This is one of my favorite chapters. I is excited. Hehe :D

More long chapters, whooo!

"Where's Emily?"

Liwu froze, midsentence. He had been telling Zhou about some of the pranks that he and Quyi used to pull on some of the courtiers. Despite the age difference between the two and the fact that Zhou was more Nina's friend that Liwu's, the two enjoyed talking because, despite Nina's insistence that she was Xingese, they were the only two ethnic Xingese kids at their school. Zhou had learned to speak Amestrian more or less fluently by now, so that wasn't a barrier, but neither of them would quite be able to escape the second looks when someone walked by them.

"I thought she was with you," he responded, frowning.

"No, she was meeting us here," Nina responded, frowning as well.

"Could something have happened?" Zhou asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's not a far walk from her school to here, but…"

"… No, I'm sure she's fine. Emily knows how to protect herself."

"Okay."

They agreed to wait a few more minutes, but when she didn't show they decided that it would be best to split up to try to find her.

"She probably just saw a flower she thought was cool and tried to dissect it, or something," Nina said, shrugging, but both boys could see that she was a little worried.

"I'll check along the road," Liwu volunteered. Nina volunteered to check the school, while Zhou was charged with checking the stores and such that lined the street from the elementary school that Emily attended and the high school.

Liwu didn't find anything as checked the road, making sure to check behind the bushes and in the trees as he walked. Emily was easily distracted by things that caught her interest. Her favorite thing to do was learn, so if it was a choice between going out somewhere, she would always rather wander off somewhere else to watch a bird to try to figure out how it flew. Dad freely confessed that it was his fault.

Either that or she had been reading and ran into a tree and had been spending the past few minutes staring at the tree and continuing to read. He wasn't too worried… or at least that's what he told himself.

He was absorbed enough in searching the tree branches in front of him for his little sister that he almost didn't register the jeers towards him. When he finally realized that the shouts were aimed at him he turned around, frowning… and automatically sneered.

"Skinty! Yeah, we're talking to you!"

Liwu lifted his chin before turning sharply on his heel and continuing to search behind the bushes.

"Ya lose something Skinty? You lose your idol?"

"Better find it, or the devil dragon's going to eat you!"

"Good riddance I say! What do you think Skinty? Or does your devil dragon only eat Amestrians?"

"One of them almost touched me once, I thought I was going to get a disease."

"You probably did. Don't come near me!"

Liwu closed his eyes before curling his hand into a fist. He couldn't stand these guys. He knew them. It was a bunch of older boys, the year above him. There were usually five of them but sometimes they had other friends join in on their idiocy. Pretty much everyone in the school agreed that they were a bunch of idiots who weren't going anywhere in life, but they happened to big, strong, intimidating, and extremely racist.

Anyone who wasn't pure Amestrian was a target to them, someone to be gotten rid of. Which was especially hypocritical considering Amestris was an amalgamation (a word they wouldn't know) of different territories and therefore ethnicities. And most "pure Amestrians" were dependents from Xerses, of whom the last pure Xerian, Liwu's grandfather, had died almost 20 years ago.

But of all the "non-Amestrians" they hated, the Xingese were at the top. Liwu had more or less managed to avoid getting entangled with any of their idiocy or targeting, and he knew that Nina made it very clear to the rest of the school that Zhou was "under her protection" and these idiots didn't like messing with his over exuberant, teacher's pet, friends-with-the-whole-school, feisty sister. So they had never been directly threatened or bullied, but both of them silently endured barrages like this whenever around them.

He continued to ignore them as he kept walking down the road, but they didn't relent calling him "Skinty" and shouting racial slurs until he managed to give them the slip by going to the bathroom (they followed and Liwu was fairly sure that they might have attacked him in there) and climbing out the window and running into one of the stores.

He just so happened to run into Zhou in the next store, and they both confirmed that they hadn't found Emily.

"Maybe she already made it home? Maybe she's waiting where we normally wait for her."

"No, I think I would have seen her on the road…"

"While neither of us have been successful so we might as well get back there. If Nina found her, that's where she'd take her."

Luckily for both of them, the idiots were gone. Probably off to terrorize some other group of kids.

Nina was not at the normal waiting place, but ten minutes or so later when they were starting to get antsy and wanting to go looking again, Nina came into view, a little black haired, gold eyed girl keeping pace at her side.

