Dragon Ball GX, Side Story: The Alchemic Saiyan
Chapter 19: Reversed Roles
Edward Elric
After having a serious discussion with Dominic and his family about our mission, and helping deliver the baby like in the anime, we finally got Winry set up with Mr. Garfiel in town. Now she had the automail job she'd always dreamed of. Now, after having spent the last 2 days in Rush Valley, and another half day on the train again, Envy, Alphonse and me were finally in Dublith.
"So this is Dublith eh, a little different than I imagined" Envy comments as we depart the train, once more in his old man disguise.
"How so?" Alphonse asks with curiosity.
"Well I've heard some other things about this town aside from the fact that its where I think my old friend is, they say that a group of criminal freaks that holes up here, got weird powers, and that their leader is the weirdest of all" Envy explains as we reach the street and hail a cab.
"So you thought that Dublith would be a dark, dangerous, depressing crime slum?" I ask as I turn my head to look out the window in the direction of Central, where I could sense Father's immense presence without effort.
"Pretty much, yeah, I was surprised when nobody attempted to mug us on the way off the train, its much more pleasant than I'd anticipated" Envy continues.
"If things were that bad, we probably wouldn't have lasted long while away from teacher during our training" Al says with a laugh, causing me to smile as well. Like Resembool, Dublith was rather tame and safe, no major events ever occurred here in our past.
Once the cab reached the street we wanted, we climbed out of the car, and the driver peeled out in a desperate rush to get away from this place, and who could blame him? Even with my new found invulnerability and other myriad of superpowers, there was still something scary about my first teacher.
Suddenly, I had a realization; I'd learned stuff people of our world had never even considered, stuff that Truth hadn't divulged to anyone. I was no longer a former student. Thanks to my training, now I was the master. Just as I came to that conclusion, suddenly most of my fear vanished. Now all I was worried about, was her being angry with me, for even with my new training, I had still committed the taboo with my brother all those years ago, like she had, and we'd been warned that it was something that would haunt us.
"(Gulp) Well, here we go" Alphonse says as we begin to walk toward the door. Knocking on it, thudding footsteps began to echo from within, and Sig came to the door with a bloody knife.
"Uh…hey Sig, long time no see" Al says nervous, as I just stand there quietly, wondering how he'd react to seeing me short again.
"Its good to see you boys again after all these years, I was beginning to worry you might never return" Sig says as he pats my head, ruffling my hair.
"Excuse me, I've been by here more recently than that haven't I?" I snap, amazed that he acted as if my appearance 4 weeks ago was just a dream or something.
"No, its been a long time, you must have it confused with another visit, the last visitor we had was that tall blonde monster man who claimed he was you, then went on to devastate Central Command" Sig replies casually. My jaw dropped at hearing his explanation.
"I-Is teacher here? We wanted to see her, but if she's still not feeling well then we can come back another time" Al says nervously, literally shaking with fear.
"Oh please, she's only human, how dangerous could she-AAAHHH!" Envy begins, abruptly screaming as he is cut short by a kick to the fact that sent him sprawling out to the street where he crashed, leaving an imprint due to his extreme mass. HA! How ironic, he took the hit I would have gotten if things had followed the original path that my anime did.
"(Gasp) Uh…teacher, please, you see, we…-" Al stutters as he tries to speak, all but paralyzed with fear. Oh poor Al, it's a shame he wasn't invulnerable like me.
"Al? Look at you, you've gotten so big" she says cheerfully as she puts out a hand. I knew what was coming next, so I quickly relocated to the roof and swung my legs off the edge. Using my alchemy to synthesize a bucket of fresh, hot, hulless popcorn from a large quantity of atmospheric gases above me, I got comfy and prepared to watch Al take the schmuck bait hard. I knew it was rather cruel, but I just had to let this go as planned, it was hilarious seeing my brother be so naïve, even knowing how my former teacher acts.
"(Sigh) Teacher, its really good to see-WHOAAAAA!" Al screams as he is flipped on his back with a thud, groaning dramatically from the blow; what a baby, he doesn't even feel pain as a soul bonded to a suit of armor, I laughed as I grabbed another handful of the delicious airy treat and chomped on it.
"Your skills are rusty" she comments as she turns her back to him.
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA! Funny every-single-damn time!" I guffaw as I hold my stomach, the in-person rendition was even better than the version from the anime. Hearing my voice, she turned her head up and her eyes widened with shock.
