Wow, I bet some people reading this right now are ready to murder me...thinking, 'what the heck is this girl doing, writing a new fanfic when she hasn't updated her old ones in years???' Eheh... ::sweatdrop::
Yeah, anyway...
Disclaimer: I own neither Full Metal Alchemist nor Harry Potter. This fanfiction is purely for pleasure, not profit.
Summary: Ed discovers endless possibilities in a completely new and magical world. Unfortunately, the Dark Lord residing in said world is all the more willing to take advantage of the young alchemist's eagerness to learn about both magic and an alternate Philosopher's Stone.[ Warnings: partially neko-Ed, sh-ai RoyEd
Chapter Summary: A horrible disaster occurs, causing Ed to start craving milk…O.o
A/N: Just to clear things up first before I start. This fic is pretty much TWT (Timeline? What Timeline?) for both series. There might be some odd references here and there, but overall neither Harry nor Ed are in a specific point in their plotlines. Sorry, I'm just lazy and didn't want to deal with having to keep references to TWO timelines correct…
Warnings: As it says in the summary, slight neko-Ed and shounen ai, meaning a relationship between two males. Its pretty light, that's why its shounen ai and not yaoi, but if you don't like that stuff, you can LEAVE NOW. Don't say I didn't warn you. Otherwise…
Enjoy!
Prologue
"Taisa? Taisa??" A confused voice drifted out uncertainly from within thick bushes. It was night, everything pitch black within the dark shadows of the forbidden looking trees. Not even the moon cast its beams; the thick elongated trunks seemed to swallow up the usually merciful light. The gloomy setting was disturbed only by a small figure emerging from within the bushes, leaves scattered throughout his golden hair.
"Roy?" He whispered almost fearfully. His only answer was the dark, deadening silence.
flashback
"Please don't tell me Tucker's behind this." Edward shuddered, accidentally crinkling the papers in his hands. The young alchemist preferred not to be anywhere in the proximity of that pathetic existence if he could help it. Unfortunately, his current assignment was beginning to sound like he'd have to see that gruesome chimera once more…
"That hasn't been verified yet, however we're pretty sure he's not related to this." Colonel Roy Mustang answered seriously, a stark contrast to the numerous playful insults he'd thrown at his subordinate the minute the pint-sized alchemist had walked into the door. Standard procedure, you understand.
"How can he not? We're talking about a secret lab suspected of experimenting with creating chimeras! Who else would it be, the Easter bunny?" Edward growled, waving the folder around bad-temperedly. He was still itching to get back at the colonel for all those 'short' comments earlier. But that unfortunately would have to wait.
"But of course, who else." Roy remarked dryly. "No, this person is much too sloppy and amateurish in the subject of chimeras to be Shou Tucker. He – or she – is leaving behind a too obvious trail of his actions. I believe, as your file also mentions, that the recent disappearance of young teens may be related."
Edward inhaled sharply, golden eyes narrowing. "You don't think - "
"I'm not thinking anything at this point, Fullmetal, that is why your job right now is to investigate the matter." The Colonel interrupted sharply. He too, didn't want to think about the likely reasons for why a scientist experimenting with chimeras would kidnap unwanted children. "The general location of where the children went missing should be in the file."
Edward, about to salute, started when a brief flash of concern seemed to flash across his Colonel's face. "T-Taisa…?"
Immediately, the pale features were schooled to their usual state. Edward wondered if he'd just imagined it. "All the missing children were young blonde teens." Roy said curtly, turning to stare out the window.
Edward resisted the urge to smile at the Colonel's way of saying, 'Be careful.' After deciphering the emotions of the armor that was his brother Al, seeing through the human Colonel wasn't too hard. "Don't worry, It'll be easy." He bragged, turning to leave. Waving over his shoulder, the alchemist added confidently, "I'll be back before you know it."
Unfortunately, the tiny state alchemist hadn't factored in on how entirely twisted human-animal chimera researchers were.
It started out innocently enough. After he spent, in his opinion,grueling amounts of searching and asking around ("Shit, why did Al choosenow to go visit Winry? This could so have gone by faster if he'd been here to help…"), Edward finally found himself in the cluttered little lab hidden away behind – or more accurately, underneath – a no-name church. The young Elric stared around in disgust at the remnants of failed attempts at fusing two creatures together. Silently, Edward agreed with his superior in that this amateur was in no way Shou Tucker; at least the more experienced scientist was neat about his work.
