Fullmetal Girl

Chapter One: The Female Alchemist & Her Assistant

Electricity crackled in the study, illuminating old walls and bookshelves. "... Al! Al! Alphonse! Please! How could - how could this have happened -?!"

A preteen girl with short blonde hair and golden eyes like a cat's was knelt before a vast, intricately drawn scientific circle on the floor. She was on her hands and knees, alone in the empty room. Electricity crackled from the center of the circle.

"This… shouldn't have happe… Aaaahhhh!"

The girl's left leg below the knee had been ripped off of her, and the stump sat bleeding on the floor. This was why she was perspiring, why her speech kept breaking off. She grimaced in pain, panting.

"I've ruined everything!" she cried, her face twisted, making a fist with one of her hands.

A painless lesson is one without any meaning. Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return.

Radios crackled to life from all over a desert town, illuminating a religious broadcaster's voice.

"Children of God who live on this Earth, have faith, and thou shalt be saved. The God of the Sun, Leto, enlightens thy path. Behold, having descended from His throne, the Lord shall save thee from thy sins. As a messenger of the Sun God, I am your Father."

A vast suit of armor listening said, "... A radio broadcast of a sermon?"

The young woman beside him took a bite of her food with her fork and knife, frowning seriously. "A messenger of God…? What is up with this place?"

The old mustached man running the lunch counter where they were eating stared at the two. "I thought I ought to be asking what's up with you two. Are you street performers?"

The woman choked on the sip of the drink she'd been taking. She was the same golden-eyed preteen girl from the circle scene, but many years older now, a slim young woman at eighteen years old. Her blonde hair had grown long and been piled up in messy curls behind her head, her black eyeliner gave her a smudged raccoon sort of appearance and brought her golden eyes into sharper definition, and she wore a short black leather skirt, a black leather top, and black leather boots.

Her left leg below the knee and her right arm from the shoulder down were both mechanical metal, synthetic advanced limbs shaped to look like a young woman's. Metallic gears could be seen gleaming amidst the metal.

The girl coughed out several choking breaths and then her head whipped up, glaring. "It's the limbs, isn't it?" she demanded defensively, annoyed. "Artificial limbs of steel - automail." She lifted up her right arm sarcastically with a metallic clacking, wiggling her fingers, her golden eyes sparking in anger, her face vivid.

"Well, that and the suit of armor… and the outfit doesn't help…" the old man at the lunch counter admitted, still staring. "If you know people stare at the limbs and you don't like it, why wear them openly?"

"Because I'm a girl and so people expect me to wear them hidden," said the girl with calm sarcasm.

"It's an act of defiance," said the suit of armor, who had a teenage boy's voice, in fond, good-natured exasperation, quiet and serious.

Passing, running kids could be heard saying loudly behind them, "Wow - look at the girl with the automail limbs! And that suit of armor is massive!" They sounded awed and impressed. Neither of the pair at the lunch counter seemed to notice anything, but the girl's jaw clenched just a little tighter, her eyes flashing.

"I haven't seen your faces around here before," the old man at the lunch counter continued. "You don't look like locals. I think I'd recognize you. Are you tourists?"

Casually, the woman put her chin in a hand, bored. "Yeah, we're just here looking for something. Anyway, what's with this broadcast?"

"You haven't heard of Father Cornello?" said the lunch counter man.

"... Who?" said the woman flatly, slightly irritated and exasperated.

"Founder Cornello! Messenger of Leto, the Sun God!" said the lunch counter man, hands on his hips, almost scolding. "Really, girl, you don't even know that?"

The woman bristled.

Others at the lunch counter began chiming in eagerly, determined to help her see the light:

"The Founder of Letoism, he can perform miracles. He's this wonderful man who came into this city a couple of years ago and showed us the way of God!"

"His miracles are incredible!"

"He definitely has the power of God!"

The woman had her chin on the counter, looking bored and annoyed.

"... You ain't listening, girl," the lunch counter man realized flatly, starting to become angry.

"Nope," said the young woman with crippling bluntness, apparently uncaring as to whether she upset anybody. "I'm not interested in religion." She stood and sighed matter of factly. "I'm full. Let's beat it," she said to the suit of armor.

"Yep," said the suit of armor with the voice of a teenage boy. He stood and - BAM. His helmet hit the roof of the lunch counter. The old man screamed and the suit of armor gave a noise of uneasy surprise as the lunch counter's radio fell off and smashed on the ground into at least ten pieces. Everyone at the lunch counter was annoyed now - their only radio was broken.

"Hey! Stop causing trouble!" the old man yelled. "What do you expect, wearing a suit of armor around like that?"

"Sorry, sorry. We'll fix it right up," said the woman, smiling with friendly sheepishness and holding up a pacifying hand. Meanwhile, her companion had knelt down to the broken radio on the ground.

"Fix how…?" said old man, rubbing a hand against his head, frankly bewildered.

"Just watch," said the woman positively, confident. Her suit of armor companion was now drawing a circle around the broken radio on the ground. In a few seconds, the circle was completed - the same complex scientific circle as in the beginning scene, but on a much smaller scale.

"Right! Okay, here I go!" said the suit of armor in determination, standing and crossing his hands over each other above the circle. The woman had braced herself expectantly. The lunch counter patrons just looked confused.

Suddenly, a wave of electrical energy exploded outward from the circle. Everyone else yelled out in confusion, but the young woman had braced herself and stood steady against the energy. The old man made a noise of amazement in the electrical surge's aftermath…

The radio was totally fixed, and a second later began playing the religious broadcast again.

"How's that for fixed?" said the woman, smiling slightly, her dancing gold eyes teasing, and pointing at the radio.

"... I'm totally stunned," the old man admitted, gaping. "You can work miracles, too?!"

