Here's my first try at an FMA fic, hope you enjoy. Sorry, of some of the stuff in this story is going to be OOC. Anyways, the beginning may be a bit confusing, but read on and hopefully it should become clearer.
Oh by the way, please don't take the title literally. ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist... and I most likely never will. xD
Seeds of Vengeance
Chapter 1: And So It Begins
Multitudes of cold raindrops fell out of the sky, mercilessly colliding with the world below. Lightning lit up the dark sky every so often accompanied by bone-rattling thunder. A lone figure sat curled up on a couch in the Rockbell residence, thinking the same phrase over and over again: 'It was going to be another one of those nights.'
Obviously this kind of weather was inevitable, though she hated it with a passion. Then again, sitting around all evening long doing nothing wasn't really productive; an auto-mail business could be quite demanding after all. Giving one more sigh, the blonde haired mechanic set off to complete yet another piece of mechanical wonder. Everyone else had already retired for the day, including Edward which actually surprised her considering his tendencies to stay up late reading literature involving Alchemy.
Several minutes passed, yet she barely managed to get anything done. The artificial arm needed to be complete by tomorrow morning, and the lack of progress was starting to frustrate her. Something was preoccupying her, but she couldn't understand what. Ed and Al were both safely asleep in the spare bedrooms, currently enjoying a vacation that Colonel Mustang granted them. This meant that her primary worry was not applicable right now. Nothing else warranted any attention, so what could be causing her to lose concentration? 'Maybe I'm just trying too hard... yeah that's it,' she thought, trying to come up with an excuse. After a few more minutes of fruitless work, she gave up and called it a night. However, just as she was heading upstairs to her bedroom, something caught her eye. As lightning flashed and illuminated the muddy road that stretched parallel to her house, a figure could be seen slowly making his way in the distance. Naturally, this grabbed her curiosity, though it was probably just another unlucky person to get caught in this damned storm. With every strike of lightning, the figure appeared closer and closer to the house, and that figure strangely looked like someone she knew. Indeed the person in question, with a suspiciously familiar coat (or so she thought), looked almost like Edward. She immediately become furious with him.
"I swear, what are you trying to do Ed?" She questioned aloud unintentionally. Upon opening the front door, she turned to face the slowly approaching person. With a look of pure anger, she called out to the supposed Elric brother, "ED! Get back in here before you catch a cold or something!"
"Winry could you keep it down?" The voice of a sleepy Edward yelled from within the house.
She quickly retaliated to that statement, "Get yourself back in... the... house..." Impossible. How could Ed be yelling from inside her house when he was supposed to be outside? Right then and there, she realized her error. During this type of situation, she normally would have been embarrassed to a point beyond comprehension for yelling at a potential customer, but this wasn't a typical situation. That person, who was now within yards of her house, had some aura of foreboding surrounding him. He appeared to be holding up something in his left arm, pointed directly at her. "Um, can I help you?" she called out, trying to be hospitable. However, that caring attitude changed within a matter of seconds. When another strike of lightning briefly lit up the area, she noticed that the item the person was carrying gave off a metallic shine from the light. Judging from the size of the object, it couldn't be an auto-mail component. But as lightning illuminated the world once again, the object turned out to be a jet black pistol, and the person's finger was right on the trigger.
Fear overtook her body at the sight of that gun, which was aimed at her forehead. She ran inside the house with unreal speed, slamming the door shut behind her. After taking a quick breath, she sprinted to Ed's nearby room. "Ed! Wake up, there's a guy with a gun running around outside!" Her eyes widened as she burst into his room only to find it deserted. "Ed... this better not be some kind of sick joke..." she warned, taking out her trademark wrench.
The wooden door slowly shut behind her as a deadly voice filled the room. "Oh don't worry little girl, you won't be seeing that fool for a long, long time." She froze in place, the wrench slipping out of her grasp and hitting the floor with a thud. Almost involuntarily, she turned around to face the person. He was completely wrapped in a dark brown cloak soaked with rain water, including a hood that hid his face. In addition to that, his thick boots and gloves, both possessing a matching hue of gray, were covered in some red liquid, most likely blood. The gun that he held was still positioned to fire a round to her head.
"Who... who are you and what did you do to Ed?" She asked, voice full of fear.
The figure chuckled and spoke up, "Who I am is unimportant at the moment, but as for your second question: I think you already know what I did." He hinted the loaded gun with his other hand.
Her eyes started to fill with tears and disbelief after realizing what this person was trying to say. "You're lying... you wouldn't do that for no reason!"
"Oh but I do have a reason," the person replied, relishing her depressed face, "And I think you too will find out soon enough." With that, he pulled the trigger and her world came to a screeching halt...
