And it's chapter 4 people. Lots of reviews, people like this story, all in all, I'm happy. And this chapter we're introducing Crona. Not sure if I stated this before, but that's the timeline. Right before Crona. Any who, let's start this chapter. Yes, I'm diverting from the canon a bit, but hey, it's all for the best.
Now, onto review responses.
DemonRaily: Again, there are stupid people out there. I have a brother for one. Actually thought the zombie apocalypse was happening.
Now, Ed does not know Medusa's a witch, nor that she is 800 years old. I'm using 814 because it's not a round number. Now, the madness that I'm using is going to be the Asura Madness of fear. Maybe a bit of the probable Excalibur madness of rage. Now, your right, Mabaa is going to be playing the main evil person, but let it be known, Medusa is still a bit of evil. Not the 'take over the world and enslave human kind to psychotic tendancies' evil, but 'I slashed your tires and shit on your car' evil. Now that I think about it, the latter is pretty evil too...
But don't worry, the anime plot will still be followed loosely, enough that I can work with it. We'll still have Crona, but Crona was raised by Mabaa, who didn't trust Medusa to raise a black blood subject. Hence, Medusa just refines it and sends Crona out to do shit for collecting souls. End result, madness of fear Kishin. But, that won't work out to well.
On with the story.
Ed sat bored in his class. It was something about history of the school and great weapon and meister pairs that had graduated.
He was looking at the recent stuff when he got to a name that made his blood boil.
Weapon: Spirit Albarn, Death Scythe
A picture verified his suspicion. He was about to leave and hunt down this Spirit kid when a person appeared at the door.
"Sorry Sid, but Lord Death requests the presence of Edward Elric." Ed looked, confused. Shrugging, he got up and left the room, not really caring if blue boy cared.
Ten minutes later he was standing in front of the reaper. But that's not what concerned him.
"YOU!" shouted Ed, pointing at the red haired adult.
"...Me?"
"YOUR THE ONE THAT BLEW UP MY CAR!" Yes, those words struck a chord with the death scythe.
"Oh shit! It's you!" cried Spirit, hiding behind Lord Death.
"What's this about?" asked the Grim Reaper.
"15 years ago I had a 62 Mustang convertible, AND YOU BLEW IT UP!"
Lord Death watched the conversation. Edward looked like he was going to kill his death scythe, who was hiding behind him and had possibly crapped himself.
"You can solve this later kids, for now, Edward, I have a mission for you." Ed's rage was quelled a bit.
"A mission?" he asked. He was still giving Spirit death look.
"It's in Italy. Originally Maka and Soul would have done the mission, but Maka broke her leg earlier today. This is also a way to see just how good your combat abilities are in the field!" to accent his point he clapped his overly large hands.
"...Sure, why not. I haven't been there in a while anyways. So, what am I doing?" He had stopped trying to kill Spirit. His time would come later.
"There's a serial killer eating souls. Just go and retrieve his soul, that's it. Transportation has already been arranged. Have fun!" This was obvious dismissal for Ed, who turned around and began plotting the demise of Spirit.
3 days later
Ed chased the serial killer across the rooftop.
He had been chasing this bastard for the past two days, him somehow slipping away. Ed didn't use alchemy because the city of Italy would probably call him a freak, call in the army, testing, on the run, shit like that. So he opted to take him out hand to hand style. Well, knife to sword.
"Why do I always get the crazy people," muttered Ed, leaping over a chimney.
This particular killer was under 300 pounds, had a paper bag over his face and had a kitchen knife over his head. Could it kill him to be original?
Ed finally cornered the serial killer.
"Alright, I was told your name but I didn't care to remember it, so here's the deal. I take you soul, you don't kill anymore, deal?" Ed called the question to the fat dude in the paper bag.
"Soul...Power...Kishin..."
"Yeh, it's a safe bet he's my guy," muttered Ed. Deciding to end it quickly he transmuted the roof tiles into a giant spike that pierced the Kishin egg's head. In a swirl of black ribbons and red light, he disappeared, leaving a red orb with a bit of a trail.
"Hmm, what to do with that?" wondered Ed aloud. Walking over, he examined it.
It was red with black spots, the smoke trail looked tangible, and the overall appearance was rubbery.
Distantly he could feel the soul within, twisted with power and greed. He reached out to grab it, intending to put it into his pocket and hand over to Skully when it reacted.
As his flesh hand closed around it, his chest, the soul and his hand glowed. Red lighting danced from his chest, along his arm and into the soul. Powerful lances of energy coursed along the three points. Immediately, the soul began to shrink. In noticeable incriments it decreased in size until becoming a small red rock. That was quickly absorbed into his flesh, the single soul joining the rest in his body.
For a moment, he felt something on the edge of his mind, a small brush, but that disappeared as soon as it came.
"Weird. I wasn't expecting that," thought Ed aloud, not speaking to anyone in particular. Looking around, he found his secondary reason for coming.
"Hello there, I haven't seen you since you were just foundations. I should go see what became of you," wondered Ed, jumping off the roof and headed in the direction of the cathedral.