"Uh - no," said the woman in exasperation, blanching at the very idea.

"We're alchemists," said the suit of armor, hands on his hips.

"We're the Elric siblings," said the woman in a confident, feminine stance, smirking. "We're pretty well known."

The lunch counter patrons immediately reacted:

"The Elric siblings?!"

"I've heard of them before!"

"The older one is one of the State Alchemists… the Fullmetal Alchemist!"

The woman grinned sharply, realizing she'd been recognized. "Yes!" she said under her breath gleefully.

But then everyone crowded around the much taller, more intimidating, male suit of armor instead - the one who had done the alchemical transmutation. Meanwhile, the young woman - small even by a normal person's standards, female, crippled, and shunted off to the side - stood there with her smile frozen in surprise.

"So this is the rumored genius alchemist!" one lunch counter patron said to the suit of armor admiringly.

"I get it! They call you Fullmetal because you wear that armor!" said another.

"Can I have your autograph?" said a third eagerly.

Rage was slowly and silently overtaking the young woman's expressive face - unholy, tyrannical rage.

"Um, I'm not the Fullmetal Alchemist," the suit of armor admitted, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not the only alchemist in the pair… and I'm not the only one carrying around metal, either."

And everyone slowly turned around to the woman.

"The genius state approved Fullmetal Alchemist… is a small, crippled… woman?" someone said slowly. Everyone was clearly bewildered.

And then the woman exploded. Everyone cowered in terror as she swept all the condiments off the counter in a great bang, grabbed the lead offender by the collar and - somehow - towered over him. "SO I CAN'T DO ANYTHING BECAUSE I'M A WOMAN?!"

"Nobody said that…" said the man in her grasp in a trembling voice, his face white.

"IT WAS IMPLIED!" the young woman insisted, infuriated. Finally, she let him go with a disgusted look and he thumped onto his butt on the ground.

"I'm the little brother, Alphonse Elric. My sister is eighteen and I'm three years younger." The suit of armor pointed at himself.

The young woman, still furious, pointed at herself and growled out in her hoarse, low, sarcastic voice with a vicious, threatening grin, "I'm the Fullmetal Alchemist, Anastasia Elric!"

Everyone was still terrified by the brief fit of rage. "Ex… Excuse us…"

Anastasia sighed and finally let it go, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes irritably. "It falls out and goes all over the place whenever I get annoyed," she said irritably, waving absently at her long, wild mane of messy golden curls of hair - the same shade as her cat-like eyes. This time the hair was still relatively intact in her messy bun. "Geez, all that time breaking men's hands and threatening to shove spikes through their asses back at military headquarters when they get gropey and handsey, and now I have to put up with sexism here, too…"

"Military problems?" the old man at the lunch counter asked curiously.

"More like military weirdness," said Anastasia flatly, frowning, hands on her hips. "The Amestrian military is weird in lots of ways. State Alchemists like me are only assigned ranks 'equivalent' to normal military ranks, are usually simply titles and legends, and the number of stated fraternization policy laws amounts to exactly zero but tons of people choose to follow them in emotional spirit anyway. Meanwhile, still others flaunt them ridiculously.

"Don't even get me started. It's a bizarre system. And yeah, it's mostly male. Apparently we're close to the 1920's and even though we have alchemists, medicine, and automail we still haven't progressed that far yet in Amestris.

"Flapper dresses, radios, pocket watches, and swing-dancing but not many female militants or alchemists. Because that makes sense."

"Well, it really doesn't," Alphonse admitted.

"Mustang's the worst offender," Anastasia muttered. "Has sex with everything near the military that moves. Meanwhile Hawkeye's all devoted to ideas of rank and officiality."

"Who?" said the lunch counter owner, bewildered.

"Roy Mustang's the commanding officer I report to, unfortunately," Anastasia sighed. "Mission assignments, etc. Also a State Alchemist. Almost a decade older than me. Riza Hawkeye's his second in command - she's a woman like me, just a marksman instead of an alchemist."

Just then, a slim, pretty teenage girl in a long summer dress with long dark hair and pinkish-purple bangs ran up to the lunch counter. She was tall, dark-haired, slim, sweet, kind and cheerful - everything the curvy Anastasia wasn't. "Hello! It's a little lively here today."

Anastasia looked around, still in a bad mood, as did everyone else. Seeing the sweetly smiling girl with what seemed to Anastasia her veiled comment, Anastasia's mood irrationally worsened.

"Oh, hello, Rose," said the old man running the lunch counter, going back behind it. "Going to Church again?"

"Yes, I need to make an offering." She held out some bills at the counter. "Same stuff as usual. Oh." She looked around, smiling pleasantly, as if politely just noticing the source of all the commotion. "I haven't met you before." She was looking at the Elric siblings.

"Correct," said Anastasia, smiling icily. "You haven't." Rose frowned and became more hesitant at her threatening tone. Alphonse carefully put a silent glove on Anastasia's shoulder.

"She said she's an alchemist. A female one," said the old man as he filled Rose's bag with grocery supplies. "Seems like she's looking for something."

"I hope you find what you're looking for!" Rose brightened again and beamed as she took her bag of groceries. "May Leto protect you!" she said sweetly.

They all watched her leave again, Anastasia glaring with narrowed eyes. Rose's figure disappeared in the distance, her back to them.

"You know, Sister," said Alphonse simply, "it's not nice to be angry with her just because she's so different from you."

Anastasia slumped and sighed, looking away. "Yeah, I guess," she admitted in stoical exasperation. "Envy colored me so obviously, huh?" she added sheepishly. "Envy… and distrust." She frowned at something seen only to herself, and perhaps to Alphonse.