"Hey Izumi, long time no see" I reply with a laugh as I toss the bucket away, a stone fist sprouting from the ground and gently catching it before I even land, the hand then gave it back to me and promptly fell apart once its work was done.
"How did you do that?" she stammers as she points.
"What, the popcorn? You can have some if you want" I ask as I hold it out to her.
"No no no! The hand, the roof, you just…what's going on?" she shouts as she looks down at me with shock.
"Well, you see, apparently you forgot or something, cause I've been-"
"HEY LADY!" Envy shouts as, causing us both to stop and turn our attention to him. The fool had begun to revert back to his default teen like form.
"You're out of line bitch, do you know who I' am? I'm the great and powerful homunculus, Envy the Jealous! Now what possessed you to just hit me you stupid whor-"
With a SMACK! Izumi kicked in him the face again, silencing, and sending him to the ground once more.
"Annoying thing; now, you were saying Edward?" Izumi continues, still giving me the shocked look. I couldn't believe she thought that that incident in Central was really the work of another creature. Well, I was sure to set her straight.
"Izumi, maybe this will help explain" I say as I begin to undo the alchemic formula's that had changed my appearance, returning me back to my new, true appearance. As my body grew, my tail re-sprouted, and I sighed. The whole way, Izumi's face contorted with terror.
"Alright, now do you understand?" I ask, hopeful that she'd put two and two together. For a whole minute, she was completely silent, Curtis staring in shock too.
Then, she suddenly screamed, "THE MONSTER!"
Clapping her hands, she slammed the ground and a fist began to fly toward my face.
"WHOA! Izumi, what the hell? Stop this!" I shout, she acted like I really was the bad guy.
"No, you've gotten poor Edward again, where have you taken my student!" she bellows as she makes a giant rampart blaster crossbow and fires it.
"WHOA! Izumi, ITS ME!" I scream as I hold out the watch. She stopped for a moment, but then frowned.
"You could have taken that from Edward, how do I know you're not lying?" she continues, raising an eyebrow. Suddenly, Envy came up and grinned as he stood by her.
"Don't hit me just yet, I'm gonna prove that's Ed" he says with a grin. Clearing his throat, Envy began to laugh.
"He-Hey Tiny! I'm surprised your teacher could see you earlier when you were such a little, shrimpy, microscopic, miniscule, wimpy, short, small, downsized, puny, insignificant bug of a man, how ever did she see you at that height you runt?" Envy taunts, setting me off something fierce, I knew I'd have fire in my eyes if this were like my anime.
"(Scream) NOBODY CALLS ME LITTLE!" I roar as I leap at Envy and rip his skull off his neck. After spurting blood all over me, the head turned to dust, and a new one began to grow.
"(Groan) You over-sensitive ass, I just wanted to get you mad the way only the real Ed could, to prove to Izumi that you're the real deal, you didn't have to bite my fucking head off!" Envy says bitterly as his head reforms.
"Ok, I'm sorry about that, I went overboard a little because of a few things, But in case you've forgotten, you do deserve a little abuse considering how horrid you've acted in the past homunculus" I reply angrily.
"Edward…so it is you, but…the army, you told King Bradley-"
"A big fat lie to get him and the other bad guys off my back, it was all an act that I wanted them to believe, I just didn't think you'd be dumb enough to fall for it teacher" I laugh as I interrupt her, realizing how badly she'd been suckered.
"So…wait, that would mean that the monster that attacked Central, that was you, so you…" she continues, unable to say it.
"Yeah, I won't deny it, I killed all the soldiers, I'm not innocent anymore. But I didn't mean to, I'll explain everything as soon as we clean up this mess" I say as I point around to the various destroyed parts in the area.
"Oh…yeah, I suppose we do need to get to work, I'll start with the-"
"Don't bother, I got it covered" I say as I cut her off and crack my knuckles, putting my hands at my waist. Within moments, alchemic energy bolts crackled across all the damaged places and things reformed. Minutes later, after careful double checking, everything that had been broken or even scratched, was all repaired. Izumi and Sig's mouths had promptly dropped at this display.
"Edward…what was that?" Izumi asks hoarsely.
"Remote mentally activated Alchemy" I smirk as I rub one of my hands on my coat.