"Sorry," Emily said, keeping her face down, which Liwu wondered at. Usually she was happy and looked people right in the face. "I had to use the bathroom."

"It's okay," Liwu forgave. "Just… try not to scare us so much next time."

"Sorry."

The incident was more or less forgotten after getting yelled at by Mei for being home so late. All three of the children were relieved when they didn't relay the information to Al when he came home though.

Then about a week later when they were waiting to walk home together, Zhou with them again, it happened again.

Nina was describing, rather rapturously, a boy in her class that she was apparently attracted to, and Liwu was making notes in his head to check this boy out to make sure he was suitable for his little sister to be interested in, when Zhou, who looked slightly upset with the topic, cut her off.

"Where's Emily? Shouldn't she be here by now?"

"Oh," Nina said, crestfallen. "Yes, she should be."

"Do you think she's in the bathroom again?"

"I'll go check," she responded, running down the street towards the elementary school.

"So… you don't like Nina talking about guys that she likes, do you, Zhou?"

"What?"

"Nothing…"

The Yu turned red.

Liwu more or less just stood there grinning while Zhou turned even redder until Nina finally arrived with Emily in tow.

"Good to go?" Liwu asked, still grinning slightly. Emily nodded, but Nina looked worried. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but she shook her head and mouthed the word "later" at him.

Well Liwu didn't want to wait until later. So he got/trapped Zhou into explaining the Yu clan system to Emily while he fell back with Nina.

"What is it?"

"She was in the bathroom," Nina said, hushed. "But… she was crying. And her hand and arms were all scratched up."

"So she fell?"

"… Yeah I'm sure that's what it was. Either she fell or…"

Nina didn't finish the statement but it didn't have to be said. The alternative hung in the air between them as they stared at their little sister pestering Zhou with questions.

Either she fell or she was pushed.

"Hey Em. You alright?"

"I'm fine, Liwu. I'm actually working on a project with Mommy! She's going to teach me to change the carbon ratios in the things I'm making so I can make them stronger!"

"Good…. Um… Have fun."

"I will!"

"Skinty, whacha doing over there? Don't you realize those are Amestrians you're eating with?"

"You bet he realizes!" Oliver shouted back at them. "And you'd better back off!"

"Stick to your own kind Capria!"

"I can hardly stand my own twin, you think I want to stick to a bunch of idiots like you?"

"Hey!"

"Sorry Simon."

"Eh, the feeling's mutual."

This time it wasn't just scratched up hands, it was her face.

"What happened?" Nina asked, aghast as she examined the scrapes.

"I fell," Emily responded. "The teacher already had me wash it, so I'm fine."

"Em…"

"I'm fine," she repeated. "Can we stop and watch the birds on our way?"

"… yeah, okay, sure."

For a while he accepted it. Emily wasn't the most coordinated of them. They didn't know if it was because she was born premature of if she was just like that, but Emily just didn't have much balance or coordination. She was absolutely awful in sparring matches and lessons. A complete genius about whipping up alchemic or alkahestric circles. She knew just about everything Al did about alchemy and alkahestry combinations. Having been taught both since before she could even write and taught their origins and capabilities to be combined, she was almost even better at combining the two than Al, who had been studying it for decades. But ask her to walk across a mainly flat surface balancing an egg in a spoon?

Goodbye egg.

So he wasn't too skeptical about her falling down and hurting herself.

But one certainly doesn't fall down and get a black eye.

He didn't fight her about it on the way home from school or even bring up his suspicions to Mei or Nina. But slipping into her room at night to wish her goodnight…

"You don't have to take it."

"What?"

"You're not falling down and getting all of these injuries, Em. Something's going on, and if it's what I think it is… If it's those idiots who are hurting you, you don't have to take it. You're a genius. Hit them with one of Uncle Ed's alchemy fists. Something, don't just let yourself get hurt."

"… okay, Brother."

The next time she took a while to show up, Liwu told Nina to just go on up ahead without him.

"I'll get her," he promised. If those idiots were harassing her again, Liwu wanted to be there when they got hit in the face by a giant rock fist. He loved when Uncle Ed would talk about using them and he was pretty sure that Uncle Ed had taught Emily how to do them, even if he couldn't do them himself anymore.

