Koda-chan!
Spoilers: None...
Disclaimer: I only own Kodora.
Note: Please, warn me if Koda-chan slips into a Mary-Sue-ish state and I'll do my best to fix it. Also, everyone, write Al x Catgirl fics!
Alphonse Elric is the younger brother of the renowned Edward Elric AKA The Fullmetal Alchemist, "The Hero of the People." However, due to the fact that Alphonse's entire body is a suit of metal armor, and Edward's is completely normal; save an automail arm and leg, both of which are normally hidden, people always believe that Alphonse, in reality, is Edward.
However, Alphonse and Edward are different. Edward has temper problems, Alphonse is sometimes overly kind; Edward refuses to take care of animals, Alphonse always does behind Edward's back. But they both are similar in some ways as well. For instance, they would both go to hell and back if it could help the other.
Alphonse has been noticing something lately. Cats always came to him, and he liked to think they spoke of him as "The Hero of the Kitties," or something like that. But back to the point, lately, they had been striped orange furred ones, bright green eyed ones. In fact, Alphonse was beginning to suspect the tiger-like cats he kept finding and taking care of, Edward kept throwing out and giving away, and he found more again, were in fact, the same cat.
But that made no sense. Could a cat really remember how much love and care Alphonse gave each cat? Would they see what kind of person he was, literally through his eyes?
Of course not. … Right?
Alphonse Elric looked out and sighed, the sigh echoing through his iron body. This was no regular storm, it was a completely and total downpour. A chuckle followed the sigh.
"Nii-san always used to run in screaming 'Typhoon!' over and over when it got like this…" said Alphonse reminiscently. He shook his iron head and was about to shut the shades, when he spotted a small, quivering pile of fur under a tree. Alphonse peeked at the staircase and smiled inwardly. Edward and Winry were still arguing, and from the sounds of it, it would be a good ten minutes longer.
Going as quietly as a "possessed" suit of armor could, Alphonse went outside. Rain bounced off of him, making odd noises, especially when the hail starting to fall. Eventually, he arrived under the tree. He bent down and confirmed it was a cat, and either exactly the same as or similar to the cat he had been seeing so often. But that wasn't important to Alphonse right then, the safety of the small creature was. Just as Alphonse bent down to pick up the cat, he heard a loud splash, followed by a very loud yell on Winry's part.
After gingerly placing the cat inside his hollow stomach, Alphonse slowly treaded through puddles and mud, back to the house, wiping his metal -boot-like feet when he got to the porch, as to not let anyone know he was outside.
Once inside, Alphonse sat on a chair and pulled out the cat, setting it on the table. It's large, green eyes stared up at him, and a soft mew escaped it. After Alphonse was positive the cat was calm, he got up once more and poured some milk into a plate and set it on the table, right in front of the cat. The cat looked from the milk, to Alphonse, and back to the milk again.
"Go on." said Alphonse kindly. "I'm sure you're very hungry."
The cat mewed again, and trotted over to the plate and began lapping the milk up. Alphonse simply watched as the cat happily drank away, making sure his brother was still upstairs yelling or being yelled at by Winry. When the yells stopped and a door slammed open, Alphonse quickly picked up the cat and put it back inside him.
"Ssh, don't make a sound or nii-san will put you outside!" warned Alphonse. The cat gave a very quiet "meow", and curled up inside Alphonse. Alphonse, satisfied with the "answer", got up and put the plate in the sink, just as Edward came down the stairs, his automail arm currently missing.
"Hey Al." said Edward darkly, raising his normal arm as a sign of greetings.
"Nii-san, what happened?" questioned Alphonse, motioning to Edward's arm, or lack thereof.
"Long story short, Winry threw it at me, I ducked, it bounced off the desk and out the window." explained Edward with a scowl. "I have been told to retrieve it, and when the mighty Winry-sama feels like it, she'll fix it and reattach it."
"Oh…" Alphonse could only wonder what they were arguing about, somehow when he heard Winry and his brother yell, the words were always muffled.