"That's not even possible, you have to at least be in close contact to the matter you want to manipulate to use alchemy on it" she replies with disbelief.
"Oh teacher, you should know by now-" I begin as I hold my hand out, a small, vase size vortex forming as I manipulate the contents of the atmosphere, then turn them into a real vase, with my usual Gothic designs.
"-There is no such thing as impossible" I grin as I hand it to her.
"Lets go inside, I don't need to be seen like this by the general public" I say as I rush into her home. They promptly followed me, with Envy laughing.
"Kid, I Like your style, very flamboyant!" he shouts.
Izumi Curtis
After an entire hour, Edward had told his story, including the parts about trying to revive his mother, his out of universe trip, and what the big bads of our world had planned. All I could do was gape in shock; he'd seen a completely different and peaceful world, yet there were beings even more powerful than this "Father" beneath Central, and now Edward was one of them. I could only think of one phrase to sufficiently describe Edward's new status.
The student had become the master indeed.
"Edward…do they…have alchemy over there?" I ask, remembering him mentioning some folks who had come back from the dead.
"It works over there, I used it, but most folks don't seem to know it exists, or are at least unable to figure it out, why do you ask?" Edward replies with a curious smile.
"Because, well…you said that people came back from the dead over there, so I thought maybe…they'd perfected human transmutation or something and that…you could take me there so I could get my child back at last" I say as I remember that fateful day he was taken from us.
"No, they don't use that, they have something far more powerful, real magic" Edward continues, frowning as he spoke of the human transmutation, but smiling as he got to the magic part.
"Magic? HA! Isn't that a bunch of hooey?" Envy cackles.
"Hey, you've seen the mastery of matter and energy that my training with Psyagon gave me" Edward retorts as a ball of liquid forms in his hand, then solidifies into a perfectly cut and polished diamond.
"That was all made from the gases of the atmosphere around us" he says as he holds it out for us to see.
"But that violates the law of natural providence; matter with certain properties can only be transmuted into other forms with similar-"
"Don't you get it! The real truth is, there is no law of natural providence. All that matter is, is condensed, solidified energy, nothing more. That's why the sun emits so much power, its fusion of hydrogen to make helium gives off excess energy that's lost from the conversion of one element to another. If nature can do it, nothing saying we can't, you just need to know how to manipulate matter on that kind of scale, complete and total deconstruction down to subatomic particles, back to pure energy" Ed says as the diamond changes into a tiny orb of yellow light and flies into his chest. Then with a burst of alchemic discharge, he shrank back to his small size from before his life changing experience.
"So this magic, are you saying it can really bring the dead back?" I continue, still eager to know a straight answer.
"Yeah, it sure can, hell some folks I met were revived by this magic more than twice. Just in general, it was really something to meet them, I mean, one guy named Krillin, he invented this technique" Edward says as he holds his palm up like he was a waiter about to carry a big tray. Suddenly, a giant yellow spinning disk of energy formed, and I could see razor shaped edges.
"Whoa, what is that?" Envy asks with about as much awe as I was feeling.
"The Kienzan, or Destructo Disk. Its pure Ki energy, sharpened down to a sub-atomically thin edge, it can cut through just about any solid matter like a hot knife through butter, and even most energies too. Only the most dense, durable, and energy saturated beings or materials can take one of these head on and not be eviscerated; this one I hold here could cut through a million trees in under an hour, and still keep going" Edward explains with a chuckle.
"Well then put that thing away, I don't want my house sliced and diced, much less me or Sig!" I scream as I realize how dangerous such a technique could be.
"Yeah sure, alright then, so are we cool teacher? You're not gonna expel us are you?" Edward asks with a hopeful tone as the disk vanishes.
"How could I expel you? I was considering giving you that test if all this hadn't happened, but now…you're the one with stuff to teach me" I begin as I stand up, Edward's face contorting with confusion as I knelt to one knee in respect.
"Please, I wish to learn whatever you can teach a mere mortal like me" I ask humbly, causing Sig to laugh.
"Wow, I never would have imagined that my wife would be bowing and asking one of the brats she didn't even want to take on as a pupil to teach her lessons of any kind one day. But she's right Edward, you have unfathomable levels of knowledge to teach, I'd like you to teach my wife too if possible" he says as he kneels too.
"We'll discuss it later, right now, there's something even more important we have to do" Edward says as he raises a hand dramatically. Without warning, a loud growling groan filled the room.