"Nah, Rose is a good kid," someone at the counter commented. "She's become a lot more cheerful lately. It's all thanks to the founder."

"What do you mean?" said Anastasia, puzzled and curious.

"That girl, she ain't got no relatives," said the old man behind the counter, "but on top of that, her boyfriend died in an accident last year…"

"Yeah, you'd think she'd be sad, but she didn't look so down," said one lunch counter patron. He smiled. "What saved her were the teachings of Cornello, the messenger of the Sun God Leto!"

Another patron grinned. "You know why? Because with his power to perform miracles, Cornello promises everlasting life to the living and loyal - through rebirth to the dead!

"You should check it out, too, Miss! Maybe it could help you as well! It's definitely the power of God!"

"Rebirth to the dead, huh?" Anastasia mused, tough face and faux casual, looking away and scowling. "That doesn't sound fishy at all." But suddenly, she looked concerned, staring after Rose. "That makes it… different," she murmured, worried, emotions vivid in her face.

Rose was gone from her line of sight.

"Have faith!" the radio broadcast announced. "Thy wishes shall be answered…"

"All children have the blessing of the light," Cornello finished into a microphone from a stories-up office desk somewhere else in the town. He was big, broad-shouldered, and bald in priest's robes. He switched off the microphone and closed the Holy Book he'd been reading from.

"Wonderful job, Father," said a square-jawed man with a black beard, also in priest's robes, from off to the side, smiling.

"Father, your words are so precious to us, we are grateful for them every day," said yet another man in priest's robes.

"Father!"

Rose came into the office. She always bore her gifts personally right up to Cornello, which he seemed to prefer; she never just left them at the altar. The food was safe in her hands and she set it off to the side.

"Ah, Rose." Cornello came over to her, smiling. "As good as always. Wonderful job!"

"No, it's only the usual," said Rose modestly, ducking her head and smiling back. "And…" She twisted her hands around each other, bangle bracelets jangling. "If it helps to make my wish come true… Someday… Then…"

Cornello just looked at her, smiling. "I understand what you're trying to say. God has been observing your good conduct."

Rose brightened eagerly. "Then -!"

But Cornello had put his big, thick hands on her shoulders, revealing a red pendant ring on one of them. "But Rose, it is not time for that particular miracle yet. Do you understand?" Cornello never stopped smiling kindly; it was his constant expression. "Hm? Yes?" He looked close into her face.

"Yes… Yes… Of course…" Rose looked down, obviously disappointed but forcing herself for more patience, a whole year's worth of patience already behind her. "I understand… Not yet…"

"Very good. You're a good child, Rose," said Cornello, his smile widening eerily.

Rose walked into the Church of Leto, coming out of Cornello's upstairs office and downstairs into the Church itself. The Church consisted of pews facing a massive statue of the Sun God Leto, who stood behind an altar.

But Rose paused in surprise. Anastasia and Alphonse Elric were already standing there near the altar, waiting for her. Anastasia looked determined.

"Oh? Didn't I meet you earlier…?" said Rose curiously, pausing. "Do you want to learn more about Letoism?" she added brightly.

Anastasia looked away, smirking, seeming amused by something indefinable. "Yeah," she said wryly to herself, "this is going to be a lot of work. Sorry, girl, but I'm an atheist," Anastasia admitted, shrugging.

Rose sobered. "So you're trying to convert me… and I'm trying to convert you."

The two girls stared at each other across the distance.

"By believing in God, you'll live with daily gratitude and hope!" Rose began, determined. "With faith, anything is possible!"

Anastasia sighed and sat back skeptically against a frontal pew. "Like the dead coming back to life? You really believe that if you pray to God enough times, that will happen?"

"Yes." Rose closed her eyes calmly and resolutely. "Without a doubt!"

Anastasia paused - and then took out a tiny little pocket book she obviously carried around with her in an inside pocket of her top. She opened to a page, and started reading off of a scientific list inside the book:

"Water: 35 liters. Carbon: 20 kilograms. Ammonia: 4 liters. Lime: 1.5 kilograms. Phosphorus: 800 grams. Salt: 250 grams. Saltpeter: 100 grams. Sulfur: 80 grams. Fluorine: 7.5 kilograms. Iron: 5 grams. Silicon: 3 grams. And trace amounts of fifteen other elements."

Rose was obviously bewildered by the long and scientific list. "... Huh?" It was, she plainly thought, a weird response to her belief.

"These would be the calculated components that make up the average single adult human body," said Anastasia seriously, closing the book and leaning toward Rose intensely. "Modern science has already told us this much, and still, no successful human transmutation has ever been reported. Get it? We know exactly what makes up a human body, we have a power that's mistaken for miracles specifically created to take components and build them up into a working object or machine, and still there has never been a successful attempt at bringing a human to life.

"There's still not enough of something… we're missing an important piece of something that's supposed to be offered in creating a fully functional human being… something that scientists haven't been able to find in centuries of research.

"Call that a wasted effort if you want. But it amounts to a lot more than praying and waiting. And we still haven't been able to do it. But you think you can bring a human to life?!"

Anastasia stood furiously, her face intent and her eyes burning. Rose flinched back slightly despite herself. It was like Anastasia… wasn't entirely looking at her. Like she was seeing someone else in Rose's place.

"Oh, and by the way, the ingredients on this list? You could buy them all at a market with a child's allowance. Humans can be built for cheap; there's no magic to it."

"A person isn't a thing! You're treating creating a human being like it's the same as creating a radio, but it doesn't work that way!" said Rose indignantly. "Humans aren't just a mass of ingredients put together by science! They're under the jurisdiction of God!

"You're being disrespectful to the Creator!" she warned furiously, her eyes flashing, in practiced words. "If you keep this up, the wrath of Heaven will fall down upon your head, and -!"

