Song of the Alchemist
A Fullmetal Alchemist/Scrapped Princess crossover fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not have the pleasure of owning Scrapped Princess or Fullmetal Alchemist. This is mearly a "what if" situation, written for entertainment purposes (mainly my own), and if you think otherwise, perhaps you shouldn't be reading this story at all.

Chapter 1: And So They Meet

The road less taken. That was certainly what I would call this path. Clearly not made for the rare cars you saw the bureaucrats driving in the cities, the path was thin and covered in dirt with only the tracks from the farmers wagons to guide you. Grass? Get real. That had disappeared a few miles back. The occasional patch sprung up here and there, but what little there was, was either dead or dying.

I don't know what made me decide to take this path. Maybe it was the lecture I knew was waiting for me in Central from my superior officer Colonel Mustang. Yeah, that must be it. Anything to stall. I could always tell him I got lost. Which is actually true, if you think about it. He had sent me on a mission way out in the boonies (even further then my hometown), to a place I had never even heard of before. I very strongly believe that he just wanted to get me out of his office, so he picked the first spot he saw on the map of Amistris hanging in his office.

Now that the mission is complete though, I was supposed to head home-well, back to Central anyway. My home is long gone. The problem was that I was so far out in the boonies that no trains ran here. I had to take a train to the nearest station (about a day and a half walk), then hitch a ride. Of course Colonel Pain-In-My-Ass couldn't spring to send a car to pick me up. No way.

The one car I had managed to coax into giving me a lift to so far away a location promptly broke down after we arrived and was conveniently fixed later that night. I saw it drive hurriedly out of town from my little hotel window (don't get me started on the hotel situation). Thus, my ride was gone. I suppose I could have transmuted a car or some sort of bike, but the ride was so rough in the car I came in. I shudder to think what it would be like to do it myself. Besides, the town was lacking one key element. Cars are made of metal. Everything in that town was made of wood. All completed with what was once a forest that surrounded the town. Once I arrived, I quickly became the most metallic thing there.

Needless to say, I (stupidly) decided to hoof it on my own feet. How long could it take anyway?

I left the town on a Tuesday.

What's today? It's Tuesday.

One. Week. Later.

I didn't realize how many forks there were on this thing they call a road. Or maybe I just made one wrong turn and got this forked path.

No way am I gonna admit to Mustang I got lost though. If he asks, I found a lead on the stone that happened to fall through. Yeah. I just won't tell Al.

Alphonse, luckily, isn't with me. I made him stay back in Central since I THOUGHT this was going to be a simple mission. Course not though. Mustang can never give me an easy assignment. That would be generous, and I'm convinced he doesn't know how to spell the word, let alone know the meaning.

So here I was, lost on this little dirt path.

GGGRRROOOOWWWWWLLLLLL

Okay. Lost on a little dirt path, and STARVING.

Mustang was going to pay for this.

At least I packed light. Again, believing this was going to be a cut-and-dry case, I only brought my silver pocket watch, my little coded journal and my coat-which I'm loving by the way, since it keeps the blowing dirt away from my automail. Winry would kill me if I ruined it because I got caught in a dust storm. It would almost be worse to face her with that problem then getting it blown to pieces by a serial killer.

Almost.

GGGRRROOOOWWWWWLLLLLL

As my stomach has so tactfully reminded me, it's time for me to eat. Time to rely on that pre-training month on that island. However, looking around, all I saw was dirt. And, oh look. It's an animal skeleton. At least that proves something used live here.

I continue walking, thoughts of stew and apple pie filling my mind.

"Are we there yet?"

Was that a girl's voice?

"No, now sit down."

My head spun around, looking for the source. That was defiantly a guy's voice I just heard.

"But I'm hungry! And I'm tired! I wanna sleep in a bed tonight!"

"Oh," this was a different girl's voice. "It looks like according to this map, there aren't any towns near here."

"There. Looks like we're camping out."

I looked up at the sky. It was starting to get a little pink. Maybe I should consider making a little camp too. Suddenly I find myself wishing Alphonse was here.

"No way Shannon!" Man, this girl is whinny. "Come on! I want a bed! With a soft pillow and blankets!"

"Look you-"

"Hey! Who's that?" The second girl asked, making me finally turn around. About fifty yards behind me (yes fifty-the occupants were speaking very loudly), was a small wagon driven by two horses. A male held the reigns and a young female sat next to him calmly. Both had black hair. Pushing between them was a younger blonde girl with bright blue eyes. She reminded me of Winry.

"HEY THERE!" The blonde yelled to me, waving an arm above her head. The two on either side of her cringed away from her loud voice in their ears.

I stopped and waited for the wagon to pull up beside me (I had to step off the road, lest I get run over by one of the large horses), rather then yell back to them.