The chaotic mess made Edward think the culprit was desperate about something. 'Its like he was rushing through each attempt at creating a chimera, not even bothering to clean up after each failure.' Edward thought as he bent down to inspect the bloody limb that was formerly part of some cat species.
"But why?" Edward frowned, sifting through the notes and papers scattered haphazardly across a worktable. Most just simply displayed the transmutation circles required to modify living flesh. Even if Edward would never dream of creating chimeras, he at least recognized the formulas and arrays required to do so. "Is he working for someone, maybe rushing to meet a certain deadline? And why particularly blonde teens?" After a couple more minutes of shuffling, Edward spotted something different.
It showed a curious scene; a young handsome man smiling happily with a young girl, no older than 12 or 13, hanging carelessly on his shoulder. The odd thing though, was the two cat ears and furry tail protruding from the otherwise human child. Edward growled at the sight, ignoring the happy expression on the female chimera; the man had no right to create such an abomination, no matter how well he took care of it afterwards.
"This doesn't make sense, though. Why would he continue making numerous chimeras, and failing at them, if he was already successful with this one?" Edward wondered aloud as he continued to observe the picture.
"Because they killed her." The soft hissing voice made the teen whirl around, instinctively falling into a defensive stance.
"Who's there!" he demanded loudly, clenching his raised fists.
"I am Dr. Minh, and they killed her." The young Elric watched warily as a stooped figure stepped out of the shadows, shuffling forward as if he was afraid to be seen.
Ed narrowed his golden eyes as he caught a glance of the man's face. "You're the man in the picture. You're talking about the chimera in the photo, aren't you?" He demanded. "What's so special about it if you can just make more?"
The young alchemist nearly yelped in surprise, barely ducking out of the way as Minh lunged forward in sudden rage. "She is special! Extremely special to me, my beloved Kata!" Edward ducked again as the gaunt man threw a surprisingly fast punch towards his face.
"What the hell are you rambling about!" Edward shouted, brushing aside another attack before bringing his metal leg up to kick the man squarely in the stomach. He clapped his hands and slammed them against the work table, drawing out an ornate wooden pole to hold it out defensively. Dr. Minh did not get up however, only clutched his stomach tightly as he fought to catch his breath.
"My lovely Kata." The doctor wheezed at the floor in a pain-filled voice. "She came to me one day, a pitiful creature who had no home. Her creator no doubt had cast her out of his sight, discriminating against her because of her animal features."
"It was a chimera." Edward interrupted coldly. "If you thought its existence was so pitiable, why are you making more of them now?"
"Yes, she was a pitiable thing." The doctor murmured, ignoring the question. Edward watched warily as he slowly picked himself back up, straightening his wrinkled lab coat. He stared despairingly at the young teen in front of him and continued to speak in an anguished voice, "But I loved her so. She was such a kind, compassionate, wonderful creature; like a daughter to me. I had only recently lost my niece who I had been raising, and she so easily chased away my grief with her joy and innocence…"
"Look, I don't have time to listen to this crap." Ed growled, beginning to run forward. He didn't want to listen to this man talk about chimeras as if they were human; they weren't, and shouldn't have existed in the first place.
"No, you will listen." The man's previously mournful voice changed to a much harsher tone. Just as Edward was only a foot away, Minh abruptly dropped down to slam his hand down against the floor. Too late did Edward realize that the seemingly random splotches of blood on the floor actually made a huge transmutation circle.
"Gyaah!" Edward exclaimed in surprise as he saw then felt the very floor of the lab reach up to grab at his wrists and ankles, slamming him down and restraining him. His weapon clattered harmlessly to the floor. The young alchemist stared up dazedly as the doctor came into his line of sight.
"I created this array to detect the pigment for blonde hair." Dr. Minh explained, watching contemptuously at Edward's futile attempts to break his restraints. "Just in case some child was foolish enough to wander in; what luck I would have, that way I wouldn't need to go out and grab one for myself."
Edward continued to struggle, cursing himself for falling for such a trap. How could he have let this crazy scientist get the best of him? "Let me go, you bastard! What the hell do you need blonde hair for?" He shouted angrily.
"Don't you see? To recreate my Kata of course." Dr. Minh replied gleefully, an almost insane glint in his eye. "I'm recreating her from the children of those who killed her. Those stupid, careless townspeople; they feared her because of her differences, refused to look past her mere appearance to see her kind personality. They would throw stones at her, curse at her, release their dogs on her. And she bore it all like the forgiving soul she was."
