Fullmetal Alchemist Ficlet: Consequences
Title: Consequences
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Al, Ed.
Rating: PG
Setting: Vol. 1, Chapter 2.
Summary: After attempting to resurrect their mother, Al awakens to a series of shocks.
Word Count: 300
Written For: My own prompt ‘Fullmetal Alchemist, Alphonse Elric, this suit of armour is all he is now,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Fullmetal Alchemist, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Hiromu Arakawa.
Coming back to himself is a mind-numbing shock for Al, and he struggles to take in what he’s seeing. The room is awash in a sea of blood and Ed is nearby, weeping silently, struggling one-handed to tend the wounds where his right arm and left leg should be. It’s a dreadful sight and to Al’s befuddled mind, it simply doesn’t make sense. He feels strange, his body numb, without sensation, and he can’t seem to draw breath; for an unknown length of time he loses consciousness again.
When he regains his senses for the second time, his first thought is for his injured brother, but when he tries to move towards Ed, every movement brings forth metallic creaking and grinding noises. It’s only then that Al thinks to look down at his own body, and once again shock races through him, but it’s entirely mental and emotional, because there’s nothing physical about him; he has no body, or at least, not in the human sense. Flesh and bone have been replaced by cold metal, rusted in places from disuse. There’s only one explanation; Ed did this to him somehow.
Al reaches for his older sibling. “Brother, why?”
Ed’s answering laugh is bitter and entirely without humour. “Sorry. All I could get for one arm was your soul.”
Ah. So that’s it. Trying to resurrect their mother had cost Al his body, and to save him, Ed had sacrificed an arm; this rusted metal hulk must have been the only suitable receptacle available to hold his soul. His nonexistent heart aches for his brother’s selfless bravery, even as he realises all he is now is an animated suit of armour. That’s not important though, because he’s alive; he and Ed still have each other, and that’s all that really matters.
The End