What One May Never See
Chapter One: Running
Annora rolled her eyes as she listened to the streams of chatter that permeated her history classroom; the teenager could care less about the school gossip and politics. She let out an aggravated sigh as yet another ball of wadded up notebook paper bounced off her back.
"God, I hate the days when we have substitutes," she muttered as she eyeballed the elderly man sitting at their teacher's desk, pointedly ignoring the chaos around him. A black-haired girl with coke-bottle glasses seated next to her expertly raised her binder up to her face to deflect yet another one of the flying balls of paper.
"I don't blame you, at all," she whispered fervently before returning to her drawing.
Annora looked over, and raised an eyebrow when she caught sight of what the girl was drawing. She knew that it was some anime character named Envy that Katie thought was cute, but to her, it just looked like some guy wearing a miniskirt doing his damndest to look like a gay palm tree.
"So, Katie, I take it that you have been reading manga, again."
Katie looked over at Annora and gave her a crooked grin before she returned to her sketching.
"Maybe," she answered cryptically. Annora looked at her friend skeptically and raised her eyebrows.
"Right…so, drawing an anorexic palm tree isn't connected to manga?" Annora barely managed to repress a snort of derision. "You lie. You lie like a dog!"
Katie gave a muffled giggle as she reached out and tugged playfully on a lock of Annora's long, honey brown hair. "Says you."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know; I'm the party pooper."
Annora suddenly let out a startled yelp and whirled around in her seat to plant her hand on the cheek of the boy sitting directly behind her, murder shining in her eyes.
"Michael, you might want to think about what you just did and the sheer stupidity of it," the sixteen-year old hissed as she glared at the boy. He simply smirked at her and high-fived one of his friends, who handed him ten bucks, obviously the prize for groping her rear-end. Katie winced as Michael was immediately relieved of the money, and the use of his hands for the next week.
With anger still burning in her brown eyes, Annora sat back down again, pointedly ignoring the groans of pain coming from the seat behind her, and began to idly sketch a Celtic knot onto a corner of her notebook paper. She was shaken out of her revere when Katie threw a small paperback book onto her desk. Annora raised an eyebrow as she set down her pencil and picked up the book for further examination. The front cover showed a boy about her age with blonde hair in a braid and wearing a red jacket standing in front of a suit of armor while pulling on a pair of white gloves, with the title 'Fullmetal Alchemist' proudly displayed at the top. The teenager scrutinized the graphic novel for a few more moments before she looked up at Katie.
"No."
"Aww, c'mon Annora! Just read it! It's only the first volume; it's not like it's gonna kill you!" Katie pleaded, giving her friend puppy-dog eyes.
"No, Katie, I don't like this kind of stuff! You do! Besides, I think you've tortured me enough with your talk of 'alchemy' and 'homiculmi' or whatever the heck they are."
"But… if you read it, you'll understand it a little better."
"Okay, now my answer's gone from no to hell no."
"Aww, please?"
"No. I don't read comic books with fags in them."
"There are no fags in 'FMA'!"
"Yes there are. That guy that you were drawing just a few minutes ago looks queerer than a three-dollar bill!"
"Envy-kun is not gay!"
"Oh yes he is! How the hell do you explain the tank top and miniskirt?!"
"Haven't you heard? That's the latest style!"
"Bullshit. Only in your weird little world."
"Meanie!"
"Rabid fangirl!"
Katie huffed in an offended tone before she gave her friend an evil grin and slammed the manga volume down onto Annora's desk.
"Read it, dammit!" she ordered before she sat down at her own desk and pulled on her headphones, blasting the ending theme from 'FMA' from her MP3 player. Annora rolled her eyes and gave a sigh of resignation as she slid the graphic novel into her backpack just before the bell rang.
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"Argh, I hate it when Katie does that," Annora muttered bad-temperedly as she trudged down the street from her bus stop, a cold wind cutting through the thick navy wool of her sweater and blowing her charcoal-colored scarf out behind her. The sixteen-year old scowled and pulled up the collar of her black and blue letterman's jacket in an effort to block out the cold air. A particularly strong gust almost made her lose her scarf, although she then decided that after that, it would be a good idea to tie her scarf around her neck instead of wrapping it.
