Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ The Key to Alchemy ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: WillowBee the Cat 
A train ride.
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Supernatural / Romance / Adventure | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 04.09.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 1.9K | Visits: 306 | Status: Completed
A train ride.
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction / Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Supernatural / Romance / Adventure | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 04.09.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 1.9K | Visits: 306 | Status: Completed
Chapter 2
Dawn sat down next to Al, stifling a yawn. She was still surprised that Ed had managed to trick Yoki into “giving” him the mine. When Ed had given the mine to the people of Youswell, her opinion of the alchemist had risen dramatically.
Edward Elric was obviously a good person despite being part of the military. He might even be a champion. Although, all things considered, if he was a champion, he was a much better one than Buffy had ever been. Buffy probably would have just killed Yoki and left the miners to fate, never noticing that they would suffer even more because of her actions.
“So where are you going after this?”
Dawn looked up at the suit of armor. “I dunno. Where ever the road takes me, I suppose. It’s not like I have any place to be. I was thinking of heading out east and visiting Xing. It sounded like a very interesting country.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have anyplace to go?” Al sounded horrified.
She sighed. “My family lives far, far away. Well, those of them who are still alive. They don’t know or care where I am.” It was the truth... sort of. Buffy and Dad both thought she was dead, and the rest of Dad’s family didn’t even know she existed.
“But it’s dangerous-”
“So what?” said Dawn. “I’ve been living on my own for over a year. I may not be the best fighter around, but I can certainly take care of myself.”
“Like you took care of yourself when Yoki decided to kidnap you?”
Dawn glared at Ed for a moment. “Soldiers are one thing, civilians are another entirely. It would have been beyond stupid to attack a soldier without a viable escape plan. I’m traveling on foot, this is a small town. I would have been found quite easily. I was going to wait for a better opportunity to escape... one where there weren’t so many witnesses.”
Ed nodded. “So where exactly does your family live that’s so far away?”
‘Another world’ thought Dawn. Instead she decided to use her family’s original nationalities. From what she understood, the countries had existed in one way or another around in this world. “My mother was Irish. Her family never did forgive her for marrying my father. My father is half British half Romani.”
Ed raised an eyebrow at her. “Romani? I’ve never heard of them.”
“Yes you have,” said Dawn. “The Ishbalins are of Romani, or as you would call them, Gypsy descent. There are whole bunches of my grandmother’s people living in the British Isles.”
“So you’re not Ishbalin,” stated Ed, still looking skeptical. “You could have fooled me.”
There were a lot of British alchemists, right? Deciding to take the chance, Dawn used her native English. “[Apparently I have that effect on people. You’d think the Amestrans would have realized by now that the Ishbalins do not have a monopoly on that bone structure and coloring.]”
“[You have a good point,]” said Ed, showing that he knew enough English to understand her. “[It’s just that... I don’t remember the last time I saw somebody who looked like an Ishbalin, who didn’t have an Ishbalin somewhere in their family. Most people are much less traveled than I am. You can’t blame them for making the mistake.]”
“[I can still be grumpy,]” she said.
“[You traveled all the way here from Britain?]” Al sounded amazed. “[By yourself?]”
“[Yup,]” shrugged Dawn.
“I need to talk to brother for a moment,” said Al. “We’ll be right back.”
***
“We can’t just leave her here.”
Ed sighed. He just knew Al was going to do something like this. “Why not? She managed to travel this far on her own.”
“You know just as well as I do that she’ll never get out of the country without another run in with the military. They’ll... what they’ll do to her.” Al sighed. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that I could live with myself if I just let some defenseless woman wander into danger when we could have helped her.”
“Alright, alright,” muttered Ed, an annoyed look upon his face. “She can travel back to East City with us.”
***
“Come on, we need to get going.”
Dawn put her spoon down, looking up at Ed. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re going with us to East City, right? We need buy you a ticket before the train get’s here.” The way Ed said it made it quite clear that this was an order, not a question.
“Now see here-”
“Please, Miss Dawn?”
Dawn turned. Al stood nearby holding her pack. “I-oh, alright. But if either of you try anything, I reserve the right to castrate the offender.”