Back in Death City, a small group of onlookers stared at the mirror.
"Did that just happen?" asked Maka, standing on her 'broken' leg.
"If 'that' refers to the thing with the soul, then yes," replied Kid.
"And what was that about the cathedral? Did anyone understand 'I haven't seen you since you were just foundations.' I didn't get that part." Liz filed her nails, but still curious about him.
Lord death was quiet though, his mind working. That cathedral was just under 150 years old. It was made to commemorate the gold healer, a person who magically healed the town of the illness that swept through the town. Lord Death knew of it because he was curious about the rate of healing. He had sent some meisters to investigate but they were too forward with the townsfolk, causing the gold healer to leave.
"I wonder..." he muttered to himself. Nobody heard him.
Back to Ed, he was standing in front, mildly aware of the people in death city watching him. "They think I don't know." Grinning, he looked at the doors. "The golden healer, alright, not the weirdest name I've had, but it's ok." He was going to continue when he felt something in the cathedral.
It happened in a flash, about a hundred people disappeared, one person consuming... no, the sword consumed the souls. Well, not too late to pull double duty, and all Elrics were naturally curious.
Steadying himself, he pushed the doors open. Bit of a weird design, but hey, why not.
The first thing he noticed was the lack of people. His thoughts drifted to how this situation reminded him of Pride.
Of course the person in the middle of the room caught his attention.
He, or she, he wasn't sure, was just standing there, back facing the door. "Hey, you ok?" he asked. The person, person with pink hair, didn't reply. He, She, It just mumbled something.
"Again, are you ok?" still no definitive answer.
Ed was slightly angry. He walked up to the person, let's call it a she. When he got within 5 feet he heard her talking.
"No... what should I do... I don't know how to deal with this..." Ed was completely confused.
"Excuse me, you alright?" At this point Ed knew the girl was either crazy or responsible for what happened.
"...Ok..." Ed quirked an eyebrow at that.
Without warning a black and white blade flew out of her hand. It was impossibly big for her body size. He would put money on it that it was at least half her weight.
She tried to swing it, her form being the worst Ed had ever seen. He transmuted his classic Dragon Spear out of the ground, twirling it expertly. She swung it in a messy downward ark, being smashed out of the way where the sharp end of the staff cut her arm.
Black fluid flew out of the wound for a few seconds before it just stopped. Not just started to go down the arm, but fully stopped.
She rubbed her arm, some of the black fluid sticking on her hand. "Hey, my blood is black," she said. Now this was freaking Ed out.
"Ok, it's black. Good for you, I've seen weirder stuff."
"DID YOU JUST CALL ME WEIRD?" screamed a voice.
"Umm, depends, what are you?"
The sword dissolved, flowing back up her arm, no, into her arm. When the last part of it ended back up in her arm she doubled over, screaming. Ropey tendrils flew out her back, taking a shape. It flew into a pillar with two arms, the hand area turning white. The head took shape, a giant x with two white dots.
"I'm me, Ragnorok! And did you call me weird?"
"You?"
"I'm the blood that flows in her veins. So again, did you call me weird?"
"...Sure. that a problem?"
"AHHHH! Crona! Kill him!"
"Ok, I'm not sure how to deal with that though..." She tried to slash him again, this time a messy side to side swipe, Ed deflecting it easily and making another cut on her arm, that not even bleeding. Before she could react, Ed made a downward slash, hitting her in the shoulder, cutting the fabric... and not even bruising the flesh.
"Wha?" he mumbled, staring.
"Yeh, weird boy, I can harden the black blood to make her flesh impenetrable!" screamed the sword, a small mouth on the hilt.
"Interesting, very interesting. How did you get to be like that?"
"A witch, we don't know who, melted me down from my original sword form and bonded me with black blood and injecting it into an infant, in other words, Crona here." Through this conversation the pinkette was quiet, mumbling about how she couldn't deal with this situation.
In the Death Room, the onlooker were shocked. The few adults, Lord Death, Spirit, Stein and Sid, all were quiet at the mention of the demon sword. Maka, Soul, Patty, Liz and Kid were watching the fight, wondering how Ed would deal with it.
Back to Ed, events were... ok. He was dodging the wild slashes with ease, slapping the blade away with his staff and using the flat of the blade to deliver blunt attacks.
The progress was minimal.
Without warning, the mouth on the sword opened its... lips... and let loose a screech.
Ed clutched his ears, falling down onto his knees. The sound pierced his senses, blinding him to everything but the noise. He found himself unable to do anything except clutch his ears.
The sound was so alien, he didn't realize it had stopped. There was that presence, brushing his mind. Different, yet familiar. It flashed away before he could identify it, but he had other pressing matters on his mind.
Looking around, he saw only himself in the great cathedral created towards him some 150 ish years ago.
"Well, could have been a better reunion. I'll see you around later." Ed grunted, standing up, slightly dizzy from the experience.
[A.N.] there we go, chapter 4. Did you like it? So far my reviews are very good, nothing negative and a shit tonne of story alerts. Anywho, this has been your author, dealing the cards.