Anastasia sneered and cackled right in her face, cruelly.

"Alchemists are scientists. We can't afford to believe in concepts as vague as 'Creator' or 'God.' That's not tangible or specific enough for us; there's no evidence," she pushed on, almost gleeful in her defiant cynicism. "Instead, scientists purse truth. That's something real - something that's there. It's not God, but it's close to it. Scientists are committed to understanding the fundamentals of the creation of everything, so of course we would pursue truth. Truth is our God, and," in the heat of her emotion and her argument with Rose, she pointed at the all-wise standing tall male Sun God of Leto statue with his long hair wearing his crown, "Truth doesn't look like that.

"The irony? As scientists, we don't believe in God. And so the people who don't believe in God are closest to Him." She smirked.

Anastasia identified so intimately with being an alchemist, but more than that with being a scientist, that for a moment she and the career-choice of alchemy were almost one; it was as if she were speaking for all alchemists and all scientists everywhere.

Or felt she was.

"How arrogant," said Rose coldly, glaring, her face twisted. "You think of yourself as God's equal? You have all the powers, then, of God, I take it?" she added sarcastically.

"Ah. The first good point she's made." Anastasia grinned. Rose bristled, but Anastasia seemed to be for once sincere. "Have you ever heard of this legend?

"There was once a hero who flew too close to the sun. But his wings of crafted wax fell apart too close to the sun's heat. And so he fell tumbling back down to Earth."

Anastasia smirked with dour black humor, as if nothing were really funny. Alphonse's helmeted head lowered, silent. He had not said a thing since being told he was in a town full of people who thought they could bring the dead to life.

Normally quiet anyway, Alphonse had fallen silent.

"You're right," Anastasia admitted to Rose, smiling sadly. "On at least one note. I guess I'm not God, after all. I'm not even Truth, that thing all scientists make it their ultimate goal to reach for and emulate…

"Enjoy your Church."

And she turned around and left, taking her brother with her and leaving Rose standing there before the altar feeling confused and oddly like she was the one who had lost.

Cornello stood on an outdoor stage above a cheering crowd of locals, his kindly smile still constantly in place. He had a rose in his hand. He put his hands together, there was a crackle of electricity between his palms, and out came a much bigger sunflower. The people of the town cheered.

Alphonse and Anastasia were standing in the crowds, Anastasia on top of her traveling trunk to see above the heads of the cheering masses.

"... What do you think?" Alphonse asked his older sister. "The transmutational reaction is normal alchemy, right?"

"Yep…" said Anastasia, hand shading her eyes to see closer in the bright sunlight from above. "But the law…"

Rose saw them through the crowds nearby, brightened and hurried over. "So the two of you came! How is it? No doubt about it." Now she sounded smug, certain of herself, giving a particularly knowing look to Anastasia. "These are definitely miracles. After all, Father Cornello is the Sun God's own son."

"No, it's definitely alchemy. Cornello's a fraud," Anastasia corrected, blunt and annoyed, yet again either not noticing or not caring what kind of a reaction she got. She refused to look at Rose, instead gazing straight at Cornello with intense concentration as she declared him a phony.

Rose stood there fuming in silent fury, fists clenched.

"But what he's doing is definitely against the most basic of all alchemical laws," Alphonse pointed out logically.

"Hmm… True," Anastasia admitted, running a hand through her blonde mess of curls sheepishly.

"What law?" said Rose cautiously.

"From an average person's viewpoint," said Alphonse seriously, "alchemy is a very handy skill that can make anything out of anything else - no limits. But the truth is that there is a very important basic rule to alchemy - so strict we call it a law.

"To put it roughly, there's the law of conservation of mass and the law of providence. Among us practitioners, there are people who use the four elements and three principles, but…"

"Al. Too technical," said Anastasia without looking. "You're confusing her. Sorry. Al may be quieter and polite than me, but he's a lot more serious and technical than me, too. In some ways he's as immersed in alchemy as I am.

"What he's saying is that mass matters - that's the law of conservation of mass, and it's a basic one in science. The law of providence says we alchemists were gifted with the power to decide how mass matters.

"The four elements and three principles are less important. They're extra laws some practitioners use to make their alchemical transmutations more specific, on top of the laws already given."

"Okay. Let's go even simpler," Al decided. "On recommendation of Ana," he added dryly, slightly pointed, and Ana smirked from her perch still watching Cornello. "So… it's an equation, Rose.

"Your output has to be of equal mass to the materials you started with. Alchemy is, for example, taking an object with one element and changing it into a different object containing the exact same element. An object with the properties of water can only be transmuted into another object with watery attributes. This is why," he added apologetically, "a scientist would need all those ingredients to create a human body, and not just a wood post would do."

Completely unapologetic, Ana steamrolled on, "But it means more than that. Notice how specific the amounts needed are to create a human body. In order to transmute the radio, we didn't just need wood and metal - we needed the exact right amount of wood and metal. Helpfully, we already had the broken radio.

"Equal mass doesn't just mean elements. It means amounts, too. A pond can't become an ocean. Something can't be created from nothing," Ana finished intently. "This is the problem with human transmutation. Something would have to be given equal to the value of a human soul, spirit, or essence."

"But nothing on Earth is worth that much," Rose realized, frowning.

"Exactly. In short, the basis to alchemy is called the Law of Equivalent Exchange," said Ana seriously. "In order to create something, you have to give something of exact equal value. Put more simply: In order to create, something of equal value must be lost. Only the objective scientific value of Truth decides what is enough and what is not. So that's what scientists in our world live by."

"Equivalent exchange is summarized like this: Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return," said Al seriously. "Alchemists are big believers in the principle of exact trade."

