made you decide to rescue us?"

"You're more injured than we are," Heinkel added.

"Don't get the wrong idea," Ed spoke weakly. "I can't pull this out of my stomach on my own. I could use...a little bit of help."

"We were enemies just five minutes ago and now you're asking us to save your life?" Darius asked.

"Yeah, basically," Ed answered.

"Well, it's not like we were given order to kill you,' Darius said. The two dipped down to the ground. "Come on," Darius said as he pulled Ed's back onto his lap.

"You know, kid, you're gonna bleed to death pretty quickly once I pull this out," Heinkel said.

"Not if I heal it," Ed said. "As soon as it's out of me, I'll close up the wound with alchemy."

"What?" Darius asked.

"Have you ever performed any kind of medical alchemy before?" Heinkel asked.

"Sort of," Ed answered. "I did some research on it when I tried human transmutation."

"Just some research?" Darius asked. "Your guts have gotta be all messed up. You're gonna need a Philosophers stone to make this work."

"I'm gonna have to use my own life force the same way I'd use a stone," Ed explained. "It'll probably take a few years off my life span, though."

"You're positive?" Heinkel asked.

"I don't really have time to think about it," Ed said. "If this is really what showing mercy is gonna cost me then I'm gonna have to learn to pay the price, right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds like you're sure," Heinkel said. "Ready?"

Ed took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm ready."

It was a searing pain. Unlike ever before, and Ed had had her arm and leg ripped from her own body. It was difficult to concentrate on trying to use her life as a Philosophers stone. She could barely hear herself think through the screaming she was making. Her stomach felt like it was being shredded along with her throat. She managed to actually transmute her abdomen after the pole was removed. Oh, it still hurt like hell, but it was much better than before.

There was silence.

"Did he make it?" Heinkel asked.

"You can't kill me that easily," Ed commented, opening her eyes.

"Wow, you mean it worked?" Darius asked.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say that I'm healed," Ed said. "I rejoined my undamaged organs and I managed to stop the bleeding, but it won' last for long."

"Oh, then you need a real doctor," Heinkel said.

"No, I don't have time for that," Ed protested, standing herself up and beginning to walk away from the chimeras.

"Wha-hey!" Heinkel called out.

"I've gotta...stop Kimblee...before he...gets...to..." Ed couldn't keep herself up anymore and collapsed to the ground once again.


Ed was so comfortable. More comfortable than she had been for weeks. Well, she was, until she realized what had happened and that Kimblee was after Winry and the others.

"Kimblee!" Ed exclaimed as she jumped up from bed. She gripped at her stomach with her hand when she felt a sudden surge of pain.

"Hey, don't freak out like that," Darius said. "You've got stitches that are healing right now."

"I've got to get to Kimblee," Ed said. "He's after my brother and friend. He'll catch them and hold them hostage..." She couldn't keep herself sitting up anymore and collapsed back down on the bed. "Where are we?"

"We're in some doctor's office," Darius answered. "They don't know who we are and won't tell anyone that we're here."

"Great," Ed said.

"Speaking of not knowing who were are," Heinkel spoke suddenly. "You're a girl?"

"Huh?" Ed asked. "Who said that?"

"The doctors and that tight shirt you're wearing," Darius said. Ed looked down and saw that they had dressed her in a tight fitting tank top. She didn't even own one of those, where did it come from? More importantly, who changed her?

"Damn it all to hell," Ed muttered. "You guys didn't change me into this, right?"

"No!" Darius and Heinkel exclaimed simultaneously, repulsed at the thought of undressing a minor teenage girl.

"The female doctor did," Darius answered.

"Cat's out of the bag now," Ed said. "Yeah, I'm a girl."

"What's your real name then?" Heinkel asked. "It's not like when you were born your folks named you Edward."

"Legally, my name is Edward," Ed said. "Had it changed when I was twelve. But I always have and always will go by Ed. You can call me that."

"Sure thing, Ed," Heinkel said. "You should get some rest so we can get out of here as quickly as possible. We don't want to stay in one place too long."

"And I need to find Kimblee," Ed reminded them.

"We'll find him when you're better," Heinkel said. Though, neither of the chimeras wanted to go anywhere near Kimblee when he thought they were dead. "Just go to sleep or I'll knock you out myself."

"Fine, fine." It didn't take a lot of work for Ed to drift out of consciousness once more.


So this was my favorite part of the entire brotherhood. I think I just like seeing Ed get hurt and all, so I really enjoyed it. And the way (s)he was kind of dependent on Darius and Heinkel made me happy.

So I'm going to start responding to anonymous reviews at the end of every chapter. I always feel badly that I can't respond to them when they don't have accounts, but now I'm getting at it.

Anon Lily: "Thank you for answering my review and uploading another chapter :) I am the anon you can call me Lily"

Hi, Lily! To go into more depth about your previous review, this is going to take a different direction than the original, so I won't be ending it like last time. I just finished writing chapter nineteen, and I could possibly just screw everyone over and end it like last time, but I think I'm going to do something completely different.