Fullmetal Alchemist is the property of Hiromu Arakawa
~Last chapter~
"So that's why you are called the 'Fullmetal Alchemist'! Because of your metal limbs! And your little sister! The 'Blind Miracle Alchemist'! Because of her lack of sight but is said to still be able to see!"
"Come and get some you third-rate!" Edward challenged, brandishing the mechanical hand in a fist, "I'll show you what's the difference between the two of us!"
"Rose, these people, they have done something that is forbidden to alchemists: they have performed human transmutation... They've committed the greatest crime and failed!"
"Yes we did fail. It was our mother we tried to bring back. I lost my left leg," Edward said gently, looking away.
"I lost my right arm," Anne said, gently touching her automail.
"And I lost my entire body. Then Brother traded his right arm and Sister gave up her eyesight for my soul, and fixed it to this armor," Alphonse finished.
Rose remembered Edward's earlier story in the church:
"There was once a hero who made wings from bird feathers and wax. However he flew too close to the sun, causing the wax to melt and destroy his wings. Thus, he plummeted to his death."
"This is what resurrecting someone means Rose. You got the guts to do it? Do you?!"
The woman did not speak.
Cornello laughed and said, "Edward Elric and Anne Elric! Then you joined the military and became State Alchemists! Don't make me laugh!"
"Shut up! Without that stone, you can't do anything you ultra third-rate!" Anne snapped back, facing him by using the sound of his voice.
"I see, I see. And so you want the Philosopher's stone? If you use this, your human transmutation would be a success, huh?"
"Don't get me wrong baldy!" Anne snapped, putting her hand on her hips, "We just want that stone to restore our bodies back. I want to turn my little brother human again and restore my older brother's limbs back!"
"And what about you? Certainly you are not that selfless?" Cornello said, taunting her.
"I don't care about me! I'll be just fine!" And she believed it. Her automail arm and her eyesight were only slight inconveniences. She still got around fine. Edward's had two automail limbs and she knew it made him really uncomfortable at times. She could only guess how much they were stunting his growth, with their parents being a bit taller than average.
Alphonse on the other hand couldn't eat, sleep, or feel. She had condemned him to this life. She just wants to return back what's his and see his smiling again.
Alphonse and Edward just stared at their sister. Her selfless act touched their hearts. She was just like their mother. She was always thinking of their happiness over her own. They truly believed their mother lived on in their sister. They would protect her with all their being to keep her safe.
"So Father, we'll say it again, Give us the stone, while you're still not hurt," Alphonse said, trying to be polite even in a situation like this.
"You stupid fools who came close to god and fell to the earth. This time, I'll have to send you there myself!" the priest proclaimed.
With that he transmuted his walking stick into a large, multi-barreled gun and began to fire. Rose screamed.
Edward swiftly clapped his hands and slammed them on the ground, transmuting a wall of stone to block the bullets.
"God seems to hate me," Edward said with a grin, from behind the safety of the wall. "He would probably just send me straight back!"
"You little…!" Cornello hissed and continued firing.
Rose screamed as the bullets got too close for comfort. Alphonse darted over to the woman and much to her surprise and relief, lifted his arms and protected her from the stray gunfire. Rose closed her eyes tightly hoping she would get out of this alive and in one piece.
"Al! Grab Anne, we're going!" Edward called as he ran towards the door.
Anne put her arms up and felt her younger brother's steel arm around her waist and lifted her like luggage along with Rose on the other arm. Anne felt like hitting Ed.
'Stupid big brother being overly dramatic about everything.'
"Imbeciles!" Cornello cried. "That door won't open unless I flip the switch over here! You are trapped!"
"Wanna bet?!" Edward shouted back, his present grin getting wider.
'I can just hear the stupid grin from here.' Anne thought as she facepalmed. Her brother can really be too over the top sometimes.
Running up to an empty nearby wall, he clapped his hands on it, with a flash of blue, transmuted a new set of doors.
"WHAT!" Cornello screamed.
