Loveless Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Soulless ❯ Hope, Like Little Birds Flying ( Chapter 5 )

Alphonse barely managed to deflect the Faithless team's next attack.

"Colonel--wait! Please! I don't want to--" Another snap, another arc of flame shooting toward them.

"Deflect! No flame can penetrate this barrier!" Al shouted, desperately, and felt the Sentouki power surge through them. A blue curtain of shimmering power formed between him and Mustang, just an instant too late.

A blast of air, so hot that it felt icy, hit him in the face, and his nose was filled with the smell of singed hair. There go my eyebrows, dammit. Yoko gasped and doubled over, and he saw the shackles of Restraint forming around her wrists.

"I don't want to fight you!" Al shouted, again. "Brother, make him stop!"

Only their wavering profiles could be discerned through the thick shimmer of his defensive barrier, but he felt the surge of the Colonel's attacks falter, then pause.

"Who are you?" This time it was Ed's voice, husky with strong emotion. "Who sent you? Why is Winry with you?"

"My name is Yoko!" Al saw the anger on her face. "And we just want to talk to you. We're from the Seven Moons, and we want to offer you--"

"I knew it! You BASTARDS!" Ed screamed. "Trying to trick me--”

Almost simultaneously, Al heard the Colonel's deeper voice: "Barrier, tear. Let lightning rip asunder your defenses!"

"Deflect! Deflect!" Al screamed, trying frantically to weave threads of power into a new shield as brilliant white bolts of energy tore through his barrier. Yoko's arms came around his waist, dragging the burning chains of her Restraint across his skin as she clung to him.

He had to protect her, but how could he attack his brother and the Colonel?

Time slowed, and the knowledge imparted to him by the Gate flowed into his mind. A perfect array... Alphonse clapped his hands to complete the transmutation circle, and threw himself to his knees, slamming his palms on the springy lawn to direct the energy of the transmutation downwards.

With a groan, the ground beneath them heaved violently. Yoko's fingers dug into the skin over his hips as they both swayed.

"Kaz, what's going on?"

Al had just enough time to see his brother and the Colonel fall to their knees before a shielding wall formed, thick and smelling of moist earth and bruised grass. "Brother, it's me! I've been looking for you," he yelled over the wall. "Please listen to what I have to say!"

Faintly, Al heard the sounds of a furious, low-voiced debate on the other side of the barrier. Most of the words were indistinguishable, but occasionally Ed's voice rose high enough for Al to hear: "...back off, damn it!"

"...trying to trick us... Seven Moons..." Oh dear. Is the Colonel actually trying to out-shout Brother? That didn't seem much like the sardonic, perfectly self-possessed man of Al's memories. Then he heard the Colonel say something that made Al's stomach congeal. "...doesn't even look like your brother... too old... get hold of yourself, Fullmetal!"

The earthen barrier exploded inwards as thick spikes rapidly sprouted from the ground, followed by another blast of flame. "You bastard--trying to pretend you're my brother! You can tell the Seven Moons to just FUCK OFF!"

"Deflect! Clouds gather. Rain, torrential rain, extinguishes flame." Even as he countered with another Sentouki spell, Al could see the next array he needed to use.

Clap. Slam. A shockwave moved outward from his palms, crushing the spikes.

Al staggered to his feet, trying to drag cool air into his burning lungs. His legs were shaking. It was exhausting, trying to fight on two fronts at once, to use both battle spells and alchemy. And the Colonel had Brother actively fighting on his side... the dual attacks felt like a gut-punch to Alphonse.

But worse, far worse, was the realization that his own brother didn't even recognize him.

He became aware that Yoko was screaming at him, her fingers hooked into his shirt as the Restraints around her wrists--one of them buckled tightly over her cast--tried to drag her down. Her face was smudged with soot, and Al wondered if he looked any better.

"Kaz, what the hell are you doing?"

He looked down at her. "That Sacrifice--it's my brother! I don't want to hurt him."

"And what about me?" She looked scared, perspiration beading on her top lip. "Kaz, they don't want to talk to us. You have to fight them, or we'll be killed. That fire attack..."

"But--" In his heart, Al recognized the truth of her words, but he wanted to rail against that, to convince himself that somehow he could make Brother understand what had happened to him, and why he didn't look like the fifteen-year-old boy that Ed expected.

"Oh, Kaz." Yoko raised her arms despite the weight of the chains, and put her hands on his shoulders. She stood on tiptoes, and kissed him softly on the mouth. At the touch of her lips, Al felt renewed energy flow into his exhausted body. His knees stopped feeling shaky. "Fight, Kaz," she murmured. "Fight for us... I order you to fight."

Unable to disobey, Al took her hand in his, and raised his voice to address his brother and Colonel. "I bind you. By chains of ice, you are immobilized. You cannot move!"