"Hi!" the blonde exclaimed.

I smiled. "Hey! Boy am I glad to see you. I was just on my way back to Central when I got...sidetracked. Think you can give me a lift?"

The male narrowed his eyes as if he were studying me.

"Central?" The older female asked, twisting her head on it's side.

I nodded. "Yeah. I have to get there to make a report." At this, the male tensed.

"You're in the army?" he asked through his teeth.

I nodded proudly and pulled out my pocket watch. "That's right! You may have heard of me!" I pointed a thumb to my chest and smiled widely. "Edward Elric. The Fullmetal Alchemist."

The male glanced at the woman beside him and they nodded. Then the carriage started to pull away quickly.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" I ran after them. This was the first life besides my own that I had seen in over a week. No way was I letting them get away.

The carriage started to go faster, making it hard for my shor-my perfect-length legs to catch up.

Suddenly the blonde poked her head out the back curtain of the carriage and she smiled at me. I tried to smile back, tried to show I was friendly and that there was no need to run, but I'm pretty sure it came out as a grimace due to my running. The girl winked at me then, and pulled her head back into the wagon. Two seconds later she leapt out of the wagon and walked calmly over to me, like it was the most natural thing in the world. The wagon continued on, as if she had never left.

"Are you sure you should-" I started.

"It'll be fine. Watch this." She dropped to the ground and clutched at her ankle. Then her mouth opened and she let out a howl I was certain the town I had come from had heard. The wagon stopped, and the heads of the other two peeked around the sides.

"PACIFICA!" The boy yelled as he jumped out of his seat. As he started to run towards us, he brandished a long broadsword in his hands. Instinctively, I backed away, not wanting a fight. Looks like that didn't matter to this guy though, since he continued running at me anyway.

I clapped my hands together immediately, and transmuted the top layer of my automail arm into a small sword. At the bright flash, the male stopped, his eyes wide. He didn't stop for long though, and promptly resumed coming after me.

"SHANNON!" The blonde girl yelled as our blades met, sending out sparks. This guy was good. He had complete control over his sword. It was all I could do just to defend myself. Finally though, I decided it was time to stop this fight. It was clear that they had the wrong idea about me, though I couldn't say why.

I dropped to the ground to avoid his next swing and whipped my feet along the dirt to knock him off his, but, the jerk jumped over them!

"What's your problem?" I asked as I rolled to the side. I'd just have to trap him somehow.

He leapt at me with a scowl that reminded me of Mustang on his face. That did it. I clapped my hands together again and slapped them to the ground. There was a bright blue glow, and four tall walls of solid dirt sprung up around the young male, trapping him inside.

"Dammit!" I heard him yell. I snickered, proud of my accomplishment.

"What did you do?" the blonde asked with awe.

"Don't worry, I didn't put a ceiling on it. He can still breath." I walked over to the wall of dirt. "Who are you and why did you attack me?"

The other girl ran up this time, her hand extended out before her. I didn't have time to react before:

"People of the flames, dance!"

A small explosion went off inches from my feet. I leapt back, shock wide on my face.

"Oopsie! I missed Shannon," she called, looking at the walls that held the male.

"Who cares! Just get me out of here so I can kick that pipsqueak's ass!"

Oh no he didn't.

"WHO'RE YOU CALLING SO SHORT HE CAN'T BE SEEN WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS?"

I busted through the dirt wall myself and tackled the male to the ground. Luck was on my side. He obviously hadn't been expecting that, so his shock had made him drop his sword a few feet away. This didn't matter to me at the time though, since I was releasing my anger on his face.

"Stop it!" The two girls struggled to pull me off of the male, who now sported a bloody nose. Heh. Now, more then ever he looked like Mustang.

I (somehow) managed to calm myself, and the girls released me. I straightened my coat and patted the dirt off my clothes.

"What is your problem?" I asked again. The male slowly stood, and wiped some of the blood off his face.

"RUN PACIFICA!" he yelled.
I rolled my eyes and clapped my hands together. Thin bars of black dirt sprung out of the ground and gathered above each of them, trapping each in their own little prison.

"Cool!" the blonde exclaimed. "How do you do that?"

The male leapt forward and started pulling on the bars, expecting them to give. The funny thing about dirt is, that packed together, along with the many rocks around, it can get pretty hard when transmuted correctly.

"Look," I said, sitting on the ground. All of this was starting to wear me out. "I just wanted you to give me a lift to Central. I was going to let you go when you left," I lied. Like hell was I going to do that, but they didn't need to know. "But you come at me with a sword, I'm going to defend myself."

"You said your name was Edward?" The young woman asked politely.