It was much later that night when Winry finally decided to fix Edward's arm, long after everyone would be asleep. Everyone who was able to sleep, at any rate.
Alphonse Elric was one who did not sleep. And while Winry was quietly, yet somehow loudly at the same time, fixing up Edward, Alphonse decided to check on his "guest."
"Are you awake?" whispered Alphonse, not really expecting an answer. He peeked down into his hollow stomach, and his eyes met two green ones that seemed to glow from the darkness inside him. "Well then, here we go…"
Alphonse lifted the cat from within his stomach to on top of his chest. The cat tilted it's head, before mewing and curling up next to a spike on Alphonse's armored body. However, the cat did not look like it was falling asleep, no, it's green eyes were staring at Alphonse.
Alphonse reached up and hesitantly gave the cat a stroke on it's back. He was hesitant because the cold steel that was his fingers might not feel as nice as warm, soft hands. The cat didn't seem to mind, it purred and it's green eyes that had simply looked tired, now looked expectant. So Alphonse continued stroking the cat's back, staring up at the ceiling of his room as he did so.
Edward was temporarily sleeping on a couch downstairs, mainly because his bed was destroyed. Alphonse slept on a metal cot, but he couldn't tell the difference between that and a bed anyway. And Winry, for some reason, had forbidden him from using alchemy to fix the bed. So he was stuck with the couch, leaving Alphonse to himself for a little while, mainly until they were called back on an assignment and had to leave, new information on the Philosopher's stone arose and they had to leave, or Winry let Edward use alchemy on the bed and they could stay.
"Hey, Al-kun. You awake?"
Alphonse might have noticed that what he had been stroking and what was now perched on top of him had not been a cat if he had a sense of touch. Unfortunately, Alphonse did not have a sense of touch. He did, however, have a sense of hearing. And when he heard was definitely not a "meow," but a voice. A girl's voice that seemed to have a small purr to it.
Alphonse looked down to see two cat-like bright green eyes, on a body that wasn't that of a cat's, but surely wasn't one of a human's either.
Alphonse stared. The girl, no cat, no girl… The catgirl stared back, and tilted her head.
"Well, Al-kun?" asked the catgirl again. Alphonse looked over her quickly as he tried to figure out what was happening.
She had fairly short orange hair, which was strangely black at the roots. Her skin was very tan, and her mouth was held like a cat's mouth, with two small fangs showing. She had two black furry cat ears poking out of her hair. Her eyes were the same, if a bit bigger. Bright green with cat-like slits. She was completely naked and looked to be around the age Alphonse would be, had his soul not been trapped in armor. She had an orange and black striped tail poking out of where her spine ended, and her hands vaguely resembled paws, the backs of which were slightly furry.
"Er… Who are you?" stammered Alphonse, the question's echo barely heard from his hollow body.
"Hmm…" The catgirl scratched her cheek absentmindedly, and Alphonse saw the small claws where nails should be. "My name is Kodora, but you can call me Koda-chan!"
"Alright then, um, Koda-chan, what exactly are you?" asked Alphonse, briefly noticing the toes on her crossed legs also had tiny claws.
"About a second ago, I was a cat. Now, I'm… Half cat?" Kodora tilted her head as she looked herself over. "Well, I just wished I could talk to you, and now I can!"
"Well… Can you get off me please?" asked Alphonse, then hastily added. "So I can get up, I mean."
"Okay Al-kun!" Kodora hopped off Alphonse and onto Edward's broken bed. However, the little sturdiness the "bed" had was gone, and it collapsed, tossing pillows and sheets into the air. As the feathers from the pillows floated to the ground, Kodora sat on the bed, her eyes spinning. Giggles escaped her.
"Are you all right?" asked Alphonse worriedly, getting up from the cot.
"Uh huh…" Kodora shook the sheet that had fallen on her.