Winry sat up in her bed with a scream, cold sweat covering her face. She slowly looked around and realized that it was only a nightmare. Actually, that was a rather weird nightmare. It seemed way too realistic for a haunting dream, and this was the first time in a long time that she experienced that variety. Shrugging it aside, Winry decided to go grab a drink of water before attempting to sleep away the remainder of the night. She descended the stairs and was about to enter the kitchen, but froze when she heard an unfamiliar noise coming from within it. Winry took out her wrench (which she conveniently brought along) and took a deep breath as she flattened herself against a wall. Without another thought, she jumped in the open and chucked the wrench at the figure of a person standing by the open refrigerator.
Her "weapon" hit her target square in the head, causing the figure to fall to the floor in pain. "Oh god damn it, Winry!" hollered the voice of an annoyed Edward, "Can't I get some peace even in the middle of the night!" The elder Elric brother stood up clad only in a shirt and boxers, rubbing his aching head.
"Well how was I supposed to know that you were sneaking around the house at this time?" She retorted.
"You didn't need to! I was just looking for something to eat!" Ed fumed, "And there is no need to throw wrenches at random!"
"Hell, you could have been a damn murderer for God's sake!"
"And since when do murderers run around half naked, you machine loving moron?"
Winry hesitated for a second, seeing that Ed actually had a point. Yet she never lost an argument against Ed, so this just won't do. "At least I do something other than read about that damn stone like some kind of alchemy-obsessed midget!" She crossed her arms and smiled at Ed, pleased with her efforts.
"Who are you calling a speck of dust that is too small to be noticed?" Ed quickly shouted back, one of his eyes twitching at her comment.
"WILL YOU TWO JUST BE QUIET ALREADY AND GO TO SLEEP!" Pinako yelled from upstairs, clearly upset at the lack of sleep she was getting due to the loud arguing going on. This put an end to Winry and Ed's prolonged dispute.
The alchemist sighed again and started heading back to his room. "Hopefully I'll be able to sleep without having anymore wrenches smacking me in my sleep," he stated coldly, straying away from the wrench laying nearby on the floor.
Winry decided to let that slide and considered telling Ed about her questionable dream, but decided that she shouldn't bother him again for the night considering his bad mood that she was primarily responsible for. Quite exhausted herself, Winry set off to sleep away the rest of the night, hoping that there were no more events in store for her.
(Morning: 8:00 AM)
Early next morning, Ed was reclining on a chair in the kitchen while chugging down his breakfast of bacon and eggs like it was nothing. Pinako, Al, and Winry tried their best to finish their meal and disregard the hungry alchemist, but it became unbearable after a few minutes of constant clattering of silverware. Pinako decided to contain her annoyance and announced her plans to the others at the table. "Ed calm down for a moment, I got some news," she said, managing to make some silence, "Anyway, our auto-mail supplies are running rather low after the excellent business we've been having in the past month. This means that I need to go down to Rush Valley and restock."
"Yeah that's great, but what's so important about it?" Ed demanded, ready to scarf the rest of his food.
"I'm getting to that," Pinako replied impatiently, "There is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime auto-mail convention going on there. The latest technology and advancements to auto-mail are going to be presented, and I need to know what we've been missing out on! Sigh, but unfortunately, this means that I'll be gone for at least a full week."
"A week?" Winry spoke up, "Who's going to run the shop while you're gone?"
"Obviously you are," Pinako answered, much to Winry's delight, "And Al, I'll need you to come with me so we can carry all of the auto-mail parts back." Al looked positively overjoyed at her request and replied in the affirmative.
"Wait, why can't I come along?" Ed inquired, putting on a pleading face.
Pinako shook her head in disapproval, "With that beaten up auto-mail on you, it'd be an embarrassment to even bring you into town." Indeed, Ed's auto-mail wasn't in the best shape possible considering his previous adventures. Parts of his artificial arm were missing and his leg's plating was incorrigibly damaged at most points. The alchemist, feeling defeated, started grumbling incoherent phrases containing long strings of curse words directed at Pinako.
Winry sighed from across the table, knowing that she'd soon be building replacements for him. "I'll get to work on making new ones in a few minutes," she said rather reluctantly, "Anyway, when are you leaving?"
"In about an hour," Pinako said, "Or sooner depending on how long it takes me and Al to pack. Speaking of packing, we should be doing that right now before we end up missing the train." With that, she and Al left for their respective rooms to prepare for the extended "shopping trip."
Winry, though trying to focus on finishing her food, could not help but gaze at Ed's damaged auto-mail. Ed noticed her goggling at the torn metal on his right arm, and it was honestly starting to get him annoyed. "What do you expect? I use this auto-mail practically everyday so of course it's going to get ruffed up slightly," he said after about five minutes of uncomfortable silence.