"Important life lessons, for example," said Ana, deadly serious, "are typically paid for by the pain and discomfort needed to achieve them. It's a life philosophy as well as a scientific rule.

"The problem with today comes from this." And she pointed at Cornello up on the stage. "He is ignoring the Law of Equivalent Exchange and still able to transmute. A rose and a sunflower are of the exact same material, but a sunflower is bigger - way too much bigger to be credible, or chalked up to sheer talent."

"Then make some sense!" Rose demanded heatedly. "Do you two believe in the power of miracles or not?!"

"Sister, maybe it's…?" Al began tentatively.

"Yeah. Maybe it is," Ana admitted, still looking straight ahead. Her sharp golden eyes roved around - and narrowed at the sight of the red amulet stone in Cornello's massive ring on one of his thick-fingered hands. "Bingo!" she said to herself softly.

Then she whirled around and gave her best girlish, helpful smile to Rose. She rushed forward and seized a surprised Rose's hand, fake, girlish tears in her eyes.

"Rose, I've seen the light!" she said in throes of ecstasy. "I want to talk to the great Father! Can you help me?!"

Rose was delighted, brightening. "I did it! I convinced her!" she cheered, almost as ecstatic as Ana - only with Rose it was genuine. "Of course I can help a finally converted believer!" she said with determination.

As she walked off with a mission toward the Church, and the Elric siblings followed along behind her, Al somehow gave Ana a baleful look from an expressionless suit of armor.

Ana snickered mischievously, her act breaking for a split second and her golden eyes positively impish with delight.

The belltower rang inside the multi-storied Church of Leto. Upstairs in Cornello's office, one of his priest robed officials opened the door - one of his main applauders from his broadcast earlier, the one who had spoken first, a square-chinned man with a black beard.

"Father, there is someone requesting an interview," he announced. "A crippled woman and an armored man who call themselves the Elric siblings…"

Now the rest of Cornello's office revealed itself, from floor length curtains and windows to luxurious carpeting, an intricately carved fireplace, tapestries, and an entire tea-table set up near the fireplace complete with tea at the moment. Cornello was sitting having tea.

This was where so-called "personal" offerings like Rose's frequent offerings went to.

"What?" Cornello scowled, irritated, freer around one of his most trusted. "I'm busy. Tell them to go home."

Then he paused in realization.

"Wait, did you say the Elric siblings? Anastasia Elric?!"

"Yes, I'm sure that was the name of the young woman..." said Cornello's priest. "Do you know her?"

Cornello was now sweating, placing his forehead against his folded hands. "Oooh, this is very bad! She is the 'Fullmetal Alchemist,' Anastasia Elric!"

The priest reacted in visible disbelief and anger. "Wha…! You mean that crippled little girl with false limbs?!" He made a gesture referring to Ana's small stature. "This is a joke, right?!"

"Idiot!" said Cornello, putting fingers to his nose. "Age is irrelevant to being an alchemist! Despite what any fool may tell you, so is height and gender, and so is - if you have some way to move around some kind of limbs - whether or not the limbs you have are real.

"I've heard that when she was a mere fourteen year old, she obtained the license for being one of the State Alchemists. It is how she has the rumored title of 'genius.' She was a girl then, a child; four years later, she'd be a woman now. And with the limbs, of course? Now the moniker makes sense. Her limbs must be metal - automail, right?

"I see… So she really is that rumored brat."

Cornello's hands were now folded in front of him; he was becoming calmer, thinking.

"Why is a State Alchemist here?! Could it be that she knows about our plan?!" the priest asked suspiciously, leaning in close, his teeth gritted.

"It seems that the dogs of the military have excellent noses," said Cornello uneasily. "Even the rare bitches."

"Do you want me to send her away?" the priest asked.

"No, doing that would be too suspicious," said Cornello. "She might return with reinforcements if we turn her away.

"... They never made it here. Mysterious disappearance." Cornello looked sideways and gave his assistant a sly smirk. "... How does that sound?"

For a moment, the priest looked surprised and dismayed. Then he straightened, recovered, and smirked. "As long as it is the will of God…"

Just as this man was in on Cornello's plan, he plainly still believed in the power of miracles and the Church of Letoism.

This potent combination was the reason for his accepting fanaticism.

The priest came out to greet Ana, Al, and Rose. They were bowed through double doors by assistants into a kind of underground basement chamber beneath the Church. "Please come in," said the priest politely.

Ana, Al, and Rose followed into the empty chamber behind him.

"Father Cornello is a very busy person," said the priest, walking ahead, "and thus does not have much free time, but you two are in luck. He's willing to see you."

The doors closed behind them.

"Oh, I don't plan on taking him for too long," said Ana in a high, smiling, breathy, eager voice - for a moment rivaling Rose at her most dewy-eyed, faithful, and rapturous - only Al would have seen her golden eyes sparking with mischief.

But Al and Rose had turned in surprise at the doors suddenly closing.

"Yes. This will end quite soon," the priest agreed, smirking and stopping. Everyone else stopped too.

The priest reached into an inside pocket of his robes, whirled around, pulled out a handgun, and stuck it right through one of the eyeholes in Al's helmet.

"Just like this!"

The gun went off.

Al's helmet was blasted away, right off the suit of armor, seeming to take his head and neck with it. Rose screamed and Ana's eyes widened in horror as the armored body fell one way and the armored head fell somewhere else.

Ana moved to run forward, and was stopped by the pikes of the followers standing beside the door, the two pinning her in on either side. Ana paused, a silent snarl coming over her face.

"Brother! What is the meaning of this?!" Rose demanded of the priest, distraught.

"Rose, these two are heretics that were going to entrap Father Cornello!" said the priest still holding the gun. "They're demons in human flesh!"