"Oh, good…" Alphonse then sat on the cot, his red and white eyes looking over Kodora, who looking at the bed, seemingly fascinated by one of the springs. "Now then, um, so you're a cat?"
"I was, but I think I'm kinda person now…" said Kodora thoughtfully.
"Person?" Alphonse stopped wondering many things to question the catgirl's term.
"Isn't that what you are? You and your brother, the tinier person, are persons, right? Like us cats are cats, dogs are dogs, and birds are birds!" explained Kodora happily.
"Oh… No, we're not 'persons', we call ourselves 'humans'." explained Alphonse. The catgirl standing before him tilted her head, and smiled brightly.
"Okay Al-kun, you know best after all!" proclaimed Kodora happily. "Anything Al-kun says is right, us cats know that! He's protected us lots from the tiny person and the hot person!"
"Hot person…?" questioned Alphonse.
"The person… Wait, sorry, human, who makes fire come out of his hands." explained Kodora.
"Oh, okay." Alphonse nodded inwardly. "The 'hot person' is a man named Roy Mustang, and the 'tiny person' has a name. It's Edward Elric."
"Okay!" Kodora excitedly pumped a fist into the air, and the sheet covering her slipped down to her waist. Alphonse, had he had a hormone-equipped body, would have more than likely blushed. Instead, he looked directly at Kodora's face.
"Alright then, so…" Alphonse nodded once more inwardly. He felt unusual, but then, anyone in his position would. "Cats seem to like me, and one of them has somehow turned into a half human, but I don't think it's a chimera…"
"Hey! Al-kun, you may always be right, but I am a girl cat, not an it!" exclaimed Kodora, standing up and motioning to in-between her legs. Even in a hormone-less body, Alphonse's metal cheeks still turned red hot. Kodora sat back down and Alphonse sighed inwardly. "But even though I come to see you a lot, you've never checked… Do you want to see again? Back home, when litters are born, sometimes parents forget genders and have to check."
"N-No, I'm quite all right…" said Alphonse hurriedly. Kodora tilted her head again, and stared expectantly at Alphonse. "All right then, as I was saying, you somehow turned into half human, just by wishing you could talk to me…"
"I've made the wish every time I've visited you, since the first time we met when the tiny… I mean, Edward Elric and Roy Mustang used magic to fight each other!" added Kodora happily, now blowing on a feather that had somehow got on her nose. "And I like to make the wish when I rub on the magic circle inside you!"
Alphonse's eyes widened, or would have if they could. That had been quite a long time ago. Perhaps, throughout all his adventures and previous meetings with Kodora, she had slowly picked up alchemic materials, and eventually gotten enough that she had transmuted herself into a cat-like human.
However, this wasn't exactly a chimera, because chimeras were usually combining two different things to make one. This was more like upgrading a cat into a part-human. Very interesting, and Alphonse decided it was also very complicated, and he should look it up when in Central. In the meantime, deal with the situation at hand.
"Well, won't your, um, cat family be worried about you? Going off all the time just to see me?" asked Alphonse. "Because I'm not really that great actually, nii-san is."
"My family was eaten alive by a big man with a funny symbol on his tongue. It looks kinda like the magic circles you make. He almost got me, but mama yelled and the neighbor dog came and saved me. Then, you found me much much after that." said Kodora, only somewhat sadly. She looked for the world that she had gotten over it long before., and if fact, she had
"Symbol on his tongue…" murmured Alphonse. The man at Lab 5, the Homunculus that ate his armor… He had a symbol on his tongue, Alphonse had feared it would reach the symbol inside him the bound him to this world.
"Hey, Al-kun?" Kodora looked up at Alphonse. "You're just as good as your brother is."
Alphonse had not expected that.
"No, not really…" Alphonse let out a long, hollow sigh and looked away. Kodora shook her head.
"I think you're the best person, wait, human, there is!" proclaimed Kodora proudly.