At the man's sincere tone, Edward himself began to feel slight guilt for his own prejudices. He knew it was no fault of the chimera that they were made that way; they were monsters simply because they fell victim to the whims of selfish experiments.
"Then one day, they went too far." The man continued wrathfully, sinking deeper into his memories and talking more to himself than to his captive. "She was doing NOTHING wrong, absolutely nothing. Those despicable people decided torturing her wasn't enough, no, they had to eliminate her from the face of the earth. They took her…took her away from me, and BURNED her, BURNED HER ALIVE!" Edward flinched as the man began to get wild, waving his arms crazily. "They completely incinerated her, while I could only watch, held back, as she begged and screamed in pain!"
"But you can't bring her back!" Edward craned his neck as Dr. Minh abruptly walked away, disappeared from his line of vision. "Making a body of her from children and cats won't bring her back because her soul is gone. What you're doing is just cruel revenge by using those people's children!"
"No, she can come back." The doctor walked back, holding something Edward couldn't see. A soft mewing emanated from the man's arms, making the trapped alchemist realize it was a kitten. Horror began overtaking his sense as he realized what the man was going to do.
"No…"
"Yes. That array on the floor has a double purpose; capturing my blondes, then fusing them with my animals once it is activated a second time. You are an alchemist, aren't you? That increases the chances of your survival in a fusion with an animal; hopefully, you'll not be another one of my failures."
"No, you can't…" Edward's struggles began anew, twisting and squirming about on the floor. His motions were just as much to attempt breaking free as to hopefully smudge the bloody transmutation circle under him; anything to foil the process that could turn him into a chimera.
"Once you are combined with this feline, I can modify your features with more body parts to make your appearance as close to Kata as possible. She will come alive again, she will!"
"NO!" In a surge of desperation, Edward pulled as hard as he could at the restraints around his wrists, breaking through them with a large cracking sound. Just as he was about to clap his hands, however, Dr. Minh mercilessly threw the hissing and scratching kitten at his face, effectively distracting him. Edward could only listen in horror as the desperate scientist slammed his hands down against the floor once more, enveloping the three in blinding flashes of blue lightning.
Edward closed his eyes and screamed, feeling as if his body were being torn apart molecule by molecule. An invasive sensation came over him, as if a foreign substance was attempting to penetrate the outer barrier of his skin and into his very bones. The young teen began screaming even louder as a burning feeling erupted at his lower backside; it felt like his own spinal cord was thrusting itself out of his body, tearing right out of his skin. Even through the haze of pain, however, the state alchemist struggled to maintain his consciousness, not wanting to know what would happen if he lost it. After what seemed like eternity, the blue lightning bolts of the alchemical reaction began to subside, leaving the exhausted boy panting on the floor.
Edward winced as rough hands grabbed at his heaving shoulders. "Did it work?! Have I finally succeeded?!"
The frantic voice was enough to jerk the alchemist out of his stupefied state and remind him of his situation. With an enraged shriek, Edward leaped up and grabbed at the nearest part of the scientist – his throat – and held on tight. "What did you to me?!!" He screamed, even though in the back of his mind, he already knew. "You fucking bastard, how dare you! HOW DARE YOU!" Edward felt himself become even more infuriated as a slow smile began to spread across Dr. Minh's face.
"I…" He choked through the stranglehold Edward had on him, "I have finally succeeded."
With a cry of mixed anger and horror, Edward slammed a metal fist into that smiling, triumphant face. "NO!"
"Fullmetal…" Roy sweatdropped as his subordinate shuffled in as quiet as a mouse. Although the dark-haired Colonel was surprised Edward had actually come in without knocking his door down, what confused him more was why the young teen had pulled his red hood so far over his face that only his downturned mouth was visible. "Although it is hard to see since it's so far down there, I do prefer to see your face." Roy cocked an eyebrow at the silence that followed. This was very strange indeed, for Edward to be so unresponsive to a jibe at his height…
"Here's my report." The young alchemist said brusquely, jerking a hand out to drop paperclipped sheets of paper on his superior's desk. "You were right, it wasn't Shou Tucker, just some crazy scientist who wanted to revive a pet chimera that had been killed by the local townspeople. I knocked him out, called the local police, and now he's rotting happily away in their jailhouse." He immediately turned to leave, not even bothering to wait for a response.
"Edward." Roy quickly reached forward to grab the teen's flesh arm, then steer the boy around his desk so the pint-sized alchemist stood right in front of him. "What happened?" He asked seriously.