"Slightly! That arm is totally wrecked!" Winry hissed back, "And how do my other customers' limbs manage to stay together much longer than yours?"
"Well I'm not just any customer now am I?" he asked slyly.
Winry couldn't help but smile at that comment. "Yeah I guess, but please at least try."
"I'll keep that in mind," he replied, downing the rest of the bacon on the plate, "And I apologize for yelling. I don't blame you for being mad at me constantly destroying your hard work." This statement actually surprised both Winry and himself hence Ed hardly ever acted this nicely after an argument.
"It's alright," Winry replied, still slightly stunned, "Don't worry about those limbs; I'll get to building new ones soon." Ed thanked her for the kindness, putting on one of his broad grins.
The blonde mechanic placed her plate in the sink and headed off to the workshop, telling Ed that she'll try to complete his replacement limbs hopefully by tomorrow night. Ed in the meantime, had taken up reading yet another Alchemy related book on the sofa. Before either of them knew it, an hour had passed by and it was time for Pinako and Al to depart for Rush Valley.
"Like I said, we'll be gone for at least a week," Pinako reminded them, "So when I come back, this house better still be standing." Both Ed and Winry forced an innocent laugh, knowing that Pinako's request would probably not be fulfilled. After all, silence would be a very rare luxury if Ed and Winry were in the same building, not to mention a small building.
"Don't worry," Ed replied sheepishly, "I'll try to cut down on the arguing."
"That's not very reassuring coming from you," Al chuckled, knowing Ed better than anyone.
"Take it easy, we'll be fine," Winry said with a slight laugh, holding back an infuriated Ed bent on tackling Al.
"Alright then. Take care you two," Pinako waved cheerfully as she and Al set off down the dusty road. Ed and Winry voiced their good-byes before returning back inside, the latter setting off to finish her auto-mail work while the former got back to researching the Philosopher's Stone. The remnant of the day dragged through rather uneventfully. Winry only left the workshop once in a while to fetch something to eat and neither lunch nor diner was eaten formally at the table. The Fullmetal Alchemist himself omitted the meals altogether, instead claiming that his alchemy studies were astronomically more important. It seemed like only a few hours before night had already taken its place outside and the last of the sunlight faded away. By midnight, Ed, who finally realized how quiet it was without having Al to talk to, decided to pay Winry a visit while she worked.
Not only was this a foolish idea considering that Winry didn't like being disrupted when she was at work, but it would mean that another meeting between her infamous wrench and Ed's forehead was in order. Nonetheless, it was better than sitting in silence just reading cryptic passages from a dusty volume. "So what are you working on, Winry?" Ed inquired, peeking over her shoulder at the incomplete piece of auto-mail.
"Just finishing your new arm," she replied, not the slightest hint of annoyance in her voice like it usually would in this situation.
Ed picked up on this and gave her a strange look in response. "Um, isn't this the part where you are supposed to clobber me with your wrench and chase me out of this room?"
Winry shrugged, "I'm not in the mood right now, that's all."
"Are you sure?" Ed pursued the subject, "You look like something is bothering you."
"Seriously, it's nothing," she replied, trying to sound honest, "I didn't sleep too well last night so I'm just really tired." She had another opportunity to discuss her dream, but decided it was insignificant at the moment. Ed gave up trying to force information out of her and instead grabbed a chair to watch her work.
After an additional two hours, both of the teenagers were completely maxed out. Winry finished up some minor details and was about to head to bed, but noticed that Ed fell asleep in his chair. "Hey Ed, wake up," she whispered, gently shaking the sleeping alchemist. She was unsuccessful, however, and resorted to flipping his chair over, which gave Ed a rude awakening.
"Do you enjoy causing me pain?" he asked rhetorically, stumbling sleepily to stand on his feet.
Winry just shrugged, "It's not my fault that you are a heavy sleeper or the fact that my work is boring enough to make you fall asleep."
"No no, it's not boring!" Ed tried to defend himself before he offended Winry's auto-mail passion.
"Yeah, whatever you say, Ed," Winry said, not believing him for a second, "It can't be as boring as reading those books." Ignoring her comment, Ed wished her a good night and retreated to his bedroom. Shaking her head in amusement, Winry shut off the lights in the workshop and climbed the stairs to her room, exhausted from the day's activities. 'I just hope that I don't have anymore ridiculous nightmares...' She silently prayed as she ascended the stairs.
Yet how wrong she was, Winry didn't know...
And there is chapter 1. ;D Please drop a review and I'll try to answer it in the next update. Stay tuned for more.