"We need to make dinner, and lots of it, I'm starving" he laughs as he rubs the back of his head and chuckles sheepishly. We all promptly fell over from the sheer absurdity of it; one moment he was dead serious, the next he's desperate to be fed.
"(Chuckle) Ok, come on, we'll get started on the meal then" I say as we head for the kitchen.
Bido
From the side of the wall, I heard everything about the soul bonding. I smiled, knowing he'd be pleased. "So the rumors are true, he's able to transmute human souls" I chuckle as I crawl off back to my friend and leader, eager to tell him the good news.
The Next Day
Alphonse Elric
As I swept the street outside the shop, I thought about how much my brother had changed. I admired my brother and his new character, he was a lot more cheerful most of the time, he still had that snappy demeanor often, but he was much better than he used to be. Still, he had much to improve on, and hopefully as our journey continued, he'd keep getting better.
Suddenly, a crumpled piece of paper was tossed right at my feet. Looking around for the one who threw it, I failed to find them, so I bent down and opened it up. As I saw the words, I became suspicious, and decided to go to this place the paper listed. After walking for a good 10 minutes into the bad part of town, I saw a group of people gathered outside the entrance to the location written on the paper I held.
"There you are, about time" a man with slicked back, spiky black hair says as he stands with the others. I also noticed he had a katana on his person. Beside him was a blonde girl with tattoos. Also among them was a bald guy with a tattered cloak.
"We know your secret, meet us at the Devil's Nest if you wanna talk. I'm guessing you're the people that wrote this note?" I reply as I hold it out for them to see.
"That's right, and we know a lot about you" the spiky black haired man says with a smile.
"Well that's good, cause there's a lot about me that I don't know" I reply as I turn my head slightly.
"Then I'm the guy you wanna talk to, why don't you come with us?" he replies.
"But my teacher always said I'm not supposed to go with strangers" I continue, causing him to show disbelief.
"How old are you?" he asks with an embarrassed face.
"14" I state.
"Well come on then, I'd say 14 is old enough to think for yourself kid. You gotta act like an adult and start taking some risks" he says as he turns his back to me and turns his finger around above his head, as if he just expected me to listen to him like he had some kind of authority. I then figured now would be time for some acting to make him drop his guard.
"You think so, I should think for myself?" I shout with faux interest in my tone.
"Yes, and you can start by coming with-UGH!" he laughs as he turns to reply, where he promptly received a kick to the face that sent him sprawling to the dirt.
"So I thought it over for myself, and I decided that I should just make you tell me what I wanna know" I continue, standing tall and ready to fight them.
"So, you wanna do this by force?" he remarks as he leaps to his feet and unsheathes his katana. Almost faster than he could respond, I struck him with an open palm to the face, sending blood and saliva spurting out as tissues tore and broke. But at the same time, his sword managed to strike up into my helmet and flip it off. Without warning, the girl landed on my shoulders.
"Sorry to drop in" she says smoothly, then flips and twists into my armor with one fluid motion.
"WHAAAAAAA! YOU'RE INSIDE ME!" I scream as I freak out.
"Hey, be a good boy and hold still!" she yells as I feel her arms go into my arm sockets inside my armor.
"So whats it like having someone control you from inside?" the girl asks as she holds her limbs stiff in my socket areas.
"You can't stop me from moving, and you're not strong enough to hold this up forever!" I groan as I resist her control.
"You're right, but, all I'm trying to do is slow you down a little" she says mischievously.
"For my turn" the deep voice of a big man says from behind me. As I tried to ram my arm into him, he caught it, then pushed me down to the ground and sat on my back to immobilize me as he held my body in an arm hold maneuver.
"You alright in there?" the man asks the girl.
"Oh I'm wonderful" she spits sarcastically.
"You're making this way too hard kid" the black haired man says as he drops my head down a few feet away from me.
"You people aren't human are you?" I ask as I continue to struggle against the two holding me still.
"Good guess, they're chimeras, and they happen to work for me" a new voice says, picking up my head and holding it out as he stands there smirking. The man had spiky black hair that stood straight up, he wore slick black shades with a black outfit, composed of a vest with fur around the neck, a dark brown undershirt, wristbands, tight leather pants, and leather boots. Then, they forced me inside the Devil's Nest.