Ed paled slightly, but said, “Deal.”
***
Ed stood at the ticket booth, Al and Dawn behind him. “Three tickets to East City, second class.”
“Names please,” said the man.
“Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, and Dawn...” Ed turned to Dawn.
“Dawn-Marie Summers.”
“And Dawn-Marie Summers,” continued Ed.
As the man told him the price, Ed told him which department in East City to send it to. A quick flash of his watch convinced the teller. There were some advantages to being in the military after all.
***
“So, Dawn-Marie Summers, huh,” said Ed. The name was decidedly British. The Enlish word for sunrise, the english word for the summer, and of course Marie or Mary were rather common British names.
Dawn shrugged. “I got off better than my older sister. Then again, anything is better than the name Buffy Anne Summers.”
Ed shook his head. “What were your parents thinking?”
Dawn shrugged. “Dad said that I was named after one of his fellow soldiers who was a friend of the family. Her battle name began with Dawn. I don’t know what her real name was.”
“So your father is a soldier,” said Ed.
“Was. He’s an arms dealer or something equally criminal these days.”
“Your father is a criminal, and you don’t have any problem with it!?” hissed Ed.
“I haven’t seen my father since I was twelve years old, and even before then he was barely ever around.” The hostility in her voice seemed to be directed toward her father. “I don’t see why I should care about a man who couldn’t even be bothered to come to his own wife’s funeral, let alone see her when she fell ill.”
Ed turned away from Dawn. “You should get some sleep. We still have another day before the train gets to East City.”
***
Dawn eyed the men with guns warily, never once stopping her sewing. She needed to finish this dress soon. At the moment she only had one dress, the one she was wearing, to be exact. She had bought the dress with the money left over from buying her violin. The dress she was sewing was in the same style, except the underdress was sky blue and the overdress was navy. This way she would be able to mix and match with the dress she was already wearing.
Did these guys honestly think they were frightening? Compared to Lothos or Angelus, they were fluffy bunnies. Bad comparison. Ok, there were like Bambi in comparison.
And then one of them started to poke Ed with the muzzle of his gun. Dawn edged a little bit closer to Al. When Ed woke up, he was going to be upset.
“Hey! Wake up! Why you... Act more like a hostage, you little runt!”
This was so not of the good. Dawn moved even closer to Al as Ed started to beat up the criminals. When Al got involved, Dawn couldn’t help but sigh. There went her shield.
Putting down her sewing, Dawn decided to help out.
***
Ed turned to his brother, one of the men being held up by him. “So, um... who are these guys anyway?” Hearing a noise he turned to see Dawn standing over one of the men, foot on his throat and rifle in hand. “And where did you get that gun?”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Bozo here dropped it when I kicked him in the head... or was when I kneed him in the balls? Oh, wait, he dropped the gun when I used the William Shatner two-handed punch thing.”
“William Shat-who two-handed what-now?”
“Sorry,” said Dawn. “Star Trek reference. Totally stupid looking move which works surprisingly well, all things considered... What? I told you that I could protect myself. But noooooo, you just couldn’t believe the little girly-girl now could you. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t defend myself! But you’re all with the, she’s a girl and I’m a big strong state alchemist, it’s my duty to make sure she doesn’t do anything remotely dangerous! She could break a nail or something equally stupid!”
“I was not!”
“Yes you were!”
“No I wasn’t!” Ed shouted back.
“Brother, she does have a point.”
“Al, this is not the time,” said Ed. And then he stopped short. She had the same look on her face that Lt. Hawkeye had whenever she started shooting at the Colonel. “Uh, actually, you know what, I forgot that you said you could fight.” Ed started babbling. The resemblance to Hawkeye was growing. “It’s just that well, a lot of people say that they can fight, but they don’t actually know how to.”
Dawn calmed down almost immediately. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. I... overreact sometimes.”
***
Dawn picked her sewing back up, the rifle in her lap. Ed and Al had told her to watch the prisoners while they took out the rest of the criminals. It was kinda boring, but better than doing nothing. They obviously trusted her enough to leave the prisoners with her.