"No!" said Rose. "Surely Father Cornello would never have allowed this -!"

"Father Cornello has allowed this," said the priest, smirking. "And the words of Father Cornello are the words of God… so this is the will of God!"

Rose looked torn as the priest pointed the gun at Ana's head. Ana just stared at the gun, her face hard and her golden eyes gleaming.

"Really? What a cruel God."

Al's headless suit of armor had suddenly stood up, a voice emanating from somewhere inside, and put his glove on the hand holding the gun. He leaned down, and even the priest was surprised and horrified.

The moving, talking suit of armor was empty. There was nothing inside.

"What -?!" the priest began, stunned and terrified.

Ana took the pause of surprise this had created to catch her assailants off guard. She grabbed the pole of one pike and used it to shove one of Cornello's henchmen away, then she did a hand to hand move to slam the other to the ground using the chest. In almost the same move, Al's metal glove punched the priest in the face, breaking several teeth.

The remaining conscious henchman tried to run away, screaming - Ana picked up Al's equally empty helmet and threw it right at the guy, hitting him in the skull and knocking him unconscious.

"Strike!" Ana held up a thumbs up in a joking umpire move, mischievous.

"My head!" Al called, sounding extremely annoyed.

Rose was screaming, shaking, stuttering and staring in horror at the headless suit of armor. She pointed at Al. "What's going on…?!" she finally managed to gasp out.

Al pointed at his empty armored body, at the opening showing his own physical nonexistence. Ana reached up and gave a couple of fond thuds of the fist against the suit of armor's chestplate, frowning at Rose.

"He's always -" Ana began.

"Like this," Al finished.

Rose put a hand to her mouth, terrified. "Th… There's nothing inside… It's hollow…?!"

"Right, that." Al calmly reached over and put his helmeted head back on. "This is the body of someone who has committed the sin of trespassing into God's forbidden domain, where mortals fear to tread. It's the same with my sister's body. Hers is that of a sinner, too."

Ana's back was now to them. She remained straight-shouldered and silent.

"Ana… too…" And Rose gasped as she looked with new horror at the two synthetic limbs. "The automail. Wha… What happened to you two?!" she demanded of Ana, emotional.

Ana turned back, her eyes haunted. "When I was a preteen and Al was a kid… back before I joined the military… we tried to bring our mother back from the dead using human transmutation."

Rose's eyes widened.

"The objective scientific value of Truth took all this from us - two of my limbs, all of Al's body, I had to use alchemy to transmute his soul into that armor… And still, the human transmutation wasn't successful," Ana finished grimly. "You got it right. I'm not God. I'm not even Truth. I'm the hero with wings made of wax. It was my idea, with my sharp eyes and my scientific arrogance. I honestly thought we could do it… That I was just brilliant enough to pull it off.

"I was wrong. I was just brilliant enough to think I could do it, and just stupid enough to try.

"You were right about another thing. Nothing on Earth is enough. Nothing can equal the value of a single human soul.

"It's why I keep trying to convince you… that Cornello can't do this for you. Because no matter how different we are… and no matter how much we irritate each other… in the end you're just like me."

Rose swallowed, looking uncertain. Al stood there, looking between the two women.

"But… Father Cornello is not an alchemist. He's a messenger of God," said Rose in a tiny voice, shoulders hunched.

"Aww, geez!" Ana suddenly exploded in exasperation, scowling and looking away. "You honestly still believe there's an omnipotent and benevolent God watching over you, that everything happens for a reason, that miracles exist?! You've seen God's true nature! You just saw the actions of someone who believed in God!"

She pointed heatedly at the henchmen lying prone on the floor.

"And… you still believe in that fraud… don't you," Ana said flatly, slumping and watching Rose. Rose winced and looked away, tentative.

"There has to be some mistake here," Rose whispered. "Father Cornello couldn't have ordered that attack. There has to be a misunderstanding. There has to be. It has to be true."

"Truth. My jurisdiction," said Ana grimly. "Okay. How about it, Rose?" Rose looked up. Ana was faux casual, Al standing straight behind her. "If I try to show you, do you have the guts to see the truth?" Ana asked seriously.

Ana and Al were standing outside a new pair of double doors.

"So this is Cornello's room that Rose told us about?" said Ana conversationally. "She wouldn't come," she added in a disappointed sigh. "Oh well…"

Suddenly, one door creaked open of its own accord, and the other door followed. The doors slowly opened into a darkened chamber, another underground basement, shadowy and unseeable, lit farther along by torches on stone walls.

"Hm." Ana smirked. "I guess that's as good a 'welcome in' as we're going to get."

They walked inside. Ana noticed the doors softly close of their own accord behind her.

"Welcome to our Holy Church." Cornello was standing above them on a sweeping staircase that led to his office in the upper floors. Another tapestry hung behind him. This was his own personal chamber. "Have you come to learn our teachings?" The same old kindly smile.

"Sure." Ana smirked cynically. "Let's start with how it is you managed to fool your believers with cheap alchemy! That one interests me!"

"... Hmm, you must be mistaken…" Cornello smiled. "Calling my power of miracles 'alchemy' is a bit problematic. If you had seen one of my miracles, you would understand…"

Now he was trying to reason with them.

"I've already seen it," Ana interrupted abruptly. "It was definitely alchemy. Here's the thing I don't get it: How did you manage alchemy while ignoring the basic Law of Equivalent Exchange?"

"Well, that's why I said it wasn't alchemy…" Cornello scratched his head, puzzled, with the hand carrying the ring finger.

"I thought so. You have a Philosopher's Stone." A slow, sly grin spread across Ana's expressive face. "That's how you're doing it, isn't it?"

Cornello paused, ring finger poised in the air in surprise.