A shudder ran through the teenager's thin frame as she rounded the corner of the street she was on. Surprise flitted across Annora's features as something cold and white landed on her nose. Annora reached out and stared as several flakes of the wet substance landed on her palm and melted.
"Snow?"
The teenager looked up at the sky and was amazed to see thick dark clouds hanging overhead as they released their white cargo. With a shrug, Annora resumed her trek home, unaware of the confused stares that passersby were giving her. One thing she did hear was the comment that a pair of elderly women made as she walked by them.
"Look at that girl; the way she dresses is appalling! I never thought I'd ever see a girl walking around wearing boys clothes. She ought to be ashamed of herself!"
Annora glanced over to the side to look at the women out of the corner of her eye.
"If you're going to insult someone, at least wait until they're out of hearing range," she pointed out coolly. The woman gave a gasp and Annora rolled her eyes as she walked off.
'Everybody knows the world is full of stupid people," she thought wryly as she rounded the corner to her street. Her eyes widened and a shocked gasp escaped her lips as she stared at the spot on her street where her house was supposed to be. Instead of her sixty-some-odd year old wood frame and brick house, there stood a dark alleyway.
"What in the hell?" Annora whispered as she stared at the alleyway in surprise. That had definitely not been there when she had left for school that morning.
The teenager looked around her in surprise as she scrutinized her surroundings closely. Her house was near the outskirts of town, near the edge of the forest. Heck, her backyard was almost part of the forest, except for the wooden fence separating it from the rest of the pine tree and oak woods. But here… there were massive brick buildings on either side of the street, mostly homes, with a few businesses thrown into the mix, and of course the dark alley in front of her.
'There's no way I'm on my street… it's too different,' Annora studied the building she was standing closest too before she just shook her head. Judging from the age of the buildings around her, she had gotten off on the wrong bus stop and gone into the historical section of Flagstaff. The sixteen-year old let out an exasperated sigh as she shrugged her shoulders. Seeing as she was already here, what harm would it do for her to do a little exploring?
A faint smile crept across her lips as she, against her better judgment, began to walk down the dim alley.
'What's the worst that could happen?' she reasoned mentally, shrugging her shoulders.
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Fifteen minutes and may stray cats later
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"Okay, I take that back, having god knows how many psychotic cats jump out at me is the worst that could happen," Annora grumbled as she stood in the middle of the deserted alley. She looked around her for a few seconds before she shook her head and gave an embarrassed laugh. "I probably just took a wrong turn on the way home from the bus stop and ended up on some other street. Man, I am such an idiot sometimes."
"Mmm, I'd have to agree with you," someone stated coolly behind her. The sixteen-year old let out a small gasp as she whirled around to face the person leaning nonchalantly up against a wall behind her.
"Who are you?" she demanded angrily as she backed up slightly while adopting a defensive position. The man, at least she thought he was a man, let out a chilling laugh as he stepped out from the dim shadows by the wall out into the center of the alley.
"What's wrong, girl? Are you scared?"
Annora looked at the man for a few moments, blinked a couple times to make sure that she wasn't seeing things, and then let out a snort of derision as she took in the man's messy, knee length greenish black hair, fingerless black gloves that went almost to his elbows, black tank top that revealed his stomach, black stockings with the part for the toes and heel cut off, and to top it all off, a black miniskirt. All in all, it was a fairly amusing sight. Annora knew right away who this guy was dressed up as, and failed to find anything remotely amusing about him following her.
(AN: If I was in Annora's place, I would have died laughing my ass off. It would take major cajones to walk around in public wearing that outfit.)
"Oh yeah, a cross-dressing, gay, anorexic palm tree. I quiver with fear," she shot back as she rolled her eyes, sarcasm practically dripping from her voice. The man dressed as Envy stared at her, slack-jawed in disbelief with his eyes almost rolling out of their sockets. The expression on his face was so funny that Annora pulled out her cell phone and snapped a picture of it. Once she had saved the picture and sent it to Katie, along with the text message 'Envy's reaction when you call him a gay palm tree,' she turned around and walked away. It was at about that point that the man dressed as Envy regained at least some semblance of speech.
"Oi!"
Annora didn't even turn around as she gave the guy the 'looser' sign. With an amused chuckle, the sixteen-year old walked out of the alleyway and turned the corner, only to stroll right into someone's chest with a loud 'clang'.