Long, silvery tendrils materialized around his opponents, pinning their arms by their sides. It was the only attack Al could think of that would keep Brother from being able to clap his hands, and yet not injure either of them.

The contradiction was tearing him apart--he wanted to protect Yoko, and couldn't disobey her, but neither did he want to inflict the agony of Restraint on his brother.

Unfortunately, the Colonel could still snap his gloved fingers. "Fire melts ice, you bastards," Ed shouted, grinning maniacally as the tendrils dissolved in a wash of brilliant yellow flames.

Now it was Brother's turn to clap his hands and slam them on the ground.

A shroud of dirt flowed upwards, faster than Al could react, and he found himself held captive in an unyielding embrace of hardened clay from the soles of his feet to his elbows, with a thick seal of clay over his mouth. He couldn't move; he couldn't speak.

He saw Colonel Mustang, his face strained, raise his gloved hand, fingers poised to snap.

Can't protect Yoko. Can't even beg for my life.

"No!" Yoko threw herself across Al's body, her arms outstretched. She turned to look at the Colonel, her expression desperate, pleading. "Please don't hurt Kazuo. You've already won."

Al saw the moment when the Colonel froze, the strain on his face morphing into white-faced terror, and was reminded of the Colonel's combat alchemy duel with Brother. His fingers trembled, and that normally-cool gaze grew wide, staring.

Yoko didn't hesitate, taking advantage of Mustang's hesitation to rip the gag from Al's mouth.

Then she began to attack the clay encasing the rest of his body, her fingers scrabbling at the edges, crumbling away tiny chunks.

This was Al's last chance to plead his case. "Brother, Colonel Mustang. I know I don't look the same, but I'm really Alphonse Elric. The Gate sent me here, and put me into--into this body."

The Colonel was still standing frozen, his gaze fixed on some invisible horror somewhere over Al's left shoulder.

Yoko stopped trying to peel off the clay imprisoning Al, and stood there, listening.

Ed stepped forward, touching the Colonel lightly on the arm, and Al saw the gleam of automail in the gap between his shirt-sleeve and his glove. "Prove it," he said, hoarsely. "Prove that you're really Al."

Al's mind raced. What could he say to his brother? "Remember when Mr. Scar destroyed your automail and my armor? You tried to get him to spare me by offering yourself. I punched you for that. It was raining, raining really hard, and I was so angry that you thought I'd be happy to live when you died."

Ed's mouth turned down in his familiar scowl, and Al plunged on. "You hate milk, but you like ice cream and Auntie Pinako's stew with milk. You wouldn't let me keep the kitten I found after you lost the duel with Colonel Mustang, because you said that our quest didn't allow us to care for anyone or anything but ourselves. Sensei beat us both up when she found out about us trying to bring Mother back. You--you killed the homunculus that looked like Mother by changing the water in her body to alcohol. She just... evaporated." Al shuddered at the memory. "The last time I saw you, Brother, you were lying on the floor of that underground theater. Envy... he'd hurt you, Brother. Hurt you really badly. You were--"

The scowl was dissolving now, into incredulity...and joy. "Alphonse? It's really you? Alphonse!"

Ed stepped forward, his arms outstretched. Only to be yanked back into the Colonel's embrace. "Don't, Fullmetal. Don't trust them!"

"Roy, I order you--mmmph!" Despite Brother's impressive struggles to free himself, the Colonel managed to clap one hand over his mouth.

Al found himself pinned by the Colonel's single cold black eye. When had he gotten the eyepatch? Then the Colonel spoke, ripples of power vibrating through every word of the spell: "Withdrawal...you want to separate/Transported like two little birds/To where you can sleep."

Waves of immense fatigue washed over Al. He craned his neck and looked down at Yoko. She was slumped bonelessly against him, her blonde ponytail tickling his neck.

He tried to think of a counter-spell, but the words wouldn't come. He yawned... floating... falling... sinking gently down into a warm darkness.

Brother!!

0 0 0 0

The tall boy and the girl who looked like Winry's twin sister vanished in a flutter of black wings, sent Ishbala-only-knew-where by the spell that Soubi had taught Roy a few weeks ago.

Feeling decades older than his thirty-two years, Roy released his hold on the frantically-struggling Edward.

Predictably, his Sacrifice rounded on him the minute his feet touched ground again. "What did you do? That was Al! It really was my little brother! Maybe that guy didn't look much like him but it was!"

Were those tears flowing down Fullmetal's cheeks?

"You don't know that. Seven Moons knows a lot about us... and they've tried dirty tricks before." Roy struggled to keep his voice calm in the face of his Sacrifice's distress, when every instinct screamed for him to take Ed in his arms, to promise him anything, just to make that devastated expression vanish. "I didn't hurt them," he added. "I just sent them...away."

"Away? Away, where?" Ed yelled, wiping violently at his eyes, flinging his tears to the ground like weapons.