Edward smashed opened the doors with his shoulder, to be met with a newly transmuted set of stairs. The siblings, along with a screaming Rose, ran to the top where another set of doors appeared. Edward once again smashed the doors open, except with his foot this time. The siblings ran out and down the corridor.
"Alphonse, set me down, I can see now." Anne said from the younger Elric's side.
Alphonse let go of his older sister and watched as she ran ahead to join her twin at his side.
"Why are you still standing there!? Those two are heretics that want to sabotage our religion! Do no worry about Rose," Cornello, still holding the machine-like gun, shouted to the church workers.
The workers moved to the end of the corridor, using a secret passage, blocking the Elrics' path.
"Hey kids, you think you can fight us unarmed?" one of the men holding a simple pistol challenged.
The pair of golden-eyed alchemists simply looked at each other and laughed causing the men to look at each other in confusion.
They clapped their hands simultaneously placing one hand over their respective metal appendage. Both turned their automail into a different looking blade. Edward's entire arm turned into a giant saw-like blade and Anne's arm turning into an elongated double ended blade forming from the base of her elbow and was as long as she was tall. [1]
Two men screamed like little girls as they were slashed by the older Elrics and the others were knocked aside like bowling pins by the younger.
"They're strong!" said another church worker.
"Don't hold back!" a priest commanded.
Seconds later, he was silenced, on the ground, and half his teeth missing, having suffered a kick from the armored man. The Elrics ran until there was nobody in the corridors.
"Oh?" Edward said suddenly, skidding to a screeching halt in front of an open room, Anne stopping alongside him, and Alphonse almost crashed into his sister as he came to a stop. They were standing in next to a room filled with radio equipment.
"Rose, what is this room?" Anne, not seeing what was so special about an empty room. 'Ed, you dummy! There's nothing here!" Anne mentally criticized her brother.
Alphonse let Rose down to the floor, "It's a broadcast room. The Father uses it for his sermons," Rose explained.
"Really?" the older Elric sister purred. "Hohoho." 'I have an idea!"
"She must be thinking something evil," both Edward and Alphonse whispered to Rose.
"I HEARD THAT!" Anne shouted at the two boys, her head and long braid whipping to the side as she faced them, their faces paling by the second.
The bells were to be rung again, now being dusk.
"You know there's a ruckus downstairs," the man supposed to do the ungodly task said, one of his hands already on the rope.
"Just do your damn job and stop slacking!" the man's supervisor yelled at him. "Wait a minute…..look!"
They both looked up to the inside of the bell tower. Where there was supposed be a bell they found only a few birds to roost in its place.
"Where'd it go!" one of them shouted, scaring away the birds.
Neither noticed an animated suit of armor sneaking away to another part of the roof, the previously spoken bell heavy on his back.
Alphonse placed the stolen bell down next to the small device he had constructed using a radio, a stool, and some wires.
"You know, I still don't get what you said earlier," Rose stated.
"As you probably heard earlier today, alchemy consists of Equivalent Exchange," Alphonse answered. "If we want to achieve something, we must pay a cost. Brother and Sister may be called "geniuses" and "prodigies" but they paid the cost through their effort."
"But surely because you paid that price, your mother must have been-"
"She wasn't even human. Brother's theory should have been right have been perfect with Sister helping along with it, and it wasn't that which was wrong…..it was us." Alphonse said remembering the blood soaked scene.
The young woman gasped.
"Since then we have quit using the idea of human transmutation. No one can be brought back to life. Now Brother's goal is to return me my body, so that I can be human. But Sister's goal is to return both of us to normal, not really caring about herself, as always. My goal, though, is to return my sister's sight back. I know Brother can handle the automail even though it's painful to remove but Sister's sight is very limited, she can only see people, not electronics or buildings. She used to run into a bunch of things. But even though she says it's fine, I know she's frustrated on the inside."
Alphonse drew a transmutation circle under the bell, and with a quick flash of lightning, it was connected to the rest of the device via wires.
"Rose, please don't make the same mistake we made."