"It's that ring, isn't it?" Ana's eyes narrowed, sharp and smug, at the red pendant ring finger.

A pause. Cornello clutched his cane tighter.

"I expected no less from a State Alchemist. It is exactly as you said. You are correct!"

Cornello raised his ring hand, his face dark and dour. There was not a trace of a smile left now.

"The Philosopher's Stone, a mysterious alchemical power amplifier, usually found only in legends… When an alchemist uses one, we can perform tasks of great magnitude with very little cost!"

"... That's it, Al, it's ours!" Ana growled out, a cruel and slightly vicious, eager grin overtaking her face.

"You want this?! Why?!" Cornello mused, smirking. "To get your limbs back, perhaps?! But there are so many other things you could want that this Stone could offer you as well… Money. Fame."

"Relax, you got it right on the first take," said Ana flatly, her lips a thin line, exasperated. "Body reconfiguration would be just spectacular! But what about you? You've made a religion through fraud. What do you want? For money, you don't need believers - just the Stone."

"Not money," Cornello scoffed. "I can get all that I need from the offerings left by my believers. You have it all backwards. The true power this Stone offers me is not money." Cornello smirked. "It's the power to fool people by telling them I can perform religious miracles! Think about it.

"My believers are totally obedient. They would throw away their very lives for me. And why not? They believe I can resurrect them. They don't believe they can die.

"It's the greatest army in the world!" Cornello gave a wide, insane grin. "One which doesn't fear its own death! I have been steadily advancing my preparations - and behold! After several years the country of Amestris will be mine!"

Cornello gave an evil cackle.

"Good for you, but I don't give a shit about that," said Ana flatly, bored and disinterested, hands on her hips.

"What?!" Cornello sputtered, his entire intimidating aura thrown off. "You don't give a shit?! Aren't you a member of the current Amestrian military?!"

"I guess. But I don't care much for patriotism - military and country," said Ana casually, running a hand wearily through her hair. "Who runs my country? Who cares? You're all corrupt anyway. You don't get me anymore than I got you, Cornello. Who has one of the best research support programs in the world? The State Alchemists of our great country of Amestris." Ana lifted up her hands sarcastically. "Perfect for finding the Stone. Why do you think I joined? I don't care what the military wants. I didn't track you down because of the military - not really. I mean, yeah, it's an official assignment, and I go on plenty of those, but to be honest? I'm in it for me.

"I need that Stone! My brother and I need it to make something right again!"

"You want your original body back," Cornello realized, scowling. "And… your brother needs it for something as well? I suppose that must be why he's wearing that armor."

"I'll get straight to the point! Give me the Philosopher's Stone!" said Ana fiercely. "Do that and I won't tell the people here that you're a fraud - what you've been doing, what you plan on doing!"

"Ha! You're trying to bargain with me… My believers won't believe a word from the likes of you!" Cornello crowed. Ana frowned seriously. "They love me! They are my faithful servants! You're an outsider! You could talk all you wanted and they wouldn't believe you! Do you know why? Because they're stupid! Because I've pulled the wool over their eyes with what you so glibly call cheap alchemy! Because they've been fooled!"

Ana smiled mischievously and started clapping sarcastically. "Well, I didn't expect any less from the charismatic founder of an entire religion! Thank you for letting us hear such a splendid speech. And yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe the people of this desert city wouldn't believe in anything we'd say. But!" Ana smirked and waved her arm wide behind her. "How about what she'd say?"

Al silently opened up his chestplate to reveal Rose curled up inside his suit of armor. She looked horrified, terrified, and disturbed.

Cornello was confused and alarmed. "Rose?!" he yelled. "What is the meaning of this -?!"

"Father! Is what you just said true?!" she demanded.

Rose leaned forward out of the suit of armor so quickly Al moved and she surprised him a little. "Just as fiery as Sister," Al sighed as Rose climbed right out and moved forward determined as a bull.

"Have you tricked us?!" Rose demanded of Cornello. "Your miraculous God's power, was it just alchemy?! You weren't going to ever grant me my wish?!

"You weren't going to bring my beloved back?!"

There were distraught tears welling up in Rose's violet eyes. Ana watched solemnly from off to the side, a little sad.

Cornello frowned, nervous. Then he smirked, getting an idea that clearly put him on edge.

"Hm… perhaps I am not after all a messenger of God… but are these people anymore trustworthy?" He waved to the frowning, cautious Elric siblings. "It is clear to me now, with that soul inside that empty suit of armor, what they did! This girl is called the Fullmetal Alchemist because of her synthetic limbs - they got those bodies by committing the ultimate sin! They attempted human transmutation; they tried to bring someone back from the dead, and the transmutation backfired and ripped their bodies apart, taking almost everything from them!

"But here is the thing, Rose: they did not have the all-powerful Philosopher's Stone that I do! You heard them; they're in it for themselves! Those sinners want this power I have clutched so tightly in my grasp!

"I can still attempt human transmutation! I can still bring your lover back!"

Rose stared, horrified and torn.

"Rose, don't listen!" Al insisted, rarely actually speaking up desperately in spite of the subject matter. He cared just as much as Ana - he just showed it differently. "It can't be done! You know nothing's enough; we told you! Not even the Philosopher's Stone with its great acts and its limited sacrifice can change that!"

"They're lying! They probably want this Stone so they can succeed at their human transmutation at last!" Cornello cried.

"Wrong!" said Ana fiercely, her face twisted. "We just want our bodies normal again. We're not going to try again to bring Mom back. We prefer not to lie about what's possible. We didn't start a cult!

"Rose." She gave Rose a sideways glare. "Make your decision. I've done all I can do. But if you go to him now, there may be no turning back. You would be the first believer… who knows everything this maniac is and still chooses to follow him!"