"I don't know," Roy admitted. "Soubi said that spell would knock out your opponents and send them back to where they came from. They'll wake up in an hour or two, and find themselves back... home, I suppose."

"Oh."

Was that relief on Fullmetal's face? At least he'd stopped crying. Roy hated it when Edward's tough façade crumbled and he was reduced to a boy's helpless tears. When that happened, it meant that things were not only bad, they were hopeless. Roy despised hopeless--it reeked of death and failure. And he'd seen too much of both those things in his career as a military officer.

"He's not dead. He's not trapped in the Gate any more," Ed continued, slowly. He gave Roy a watery smile. "He has a body again. And did you see how tall he was? Taller than me, damn it! And what the hell happened to his ears? And Winry was with him. How did she end up here? And why did she call him Kaz? And why--"

Roy blinked at the flood of questions, and tried to force his tired brain to think.

Unlike Ed, who was apparently still overflowing with energy in the aftermath of the spell battle, Roy felt drained. Really, he just wanted a stiff drink, a hot bath, and a nap, not necessarily in that order. But instead, he was presented with the puzzle of a young man who claimed to be Alphonse Elric, and who apparently knew things that only Al would know.

Ed did have one point in his favor when arguing that they had just fought against Al: no other Sentouki they had encountered since the Gate dumped them here had been able to use alchemy. So, he had to assume the tall boy hadn't been lying, and that Al's soul had been released from its armor and bound into a new body. The Seven Moons had apparently gotten to him, and... what? What did they want? Why were they so interested in Ed and Ritsuka?

"If that was really your brother," Roy said, when Ed's torrent of questions had dried to a trickle, "then we can find him. We know now that he's with the Seven Moons, and that his Sentouki name is Soulless. Soubi might be able to help us track him down. What was the other name that the girl called him? Kazuo? We should ask Soubi about that, too."

"Betcha that bastard won't tell us anything useful." Ed gave a short chuckle. Then he grinned up at Roy. "He's alive, and embodied. Al is alive... and here."

"Maybe," Roy said, reluctantly.

But Ed didn't want to hear it. "I have new orders for you, Roy."

Roy sighed. "Let me guess. You want me to find Soulless. And devise a plan to get him out of Seven Moons' clutches."

Ed's grin turned downright wicked. "Looks like you're finally getting the hang of the whole 'you have to obey my orders' thing."

ooOoo

Alphonse awoke first, to find himself sprawled on the dusty-smelling carpet of their suite back at the Seven Moons Academy.

There was a heavy weight across his stomach. After a bit of effort, every muscle in his body screaming with pain, Al managed to prop himself up on his elbows and look down.

Yoko was still unconscious, her head resting on his midsection like a pillow. He shook her shoulder, gently. "Wake up."

"Nnngh--no. Just a little longer..." she mumbled, turning to bury her face in his shirt. Then her eyes opened, and she pushed herself up, looking every bit as stiff and sore as Al felt. "Are we back home?"

"Yeah." Al climbed slowly to his feet, and reached down to offer Yoko a hand.

"He called you Alphonse," Yoko said, letting him pull her to her feet. Her jeans were covered with blotches of mud and grass stains, and Alphonse didn't think his pants had fared any better. "That short boy with the blonde hair."

"Brother hates being called short," Al answered automatically, and stopped as it sank in. Edward was really here. He wasn't dead...

"What are you going to do?" Yoko asked, apprehensively. "Now that you've found your brother?"

Al found himself unable to answer. He wanted to see his brother again, but the thought of being separated from Yoko made him feel as if he were being torn in two. How could he leave her behind?

"Alphonse," Yoko said, quietly, and Al started. It was the first time she had called him by his real name. "Will you take me along when you leave here?"

"What?"

"You are leaving, aren't you?" Her face was sad, but her hand slipped into his.

"I can't stay here," Al whispered. "But I don't think I can leave you."

You're bound by your shared name, whispered Ritsu-sensei's voice in his head.

"Then don't," she said, matter-of-factly. "There's nothing keeping us here, except for Ritsu-sensei's wishes, and he isn't our teacher any more. I'll come with you if you'll have me, and help you look for your brother."

Al put his arms around her, gratitude and confusion warring in his chest, and held her for a long time, resting his cheek on her hair, and breathing in the scent of plum blossom.

"Are you sure that's what you really want?" he asked, finally. "I need to be with my brother, and I can't... I can't be Kazuo for you."

"We still share the same name. I'm still your Sacrifice," Yoko said, her voice muffled a little by his shirt. "And I know you're not Kaz--we've been living together for, what, two weeks now? And you're not him. I've been trying to deny it, but it's true." She sniffed, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I don't need you to be anyone but Alphonse, if you're still willing to be my Sentouki."

"It's a deal," said Al. "We're a team, after all. Let's go find my brother and the Colonel, and hope that they'll listen to reason this time."

The End