I nodded. "That's right. I'm a state alchemist. Now, I'd understand if you guys don't like state alchemists, but that's no reason-"

"Alchemists?" the young woman gasped.

The male turned to her. "Raquel?"

"I didn't think alchemists still existed," she explained.

This made me laugh. "Where have you guys been? Under a rock? Alchemy is the science of Amistris."

"Amistris?" the young woman asked again. Suddenly she smiled broadly and looked at the male. "I think we made it!"

He took a deep breath and looked at me. "Have you heard the story of the Scrapped Princess?"

I thought for a moment. It didn't sound familiar. Shaking my head, I answered, "no. Should I?"

All three had smiles now. I returned them. It seemed I had said something right.

"We would be happy to take you to this...Central," the woman told me, "but we're not from around here."

"We're visitors," the blonde chimed.

"Like, from another country?" This seemed pretty obvious now. No wonder that guy had attacked me. He probably thought I was some bandit or something.

The three started to nod slowly.

"So who are you?"

The blonde opened her mouth to answer, but the man spoke up. "How do we know we can trust you?"

Well that was a fair question. "How about, I start by releasing you from your bars, huh? I trust you, you trust me. Equivalent exchange."

The male thought for a moment, then nodded curtly. A flash of light later, the bars were gone back into the ground, as if they had never been there before.

"So this is alchemy," the woman asked in awe.

I smiled and turned to the male. "Your names?"

He studied me for a minute, then pointed to the woman. "That's my sister Raquel, my sister Pacifica and I'm Shannon."

I looked at the blonde, then Shannon and Raquel. While the latter two looked so alike they could be twins, the blond bore no resemblance whatsoever. "Your sister?" I asked, pointing to Pacifica.

"I was adopted," she explained, coming forward.

That explained it. "Your parents?" They all looked pretty young. While it wasn't odd to see young people like them traveling by themselves (just look at me and Al), it did seem odd that siblings would travel together across borders without the aid of some parental figure.

"They died protecting me," Pacifica said quietly.

"Oh. Sorry." Shouldn't have asked.

"And yours?" Shannon asked.

Supposed I walked into that one. They did tell me about their's though...

"My mother died about five years ago. My father left years before that," I added tersely, telling them with my tone that he was the last person I wanted to talk about. "So where are you heading?" I asked before they could question me more about my past.

"We don't really have a destination in mind," Raquel responded.

"Yeah," Pacifica agreed. "We're just kind of going."

I stared at them. Traveling with no place in mind?

"You wouldn't happen to know if there is a town around here, would you?" Pacifica asked. "I'd really like to sleep in a bed."

"I told you we're camping out," Shannon told her, agitation evident in his voice. "We don't have the money."

Raquel smiled. "We don't have money in this county's currency anyway."

"That's right," Shannon agreed. "So we couldn't stay in a hotel anyway."

Finally. Here was something I could trade with them on. "If you give me a lift, I can pay for your hotel at the next town we reach."

Pacifica's face lit up instantly and Raquel smiled politely. Shannon, however, narrowed his eyes. He didn't get a chance to say anything though, for in seconds Pacifica had grabbed my arm and started dragging me back to their wagon.

"Let's go Shannon!" She called once we reached the wagon. "You gonna stand there all night?"

"Oh my," Raquel chuckled as she climbed up into the cabin. Pacifica climbed in after her and put out a hand to help me up. Instead, I walked around to the front and climbed up to where the reigns were. Shannon was sitting beside me a minute later.

"Don't try anything," he said, pointing to a small dagger placed under the seat for his easy reach.

I laughed. "Still don't trust me, eh? Well, I can't promise we'll reach a town tonight anyway." The sun had set now, and the sky was continuously turning dark blue.

"What?" Pacifica cried from the back. She poked her head through the curtain that was behind Shannon and I. "But I thought you said-"

"I said the next town we reached. I've been on this path for about a week."

Shannon snickered. "Got lost, huh?"

I scowled at him. I didn't want to hear comments like that from him.

Pacifica, having already lost interest in the situation, pulled her head back and started talking to Raquel about something I couldn't make out, nor did I care to.

A/N: That's the first chapter of this amazingly long epic (well, perhaps "epic" is too strong a word. The story is too long for me to be comfortable putting it in what would most likely be a 40 or 50+ chapter story, so I split it into two parts. Part one (what you're reading now), is compleatly done and will be posted in chapter pairings weekly until it's all up. Then, if I get enough buzz and good reviews about it, perhaps I'll be driven to finish writting part two. So please keep reading and be sure to review! Also, don't be afraid to share your ideas with me! I've hit a bit of a road block with part two and could use all the help I can get! But that relies on your reveiws!
~*Figurine889