He jogged down to the elementary school, did a bit of searching, before finally hearing the shouting and following that. They sounded different than usual though. Usually they were jeering, insulting… now they sounded angry.

They finally came into sight and he put on an extra burst of speed so he for sure wouldn't miss the fist… when he realized that she already had. And his sister wasn't moving.

"EM!" he shouted, pushing through the group of boys. They were too shocked that he appeared out of nowhere to stop him, so he made it through to his sister. The circle was drawn in the dirt, and the fist was sticking out of the earth so why…

"What did you do to her?" he shouted at them, making sure that he could be heard over the sudden jeers at his arrival.

"Skinty brat knocked out Reg. Gave her what she deserved. You asking for some?"

Liwu crouched by his sister's side. "You okay Em?" She nodded weakly, but didn't move beyond that. She was staring to cry. Liwu felt an unfamiliar feeling of anger rear up inside his chest and he straightened before facing the boys head on.

"What did she ever do to you?"

"Oh he knows how to talk after all. I guess he thinks he's a smart one for that." Never mind the fact that Liwu had just asked them what they had done to her. Liwu's eyes narrowed.

"I asked you a question."

"And I don't need to answer you, Skinty. You're the ones invading our country. No one asked for you to come here."

"And no one asked for you to be a jerk!" Liwu shouted back at him. "She's just a little girl!"

"She exists," the nasty boy responded, sneering.

"So you don't like the Xingese?"

"You can all go die and rid our country of your kind." The boy with the buzz cut spat. Liwu raised his chin.

"Then why don't you put your actions where your mouth is. My heritage is about as Xingese as it gets. And I'm your size. First to draw blood wins."

The boy sneered. "First to break bone."

"Deal. I win you leave my sister alone."

"If I win?"

"You can kill me."

"Liwu!" Emily shouted, pushing herself up. "You can't do that!"

"It's what you want isn't it?" he asked, ignoring his little sister. "To rid the world of our kind."

Buzz-cut cracked his knuckles and then his neck.

"Let's go."

"Em, stay away. I don't want you involved in this."

"But Liwu—!"

"Get back!" Reluctantly, she retreated.

"She needs to stick around and see what happens to her kind when they can't learn a lesson," Buzz-cut growled, a statement that his friends echoed.

"Yes, please," Liwu said, voice dripping in sarcasm. "Teach me what happens when our kind don't let biased bullies step all over us."

"Oh I will."

Then he charged.

"Liwu! What happened!" Mei shouted, when he walked in the door, Emily ridding piggy back on his back. His shirt was ripped and his nose was broken and bleeding really badly. There was the beginnings of a black eye darkening around his left eye. He was also limping pretty badly.

Despite all this he was grinning and chatting with his little sister.

"It's nothing, Mom," he responded, dropping Emily on the ground.

"What do you mean it's nothing, this is certainly not nothing!"

"I'm fine Mom. Though if I could get a little alkahestry… Emily said she didn't know how to help a broken nose…"

"Liwu… did you get in a fight?"

"… yeah. But I swear it wasn't that bad. He started it, I finished it. End of story."

"End of story? Liwu Van Elric, you do not come home to this house bruised and bloodied and expect me to shrug it off like it's nothing! What happened?"

"…So I'm guessing that's a no to the alkahestry?"

"Liwu!"

"I told you, Mom, it's fine."

"Liwu!"

He just stared at her, not answering. She eventually glared. "Don't think this issue is closed young man. We will be discussing this again when your father gets home."

"Yes, Mom."

She eventually did heal his broken nose, though she told him that he was going to have to deal with the pain in his ankle himself. He accepted that and began to work on his homework until Al came home, when he get the briefest overview he possibly could without angering his parents. There was someone messing with Emily for being Xingese and Liwu fought them so that they wouldn't ever bother her again. And he won.

Neither of them were happy with him, but they accepted it and allowed him to go to school the next day with a black eye and a limp.

He still looked better than the other boys, half of whom didn't even show up because they were probably still in the hospital. The other half gave him a wide berth.

He didn't tell anyone the full story, not even Simon and Ollie, but somehow the story got out. Probably from the boys he had fought themselves because he hadn't told anyone that he had offered his own life against his sister's safety. There had never been any doubt in his mind that he would win, so he hadn't thought of it as much of a big deal, but apparently it was on campus.

