Who: Katou and Edward What: Katou takes Ed for a ride, Ed shows Katou some alchemy When: Friday, April 29th. Where: A field just out of town. Warnings/Ratings: Aside from Katou's mouth and some talk of Ed's less innocent powers, none. Status: Complete
It had been a while since he’d last seen Ed, and he found himself almost missing his fellow metal-armed teenager. Which was exactly why Katou found Ed at the college, searching him out with his aura, and dragged him out to a field he’d found that had had a few nice trees and a pond. He’d been pretty close lipped about what he was kidnapping Ed for, but once he pulled over his motorcycle on the side of the road and took of his helmet, he turned around to grin at Ed. “Betcha you’re wondering what I brought you out here for.”
Fortunately for Katou it took a lot less dragging than it once might have before. Ed watched the world fly by on the bike, he’d never been on one before. He had to admit it was kind of thrilling, the first time he’d really felt anything since the hospitalization. He was almost disappointed when it ended. “Not going to try to kill me and leave me in the middle of nowhere are you?” He asked dryly, unimpressed by the idea. Of course the tone suggested he was half teasing.
“That’s plan B,” Katou quipped immediately, but after a couple of seconds, he chuckled. “Naw man, I thought hey, look at this big empty space. Bet this’d be a cool place to check out Ed’s weird science powers or whatever they are.” Honestly, he didn’t know much of anything about alchemy and didn’t much care, but he did want to see what kind of tricks his friends could do.
Ed gave Katou an unimpressed look at his response. “Hn.” His arms folded as he looked around. “So you want me to use alchemy here?” A blonde brow raised. Okay then, ingredients. It looked like he had a shit ton of grass, some dirt, rock, and moisture from the ground. What the hell could he do with that? He glanced at Katou and shrugged. “Not exactly the most inspiring place, but maybe I can come up with something…” He knelt down to touch the dirt with his gloved fingers for a moment giving it a bit of thought as he stared out at the vast openness of the field. “I once remade a church into a gothic building after they pissed me off.”
“I mean, only if you think you can do it,” Katou said, a note in his voice to suggest that Ed wouldn’t be able to do anything, though that was more the egg on the younger teen than because Katou really didn’t think he’d be able to do it.
He had to burst out laughing Ed talking about the church though. “Aw shit, maybe I should’ve taken you to a church instead. Or maybe the high school. You could turn the school into something way cooler than it is.”
“If?” He asked incredulously as though Katou really was full of it now. Ed could always make something anywhere, whether it was impressive enough for Katou’s liking was to be determined. The consistency of the materials mattered. He plucked at a blade of grass as he looked out over the land, there was one thing that came to mind. Some of the grass was dead, so it would probably work.
Eyeing a spot out in the distance, Ed clapped his gloved hands together to get the alchemy flowing with a spark of pure energy and light his palms hit the ground together. He was very specific about the places he touched, he touched the dirt where very little grass grew-only the edges and projected that blue energy outward. It went into the ground causing it to rumble around them like an earthquake, the wind bit at them in protest at the change of energies in the air. Off in the distance, Katou could see a shape beginning to form out of toothpicks. Wooden ones. It was no bigger than a house, but it was very distinctive. It had rounded tops that came to a point. Several old looking arches and four grand looking slender towers surrounding it that resembled a bishop's piece on a chessboard. Yep. Ed had made a house version of a to-scale Taj Mahal from nothing. Mote included, the water wasn’t there-but it could be if Katou wanted.
Katou couldn't help but smirk at Ed’s incredulous response. He'd hoped it'd get under the teen’s skin enough that Ed would show off, and Katou wasn't disappointed. He shielded his eyes with his hands as he looked at the Taj Mahal, and let out an impressed whistle. “Alright, that's pretty fucking sweet,” Katou admitted. “Maybe I oughta call you for a house reno or something. Gimme a castle or something ta live in.” The he frowned thoughtfully to himself. “Though, Wendy’d probably be pissed.”
“If I had something more interesting to work with I coulda made something better, but I guess this’ll work.” He commented with a shrug as he folded his arms to look over his work and approve of Katou’s reaction to it silently. A little smugly. “I can make anything anywhere as long as the material’s good, this is gonna probably fade away in about an hour.” He motioned. “Not enough rock to make it sturdy. It’s all a matter of quality ingredients.” With one more clap of a hand and bright almost blinding blue light as he walked back a little closer a few shovels appeared on the ground as if made by themselves. “Most alchemist need to draw transmutation circles to be able to do any of this. But not me.” With his boy and Lina’s projection crystals the circles wouldn’t be necessary for him again. “Advantages to pissing off God I guess. Or whatever it was behind the Gate.”