Cornello held out a hand to Rose from above. "Be a good child and come here."

Rose stood frozen, eyes wide and distraught.

"What's wrong?" Cornello smiled, more confident at Rose's continued silence. "You're one of us, after all. Just accept it."

"Rose!" Al warned sharply.

"Even if it's a long shot, am I not the only one who can grant you your wish?" Cornello demanded, playing on Rose's longing for her dead boyfriend. "Do you not want your beloved back? Well?" He grinned viciously.

It was a final contrast - to see just how similar Rose was to Ana deep down. Ana wouldn't have gone.

Rose was shaking, trembling, clutching at herself in horror…

Then she walked away from the Elric siblings and towards Cornello. Her head was bowed. "I'm sorry, you two," she said quietly, her back to them.

Al stared after her silently. Ana looked… understanding, but disappointed.

"But this is the only thing…" Rose turned back to them, looking disturbed. "This is the only thing I can rely on," she admitted.

"Good child…" Cornello gave a cruel smile, his eyes narrowed.

Then he reached for a lever hidden in the wall beside him.

"Now, I will purge these heretics that threaten the future of my religion with haste," he promised. He pulled the lever.

Ana looked around, faux casual but sharp and alarmed… and out of a nearby sliding wall came a chimera, a lion with a lizard backside, crawling out of the hidden opening. It growled and hunched itself in the direction of the Elrics.

"The Philosopher's Stone is truly impressive," said Cornello. "It can allow me to do things such as combine animals. Is this the first time you've seen a chimera? Hm?" He smirked, watching Ana like a hawk.

Ana and Al watched the circling, hunched chimera, faux casual, expressions hard.

"It's a little hard to fight unarmed," said Ana flatly, bored, clapping her hands together once, "so…" Cornello paused in surprise as Ana put her spread palms to the ground. There was a flash of alchemical electricity - and in an explosion Rose had to brace herself against, from out of the ground and into Ana's slowly standing hand came a sharpened spear. It was techno metallic with intricate Gothic black dragon designs carved all over it.

"Always the unusual artist," Al mused, fond.

"Why, you!" Cornello growled at Ana, irritated and maybe a little nervous from the top of the stairwell. "To transmute a weapon from the stone and foundation of the pavement without a transmutation circle - I see that State Alchemist isn't just a fancy name! But that won't be enough!" He turned to the chimera desperately. "Aim for the flesh! Don't aim for the automail!" he barked.

"It can't understand you, and it doesn't know what metal is! As you just finished explaining, it's a combination of dumb animals!" Ana snapped back, slightly irritated, watching the chimera as it was about to spring.

The chimera charged, and snapped through the spear in a flash of claws. The claws then slashed at the automail leg, which Ana clutched in instinctive surprise -

But the automail was unharmed. And the chimera's claws snapped off from the attack.

Ana grinned mischievously. "Told you!" she said mockingly, golden eyes dancing, and she kicked the chimera in the stomach and away with her stronger left leg.

The chimera charged forward again, growling, bit down on Ana's defensively raised right arm… and paused, chewing on the automail, but wide-eyed, growling, and whining.

"What's wrong, your poor, stupid cat?" said Ana, deadly. "Get a real good taste." Then she kicked the chimera in the jaw with her left leg in another hand to hand move, its head snapping back upward and away in a rush of blood and broken teeth.

Ana stood tall and snarled silently at Cornello, who was stunned. "You're going to have to do a lot better than that!" she snapped, mocking. "You know I have automail limbs and I can do alchemy without a transmutation circle, so you set a chimera on me? Really?

"Why don't you come down here yourself, you coward third-rate?! What's wrong?! Afraid to face a girl?!

"Come down here and I'll show you the real difference between the two of us!"

"Like I'd fall for that!" Cornello called back, but now he looked definitely nervous.

"This is pointless! We have to find some way to convince his people!" Ana told Al sharply. "We have to find some way to convince Rose! What do we do?!"

"... We tell her," said Al suddenly, speaking up on the topic for the first time. Ana froze, eyes widening. "We tell both of them…

"About the night it happened."

Author's Note: On the age change. Read this rant or ignore it if you want.

It always weirds me out when people complain about age differences in a pairing in anime and manga. Specifically in anime and manga. Here's why.

Most anime and manga revolve around coming of age stories. There are MAJOR exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, most main characters are young and coming of age in one way or another. The mangaka must realize that reading constantly about actual children or teenagers must get old.

Why? Because most anime and manga characters look and function almost nothing like teenagers.

In manga, most teenagers look and act like adults. Most kids look like teens and still act like adults. Even in anime and manga where this isn't the case, age is often hard to deduce altogether – twelve year olds look sixteen and sixteen year olds look ten.

Because manga is just about creating characters with a particular appearance. It doesn't seem to be about age.

If the mangaka hadn't written their age down on a piece of paper, I would have no idea what age any of these characters were.

I say all this because I find it problematic when people look at an anime and manga pairing with a huge age difference and call it "disgusting." In both appearance and in action, the pairing lover in question usually isn't pairing two characters who look and act like anything other than adults.

Actually, I can think of certain age-similar pairings in "age is hard to figure out" manga that weird me out way more than pairings in some other manga that have huge age differences. Some characters look so much like kids, even though they're close to adulthood and paired with age-similar people, that I have trouble imagining them with anyone.

But for the most part, it's like when a TV show casts a character who is supposed to be in high school and the actor is close to thirty. Adults don't have to feel bad finding that character attractive or interesting to other characters. It makes sense. Despite any numbers stated in text or on a piece of paper, the audience is not actually looking at a child.

Usually in any fandom fanfic I write, I follow age specifications anyway to avoid hordes of angry fans. But this has been a private beef of mine for a while.