"… Thanks Koda-chan… That means a lot…" said Alphonse softly. He never had once felt envious of Edward, who had a body, who was the Fullmetal Alchemist, who was closer to everyone else, who was the hero. No, he was content with his role. But he hadn't been told he was the best, or anything to that extent, since he won a race against Winry and Edward as a child. The moments when people thought he was the Fullmetal Alchemist had never brought anything. This felt nice.
"You're very very welcome, Al-kun." replied Kodora proudly, completely forgetting the feather that had been on her nose.
"So, Koda-chan…" started Alphonse, briefly remembering his ponderings from earlier. "Um… Do cats talk about me a lot?"
"Yes, yes we do!" exclaimed Kodora proudly. "I invented a name for you when we first met, and it spread around real real fast!"
"What is it?" asked Alphonse curiously.
"'The Protector of the Cats!'" proclaimed Kodora happily, leaping up once more. Alphonse's armor seemed to have a red tint to it, but slowly went away when Kodora landed back on the mattress.
"Damn it Winry! This is taking too long!"
Alphonse's head snapped around, looking at the door to his room.
"That sounds like tiny person. Wait, I mean, Edward Elric." added Kodora hastily.
"Koda-chan, I'm not going to tell nii-san about you, not yet at any rate." said Alphonse hurriedly. "So please don't make a sound, and hide under my cot if he comes in here. You can come out as soon as he leaves, okay?"
"Okay!" whispered Kodora, nodding dutifully.
"Oh yeah? Well, I'm done now, so there!"
"Finally!"
"Would you two be quiet? I'm trying to sleep!"
"Sorry…"
Alphonse sighed. Pinako had gone in. That explained why he could suddenly hear the yelling. He heard the door close and Pinako go back to bed.
"Who was that?" whispered Kodora. A deep breath seemed to echo inside Alphonse.
"She's Pinako Rockbell, but nii-san and I always call her Aunt Pinako." explained Alphonse quickly. He was about to go into a bit more, when he heard the door across the hall slam open once more.
"Hey Winry, can I sleep in my bed now? Please?"
"Oh fine, you big wimp."
"Yes, that's right. I am b- HEY! I am not a wimp!"
"So why can't you sleep on the couch?"
"Shut up and tell me I can fix the damn bed."
"Yes, you can fix the bed and sleep in it. But I might break it if you upset me."
"Thank you for your kindness, oh mighty one."
"That's more like it."
Alphonse turned to Kodora, his armor body seemingly chalk white, as if his "skin" had gone pale.
"Koda-chan, this is very important, okay?" whispered Alphonse frantically. "When I get back on my cot, I am going to open myself up. I need you to go inside and stay there until morning, and I'll take you to the lake, okay? And whatever you do, stay completely still and completely silent!"
Alphonse then got onto his cot and opened up his chest plate. With a final tilt of her head, Kodora silently leapt off the broken mattress, before crawling on the cot and inside Alphonse, standing in a strange way, as if she was wearing the armor. However, she was much too short.
"You uncomfortable?" whispered Alphonse.
"No. I'm with Al-kun, so I'll be comfortable no matter what." replied Kodora with a cat-like yawn that was quite cute sounding. "Now I'll be quiet. Good night…"
"Night…" Alphonse sighed and awaited Edward's loud and boisterous entrance.
"Ya hear that Al? I can fix my bed!" And along with some laughs, there it was.
It had been a rough night for one Alphonse Elric. An alchemically enhanced cat had transmuted herself into a catgirl, and was currently asleep inside of him. Him, being a suit of armor inhabited by a soul. Well actually, now it was being inhabited by the catgirl as well.
Her name was Kodora, but preferred to be called "Koda-chan." She liked Alphonse a lot, that was obvious, and had nowhere else to turn, though apparently, Kodora didn't see it that way.
And that was the borderlines for the reason Alphonse had come up with to tell Edward when he had decided he was going to take care of this former cat. He actually wasn't entirely sure why he was really going to do it. But he was going to, and that was the important thing here.
End Prologue