It hurt. None of the Scoobies, well except for Spike, would ever have trusted her with prisoners, even though they had known her since she was nine. Ed had only met her a few days earlier, and he already trusted her more than her family ever had.
Dawn sat down next to Al, stifling a yawn. She was still surprised that Ed had managed to trick Yoki into “giving” him the mine. When Ed had given the mine to the people of Youswell, her opinion of the alchemist had risen dramatically.
Edward Elric was obviously a good person despite being part of the military. He might even be a champion. Although, all things considered, if he was a champion, he was a much better one than Buffy had ever been. Buffy probably would have just killed Yoki and left the miners to fate, never noticing that they would suffer even more because of her actions.
“So where are you going after this?”
Dawn looked up at the suit of armor. “I dunno. Where ever the road takes me, I suppose. It’s not like I have any place to be. I was thinking of heading out east and visiting Xing. It sounded like a very interesting country.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have anyplace to go?” Al sounded horrified.
She sighed. “My family lives far, far away. Well, those of them who are still alive. They don’t know or care where I am.” It was the truth... sort of. Buffy and Dad both thought she was dead, and the rest of Dad’s family didn’t even know she existed.
“But it’s dangerous-”
“So what?” said Dawn. “I’ve been living on my own for over a year. I may not be the best fighter around, but I can certainly take care of myself.”
“Like you took care of yourself when Yoki decided to kidnap you?”
Dawn glared at Ed for a moment. “Soldiers are one thing, civilians are another entirely. It would have been beyond stupid to attack a soldier without a viable escape plan. I’m traveling on foot, this is a small town. I would have been found quite easily. I was going to wait for a better opportunity to escape... one where there weren’t so many witnesses.”
Ed nodded. “So where exactly does your family live that’s so far away?”
‘Another world’ thought Dawn. Instead she decided to use her family’s original nationalities. From what she understood, the countries had existed in one way or another around in this world. “My mother was Irish. Her family never did forgive her for marrying my father. My father is half British half Romani.”
Ed raised an eyebrow at her. “Romani? I’ve never heard of them.”
“Yes you have,” said Dawn. “The Ishbalins are of Romani, or as you would call them, Gypsy descent. There are whole bunches of my grandmother’s people living in the British Isles.”
“So you’re not Ishbalin,” stated Ed, still looking skeptical. “You could have fooled me.”
There were a lot of British alchemists, right? Deciding to take the chance, Dawn used her native English. “[Apparently I have that effect on people. You’d think the Amestrans would have realized by now that the Ishbalins do not have a monopoly on that bone structure and coloring.]”
“[You have a good point,]” said Ed, showing that he knew enough English to understand her. “[It’s just that... I don’t remember the last time I saw somebody who looked like an Ishbalin, who didn’t have an Ishbalin somewhere in their family. Most people are much less traveled than I am. You can’t blame them for making the mistake.]”
“[I can still be grumpy,]” she said.
“[You traveled all the way here from Britain?]” Al sounded amazed. “[By yourself?]”
“[Yup,]” shrugged Dawn.
“I need to talk to brother for a moment,” said Al. “We’ll be right back.”
***
“We can’t just leave her here.”
Ed sighed. He just knew Al was going to do something like this. “Why not? She managed to travel this far on her own.”
“You know just as well as I do that she’ll never get out of the country without another run in with the military. They’ll... what they’ll do to her.” Al sighed. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that I could live with myself if I just let some defenseless woman wander into danger when we could have helped her.”
“Alright, alright,” muttered Ed, an annoyed look upon his face. “She can travel back to East City with us.”
***
“Come on, we need to get going.”
Dawn put her spoon down, looking up at Ed. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re going with us to East City, right? We need buy you a ticket before the train get’s here.” The way Ed said it made it quite clear that this was an order, not a question.
“Now see here-”
“Please, Miss Dawn?”
Dawn turned. Al stood nearby holding her pack. “I-oh, alright. But if either of you try anything, I reserve the right to castrate the offender.”
Ed paled slightly, but said, “Deal.”
***
Ed stood at the ticket booth, Al and Dawn behind him. “Three tickets to East City, second class.”