When before most people ignored him other than the occasional student that would give him a second look for being Xingese, but now everywhere he went there was whispering and people staring and pointing. It was unnerving. He wasn't sure if he was going to get talked to by the police or the principal or if maybe Buzz-cut had some other friends that Liwu hadn't beat up that were going to try to jump him after school or something.

The day ended uneventfully though. Or until he had to meet with his sisters.

"Please tell me you weren't idiot enough to do what the rumors are saying you did. You didn't offer to let them kill you if you lost did you!"

"He did," Emily responded solemnly, nodding her head. Nina automatically slapped the back of his head.

"You idiot! How could you do that? What if you had lost!"

"I wasn't going to," he responded, flinching away from her as she raised her hand again. "Mom and Dad have trained me far too well to lose to a bunch of idiots like that. And besides, even if they had somehow miraculously managed to defeat me and got to kill me… the police would have found out, they would have been arrested, and Emily would have been safe either way."

"But you would have been dead! Do you know how devastated Mom and Dad would be!"

"Yes," he snapped back. "But I wasn't going to lose, so it wasn't a problem."

Nina glared at him and he contemplated having to flinch away again, but she eventually settled for just glaring.

"Well now the whole school thinks you're some kind of hero."

"What?"

"They all think you're some sort of hero," Nina responded. "I can't even count how many times I've heard someone talking about how you fought them for your little sister and how brave it was for you to stand up to them and blah blah blah. Don't get me wrong, I wish I could have done something to them for daring to mess with my little sister—" Nina's eyes darkened and Liwu almost wanted to shudder "—but it does get tiring to hear other people talk about it. There were even a bunch of girls who said that the black eye made you look attractive."

"What?"

"That's what I thought," Nina said. "But yes. I had to spend a whole lunch break listening to the girls sitting next to me twitter about the cute Xingese boy that had saved his sister and how brave it was. I was about to throw up. It seems you have a fan club."

"A… a what?"

"A fan club. When I told them that you were my brother they wouldn't leave me alone."

"… what?"

"My thoughts exactly," Nina responded, sounding thoroughly disgusted. "Who would want to be in a fan club dedicated to you?" she asked, rolling her eyes heavenwards. "Well I guess that means there's hope for me getting nieces and nephews from you after all… Oh look who's turned all red?" she said, grinning.

The answer to her question was very obviously Liwu. He had turned a flaming bright color of red.

"Still embarrassed about the thought of girls?" she asked, still grinning impishly.

"Shut up," he responded, pushing her away. Nina laughed before making the turn onto the street that led to their house.

"We don't bite, Liwu."

"Shut up!"

"Though if you've got a fan club, who knows what they might do to get a lock of your hair?"

"Shut up!"

Nina cackled before mounting their porch and opening the door to the house. Liwu, still red, moved to stomp into the house after her, but felt a hand on his shirt.

"Em?"

"… I would join your fan club," she said, staring at the ground, then hugging him around the waist. "You're my hero."

Liwu froze before slowly grinning and wrapping his arms around his sister.

"Thanks, Em. But you know I'd do anything for you."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

They stood there together for a few moments before he let go and she did likewise.

"Come on, let's go in so Mom doesn't worry we got into trouble again."

He had even reached the front door when he heard his name bellowed though.

"LIWU VAN ELRIC!"

"… what?"

Mei stormed down the hall and Liwu had to fight the urge to run out through the door for his life.

"I just got off the phone with the police and your principal! You broke five boys' arms?!"

"… I actually only broke three guys' arms… the other two I broke their legs…"

In case ya'll were wondering, the derogatory nickname that I came up with for the Xingese is a slur on the word "Squinty". We only meet four Xingese people in FMA and of those four, only one has squinty eyes, but that one also becomes the Emperor and lets be honest do derogatory nicknames often represent the full truth? No. Quite often not. So. Yup. Cause what says the 1940s like racism? ... well, WWII... airplanes... patriotism... war... Roosevelt and Truman desegregating the US armies... beginning of the Cold War... but um... 1940s racism. Yup.

Ignore the history nerd in me, please.

In other words, Liwu is boss and now he had a fanclub. Review to join Liwu's fanclub.

Review anyways :D