The woman simply watched, without saying her thoughts, as the silent armor switched the device he had made on and held the bell up in the air.
Meanwhile, back inside the church, Father Cornello was still on his warpath. As he passed his broadcast room, he caught a flash of gold. There, relaxing against the desk, with her hands crossed looking bored, was the sister heretic.
"You brat where's your twin?!" Cornello shouted as he walked in the room, his eyes only on the girl leaning casually against his desk, "I'm not letting you two get away this time!"
"You haven't given up yet? Ed." Anne said simply.
Edward got off the wall he had been leaning on and slammed the doors closed so no one would interrupt them. Cornello could not believe he had completely missed the oldest Elric so easily?
"Don't you think your lie will get out soon?" Anne said.
"Silence! My underlings are still in the church! There is no way you are going to break my control over my stupid followers!" Cornello yelled.
"I feel very sorry over your followers." Edward and Anne said sarcastically and gently respectively.
"They are nothing but pawns in my plans for conquest! Pawns don't need pity! And they would die happy, believing they had done it in the name of god! The differences between alchemy and my miracles is that I can use my "miracles" to mass produce and replenish my unlimited supply of followers! Do you think that you can stop my plans so easily?!"
Anne just opened one eye to look at her brother near the door and let a soft giggle. Edward let out a chuckle that managed to escape through his clenched mouth before they both broke in laughter.
"Heh, heh, heh….HAHAHAHAHA!"
Their laughter echoed through the large room.
"What's so funny?!" the priest shouted.
"Because-haha- because you are still a bad third-rate," Edward said, Anne laughing twice as hard at the comment.
"You're still saying that?"
Anne lifted something she had been holding the entire time, "What's thiiis~?"
Cornello's eyes widened, "YOU DIDN'T- WHY YOU LITTLE BITCH!"
Anne was holding the switch to his radio, and it was on the "on" position. There was a microphone that Edward had put on the floor at his feet that he failed to notice once again. His fraudulence was out.
The residents of the desert town were in shock. They had completely forgotten about their jobs or meals when they learned that their so called "great religious leader" was a fraud.
"W-when did you push that switch?!" Cornello screamed, his voice echoing throughout the town of Liore.
"Just after you entered the room," she replied cheerfully, with a closed-eyed grin.
"H-how can his be?" Cornello completely lost it by then; being out done by two teenagers does that to you. He pointed his gun at Anne. "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!"
"Too late!" Edward cried, rushing forward from behind Cornello. Before the father could even fire one bullet, Edward had transmuted his normal automail blade and sliced the barrel of the gun.
"Told you didn't i?" Edward said with a smirk. "You and I are on completely different levels." His smirk quickly fell to reveal an angry scowl on his face. He took his right leg and kicked the fraud in the stomach. "And my sister isn't a bitch, asshole."
The priest clutched his stomach in pain. "I won't….I won't give up!"
He started to fix his gun. "As long as I have the stone, I am able to perform miracles as much as I-AAAAHHHRRRRHH!"
The red light that had ignited on his ring shot up the man's arm. The light faded away, showing that the priest's arm had been horribly mutated, wires, metal, and who knows what else sticking out, the skin completely gone.
Cornello fell to his knees. "My arm! My arm! Why? How? It hurts!"
Infuriated by the man's whining, Anne grabbed him by the collar, leaned into his face and shouted, "SHUT UP! This is only a rebound! Don't go crying over just one arm!"
"What….?" A startled Cornello said.
"Show us the stone!" the girl ordered.
The priest did as he was told because you know the saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." However, as he held out his arm, the stone broke of his ring, cracked, and faded to dust. The twins' mouths fell open.
'The stone is an unbreakable material. How the hell did it break?!' she mentally shouted.
Anne scowl returned and shook the man by his collar again. "What's going on?!" she demanded, "The stone's supposed to be perfect. Why did it break!? Answer me!"
"I-I don't know!" Cornello squeaked, now afraid of the girl. He turned his head to the other Elric. "I didn't know about this. Please save me from this she-demon!"