Edward did not respond, staring down at the floor through his concealing hood. He merely stood, not even trying to escape Roy's gentle grip.
"Edward, why are you wearing your hood?" Roy reached up to pull the hood down, revealing the normal view of the Fullmetal Alchemist – albeit, his golden eyes were tightly shut and he was biting his lip as if in pain, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. "Finally getting a zit is nothing to be ashamed of." The black haired man attempted to joke, feeling his confusion increase at the apparent normality of the blonde boy.
"If only it was just that." Edward's voice was barely audible. Slowly, he opened his eyes and glared angrily at the other man. Roy could only gape as he found himself staring into slitted cat-like eyes.
"Fullmetal…"
"Thatfucking bastard turned me into a CHIMERA!" Ed finally exploded, slamming his hands down against the Colonel's desk. His metal one left a large dent in the wood, but neither alchemist could hardly bring themselves to care at the moment. "A CHIMERA, Taisa, a fucking chimera!"
"W-what…"
Edward clenched his fists and shut his eyes as tears began leaking out of the corners. "Now I'm…one of those…things that shouldn't ever exist…that shouldn't ever have come into being…Nina…" The teen anguished, clutching at his blonde bangs so tightly, they began to tear out. "I can't…I just can't be…"
"Edward…" Without thinking, Roy grabbed the young alchemist and held the small body tightly in his arms. Edward's slow tears began to increase within the comfort of a warm embrace, not caring he was completely ruining the other man's uniform.
"Wh-what…what am I going to tell Al?" Edward whispered, staring despondently out into space.
"You've proven faithful to your brother by staying with him even though he wasn't physically human." Roy said firmly, tightening his hold as he felt the boy in his arms begin to tremble. "Trust him to do the same."
The two settled into a silent moment, Roy waiting patiently for his subordinate to settle down. Finally, Edward drew out of the Flame alchemist's arms, eyes tinted red but cheeks even redder from the blush that had arisen.
"S-sorry…"
The Colonel himself felt slightly uncomfortable, wondering what overtook him to be so intimate with the Fullmetal alchemist. But the mere sight of the broken boy was enough to trigger…whatever that was. "No need, Fullmetal. Have you composed yourself yet?" Roy asked roughly to both cover up his embarrassment and bring back the professional air that was supposed to have been maintained between the two.
Edward jerked his head in a nod, grateful for the Colonel's attempt at reverting back to a standard atmosphere.
"A report of your physical status, then."
With a deep breath, Edward began to describe his new body. "I now have the eyes, teeth, and…tail of a cat." Roy nearly jumped back in surprise at the furry appendage peeking out from under the red trenchcoat. With a significant effort, he managed to keep his composure and for the moment ignore the tail in favor of the rest of Edward's report. "I haven't completely confirmed it yet, but I think my vision's improved slightly, especially in the dark. And…" Here, Edward made a disgusted face. "I'm actually craving milk." Roy nearly chuckled at this. Trust the blonde teen to mention something as insignificant as that. "Also, ever since the transmutation, two days ago, I've been feeling almost dissociated, as if I weren't completely in my own body."
"Um…your, ah, tail. Can you control it?" Roy couldn't help but ask. For the first time since he'd arrived back in Central, Edward gave a small smile at the Colonel's obvious curiosity.
"Yeah, for the most part. I'm still learning how to move it, though. You can't imagine how weird it feels."
"No, I suppose I can't." Roy muttered, resisting the temptation to grab the flicking appendage and stroke it to see how soft it was. That would definitely not be appropriate at the moment. "So, what are you - "
"Taisa!"
The flame alchemist looked up in alarm at the suddenly panicked cry of the young teen. He stared in shock as right before his eyes, Edward's outline began to show distinctive blurring.
"Fullmetal! What - "
"I…It's that feeling again, like I'm not in my body." The boy said frantically, clutching his arms as if trying to physically hold himself together. "I…I can't feel…"
"Fullmetal!" Roy instinctively reached out to grab at his subordinate as Edward actually began to fade.
"What's happening to me?!" Even the boy's voice began fading along with his body, golden eyes staring in shock and desperation as Roy's hand passed through his shoulder as if he were a ghost. "Tai - "
Roy stared hopelessly at the now empty space in front of him. "EDWARD!"
A/N: What happened?? Well, you'll just have to find out in Chapter 1, where the REAL crossover begins!