“Names please,” said the man.
“Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, and Dawn...” Ed turned to Dawn.
“Dawn-Marie Summers.”
“And Dawn-Marie Summers,” continued Ed.
As the man told him the price, Ed told him which department in East City to send it to. A quick flash of his watch convinced the teller. There were some advantages to being in the military after all.
***
“So, Dawn-Marie Summers, huh,” said Ed. The name was decidedly British. The Enlish word for sunrise, the english word for the summer, and of course Marie or Mary were rather common British names.
Dawn shrugged. “I got off better than my older sister. Then again, anything is better than the name Buffy Anne Summers.”
Ed shook his head. “What were your parents thinking?”
Dawn shrugged. “Dad said that I was named after one of his fellow soldiers who was a friend of the family. Her battle name began with Dawn. I don’t know what her real name was.”
“So your father is a soldier,” said Ed.
“Was. He’s an arms dealer or something equally criminal these days.”
“Your father is a criminal, and you don’t have any problem with it!?” hissed Ed.
“I haven’t seen my father since I was twelve years old, and even before then he was barely ever around.” The hostility in her voice seemed to be directed toward her father. “I don’t see why I should care about a man who couldn’t even be bothered to come to his own wife’s funeral, let alone see her when she fell ill.”
Ed turned away from Dawn. “You should get some sleep. We still have another day before the train gets to East City.”
***
Dawn eyed the men with guns warily, never once stopping her sewing. She needed to finish this dress soon. At the moment she only had one dress, the one she was wearing, to be exact. She had bought the dress with the money left over from buying her violin. The dress she was sewing was in the same style, except the underdress was sky blue and the overdress was navy. This way she would be able to mix and match with the dress she was already wearing.
Did these guys honestly think they were frightening? Compared to Lothos or Angelus, they were fluffy bunnies. Bad comparison. Ok, there were like Bambi in comparison.
And then one of them started to poke Ed with the muzzle of his gun. Dawn edged a little bit closer to Al. When Ed woke up, he was going to be upset.
“Hey! Wake up! Why you... Act more like a hostage, you little runt!”
This was so not of the good. Dawn moved even closer to Al as Ed started to beat up the criminals. When Al got involved, Dawn couldn’t help but sigh. There went her shield.
Putting down her sewing, Dawn decided to help out.
***
Ed turned to his brother, one of the men being held up by him. “So, um... who are these guys anyway?” Hearing a noise he turned to see Dawn standing over one of the men, foot on his throat and rifle in hand. “And where did you get that gun?”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Bozo here dropped it when I kicked him in the head... or was when I kneed him in the balls? Oh, wait, he dropped the gun when I used the William Shatner two-handed punch thing.”
“William Shat-who two-handed what-now?”
“Sorry,” said Dawn. “Star Trek reference. Totally stupid looking move which works surprisingly well, all things considered... What? I told you that I could protect myself. But noooooo, you just couldn’t believe the little girly-girl now could you. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t defend myself! But you’re all with the, she’s a girl and I’m a big strong state alchemist, it’s my duty to make sure she doesn’t do anything remotely dangerous! She could break a nail or something equally stupid!”
“I was not!”
“Yes you were!”
“No I wasn’t!” Ed shouted back.
“Brother, she does have a point.”
“Al, this is not the time,” said Ed. And then he stopped short. She had the same look on her face that Lt. Hawkeye had whenever she started shooting at the Colonel. “Uh, actually, you know what, I forgot that you said you could fight.” Ed started babbling. The resemblance to Hawkeye was growing. “It’s just that well, a lot of people say that they can fight, but they don’t actually know how to.”
Dawn calmed down almost immediately. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. I... overreact sometimes.”
***
Dawn picked her sewing back up, the rifle in her lap. Ed and Al had told her to watch the prisoners while they took out the rest of the criminals. It was kinda boring, but better than doing nothing. They obviously trusted her enough to leave the prisoners with her.
It hurt. None of the Scoobies, well except for Spike, would ever have trusted her with prisoners, even though they had known her since she was nine. Ed had only met her a few days earlier, and he already trusted her more than her family ever had.