"It was a fake…." Edward said, ignoring the comment about his sister, knowing it was sort of true.
"If the stone's broken, I can't do anything." Cornello said. "Please save me….."
Anne threw the man backwards and stood up, her scowl still in place and her shaking hands balled into fists. "I came all the way here….thought I could restore my brothers…..and it was a fake…" she fell to her knees, eyes filled with tears and agony, her back to Cornello, "NOOO! This can't be! Three years and nothing!"
Ed walked up to his sister and put his hand on her shoulder, "Come on Anne, it's okay. I'm upset too you know." He said with a forced smile.
-Inside Ed's Head-
'THAT BASTARD! CAME ALL THIS WAY AND FOR WHAT? NO STONE, ANNE'S CRYING. I'M GOING TO KICK COLONEL'S ASS! AAHHHH!'
The priest noticed they were open to attack. He noticed that one of the poles on his arm was sharp. If this is how things were going to end he'll take those brats with him.
"Hey old man…" the older Elric hissed before he priest could move.
"Y-yes?" Cornello squeaked.
"You tricked the people of this town…" he placed his hand on the ground, "You made my siblings and I waste all this time, attacked my sister, made her cry, and in the end all I get is a fake?"
He placed himself in front of his weeping sister, her back still to them, and activated his alchemy. The lightning hit the ground creating a large granite fist, which smashed into Cornello, knocking him through the church wall and into the main hall. Letting out another scream of rage , Edward placed his hand on the statue behind him causing it to grow in size until the priest was like an ant compared to it.
"EAT GOD'S HAMMER!"
Cornello screamed like a little girl and fell backwards, the giant fist missing him completely on purpose, but leaving him feeling completely defeated.
"So it was a fake?" Alphonse said after Edward and Anne had finished explaining what happened in the church. The three siblings were sitting on the steps leading into the church, which was partly in ruin. Anne looked towards the horizon.
'So close and yet still no closer at all. All that work for nothing. Just when I could've restored you guys.' She though as she glanced at her brothers from the corner of her eye. Edward had put his tattered coat to cover her up. She could feel the last few rays of the sun warming her up.
"And here I thought I could finally get you your body back, Al…" Edward said softly.
'Ha, great minds think the alike, right Ed?'
"Well I'm more concerned about Annie," Alphonse whispered to his brother, "being unable to see must have its share of problems."
Edward nodded and looked back up to his sister.
"Let's go look somewhere else, ok Annie?"
She nodded and smiled at the nickname. They stood up and were just about to leave, when a certain someone spoke to them.
"No this can't be real…" Rose said sadly. She was hopeless, not even having the strength to stand anymore as she fell to the ground. "Father Cornello said he would bring back the one person I loved…..I'm alone now…"
"Rose, just give it up," Anne said quietly, but still loud enough to hear.
"But why does it have to be like this?" the woman asked, then shot her head up and screamed, "What am I supposed to do now?! How can I live now?" Her voice wavered as she started to cry. "Please! Tell me! Tell me what to do!"
The female alchemist turned away from her.
"Figure it out on your own," Edward suddenly spoke up, "Stand up and walk. After all, you have two perfect legs to walk on."
Edward took his leave, his arm around his sister's shoulders. Alphonse took a last moment to glance at Rose, who had her eyes to the sky, before following his older siblings. Anne stopped before suddenly turning back to Rose, her borrowed coat waving in the wind.
Anne looked at Rose fondly. "I think that the greatest gift God ever gave man is not the gift of sight but the gift of vision. Sight is a function of the eyes, but vision is a function of the heart."
She turned back to her waiting family, and never looked back.
Little did either of the four them know what would befall Liore that night.
[1] This blade is a reference to a blade in one of my favorite games Prototype
A/N:Wow this is long! This is my longest chapter to date. Well I hope you guys like it as much as I did writing it. I ask you guys to please review!It took me 6 hours to write and check this and make sure it was alright to post. So push that little 'review' button and write something, anything!
Ja ne
~Sumi