"Oww…" Annora muttered as she stumbled back a few feet and rubbed her abused nose.
"I'm so sorry, I should have been watching where I was going," she apologized as she looked at the person that she had plowed into. A large bead of sweat unconsciously ran down the back of her head as she stared at the metal breastplate in front of her. Slowly, the teenager looked up, and up, until she could see the head of the person wearing the armor. The person, surprisingly, bowed politely and replied in a voice that belonged to a young boy.
"No, I'm the one that should be apologizing. I need to be more careful," he said. Annora raised an eyebrow as she looked at the boy; she couldn't see the boy's face because of the helmet that he was wearing, but judging from the size of the suit of armor, he was a little over seven feet tall.
The boy seemed to sense her silent question and leaned up against the brick wall behind them.
"It's a hobby," he explained, rubbing the back of his head with a gauntlet clad hand. Annora felt her cheeks grow hot and knew that there was a good chance that she was blushing.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare."
"It's okay, I get that a lot." The boy looked at her intently. "I hope you don't mind me asking, miss, but what's your name?"
"Annora," the sixteen-year old replied with a nagging sensation in the back of her mind that she had seen this boy before.
"My name's Alphonse, but most people just call me Al," the boy offered. Annora gave a small smile before a thoughtful frown crossed her face.
"What's wrong?"
"I know that I've heard your name before, but I can't remember where and it's driving me nuts," Annora admitted sheepishly. "I hate it when I do that."
Before Al could say anything, an angry shout interrupted them.
"Hey, you! Who do you think you are, calling me names like that?!"
Annora looked over her shoulder to see the man from earlier standing at the alley entrance, an expression of homicidal fury on his face. The teenager gave a sigh and rolled her eyes as she gave Al a suffering look.
"Looks like I've gotta go; someone paged the idiot brigade."
With that, she turned around and ran off with Envy in hot pursuit. Alphonse Elric stared at Annora's retreating back for several long moments in confusion, a sweatdrop running down the back of his helmet. He was shaken out of his stunned trance when his brother came up behind him and smacked him soundly on the back. The suit of armor jumped about a foot in the air in surprise.
"Brother! You startled me!"
Edward Elric looked at Al, and raised an eyebrow. "A girl just ran off with Envy chasing her, and I startled you?"
"Yes."
Ed rolled his golden eyes and sighed as he shook his head. "C'mon, lets go find that girl before something happens to her. I have a feeling that she's not exactly from around here."
With that, the two Elric brothers took off running off in the same direction as Annora and Envy.
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Annora looked behind her and gave a sigh of relief when she saw that she had lost Envy. It had taken over twenty minutes of running down random alleys, hopping fences and brick walls, and at one point, ducking behind a particularly foul-smelling dumpster at the back of a restaurant, to lose the persistent man. The teenager shifted her backpack up a bit into more comfortable position as she began to walk down the alley in an effort to find a way out. All of a sudden, a black cat jumped off of the top of a building and landed in front of her. Annora gave a startled yelp, and then began to laugh when she saw what had scared her.
"That's sad, I got scared by a little cat," she muttered. Her embarrassment turned into shock when the cat suddenly transformed into a smirking Envy. Annora was only able to say one thing as she slowly backed away from the Homunculus.
"Oh shit."
She was in so much trouble.
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Okay, so this is my first FMA fanfiction, and I hope you all like it. Oh, if you're an Envy fan, just to warn you, I do not like Envy at all. So there will be a lot of palm tree bashing and other general forms of abuse.
Anyways, please read and review! Reviews keep me happy and stop me from repeatedly incinerating Dante, not that anyone really wants to stop me. (Smirks evilly.)
Dante: Why you little… the fans love me!
Wandering Hitokiri: Oh please, don't make me laugh! (Thinks for a few moments and falls over laughing anyways.) Ah, but I digress. (Points at Dante.) Anyways, you're nothing more than the equivalent of some old lady using Botox and plastic surgery to keep looking like she's young, well except you steal people's bodies to stay young.
Dante: (Glares at Wandering Hitokiri.) Girl, you are nothing but a fool.
Wandering Hitokiri: Surprisingly, you're not the first to say that. But you're also not the first to learn why you never want to tick me off. (Snaps her fingers and Dante explodes.) Okay, now I feel better.