“No shit,” Katou said, walking along lazily behind Ed. He wasn’t entirely sure what the shovels were for, but if Ed was expecting Katou to do physical labour, he had another thing coming. “Still, it sticking around for an hour’s better than nothing,” he said, taking in the replica Taj Mahal again. He almost wished he had a phone with a decent camera so he could snap a shot of it.
“Wait, lemme get this straight,” Katou asked, frowning. “You piss off God, and you get badass powers to create whatever the fuck you want outta dirt. I piss off Lucifer, and all I get is this crummy arm and an early death. How the hell is that even fair?” Not that Katou hadn’t received powers of his own from his dreams, but that didn’t have much to do with pissing off some cosmic entity.
“Well, I lost an arm and a leg so I guess that’s sort of the trade off for the powers.” He shrugged and rapped a knuckle against a metal sounding object under his left pant leg. He’d been putting it in layman's terms really. Shrugging it off anymore. It didn’t bother him as much as it did once. “Not just dirt, everything.” He correct with a glance at the building that began to blow away even as they spoke little by little. “But the materials here aren’t exactly great so…I did what I could.”
Katou snorted. He’d lost an arm too, but he still didn’t have badass alchemy powers. Contrary to when the first met, Kat was now pretty sure that they didn’t share the same dream world, even if both their dreams involved God sitting around behind some Gate. Still, wasn’t too upset about it. After all, he’d received his own set of powers too.
“Next time I’ll bring you someplace better than,” Katou shrugged. “I don’t know how the hell these things work. Whatdya need?”
Ed wasn’t intending on competing over who had it worse, but he hadn’t gotten the ability without any sacrifice. It wasn’t just given to him for nothing. There was nothing for free. “When I first started alchemy as a kid I had to draw transmutation circles to make it happen, but now I don’t need to. Most alchemists in my world still do to make things happen..” He explained as he pulled out a bit of chalk and tossed it over. Just an ordinary bit of said chalk and nothing out of place about it in the least. “My brother still has to draw.”
Ed paused at that question. “Cities are easier to work with. Lots more is broken and could be fixed or changed.” He commented as he looked over at his crumbling work of art. “Where I’m from there’s an entire army for alchemist. I was the youngest ever admitted to it. Most people usually fail the first test three or more times before getting in. I passed the first time.”
Katou caught the chalk easily and looked it over. It certainly looked like a normal piece of chalk. “Just chalk? Can I do this alchem-whatever with this thing too?” He doubted it. He was pretty sure powers didn’t transfer over dreams like that, but it would be pretty cool if, with a piece of chalk, he could change the landscape around him. “An army of alchemists huh?” He frowned to himself, mulling over the damage an army like that would be able to accomplish. They sure could’ve used something like that in the war that he fought. After a moment, he shook his head, banishing the images of war from his head.
“So you test well,” Katou said, snorting. “We already knew that, Broski. How old was ya when you got into this army thing?”
“Yep.” chalk and a little chemistry really, but he didn’t go into that. No need to give away all his secrets now. “Alchemy, and I doubt it but you can try? It’s just chalk so it won’t hurt anything, and there’s nothing I can’t decompose anyway.” He shrugged. “...It’s a skill I’d rather not use, but if need be.” The dreams had gifted him a rather powerful ability to decompose even humans by a simple touch.
“Heh yeah, but it doesn’t just apply to school like I thought I guess. I was twelve.” Ed thumbed the pocket watch he still wore out of habit by his hip, a silver chain from his belt to his pocket hung against his black pants.
If Katou had known it had anything to do with chemistry, he probably would have passed. Katou wasn’t failing any of his science classes (anymore), but that didn’t mean he enjoyed them or paid any more attention than he absolutely had to to scrape by. He looked around for something to draw on, and seeing only dirt and grass, gave up. “You can decompose shit? So, if I started a compost or something you could hurry along to process?”
Katou let out another whistle when Ed said he was twelve. “Kinda a fucked up place that lets a twelve-year-old join the military. Ain’t there some sorta… mental thingamajig about kids going to war?” He wasn’t really sure, but he was pretty sure that could screw someone up. He’d been twelve when he’d run away, and he was well aware he had his fair share of problems.
“Er, I guess in theory but ..I’ve never used it like that.” Ed looked away a little awkwardly. “It’s meant to decompose human flesh.” He didn’t go into further details. He was only sixteen, he really probably shouldn’t have known about this kind of thing in the first place?
“A pretty fucked up one. Yeah, well there’s also no other kids in the world who attempted to bring somebody back from the dead with alchemy...it’s sort of more of an alchemy division more than a war division….I mean in theory I guess if ordered I’d probably have to but I struck a deal with my commanding officer. Mostly investigated incidents involving misuse of alchemy and researching the philosophers stone in my own time rather than military boot camps and wars and junk.”
“Seriously? That’s pretty bad ass,” Katou said, obviously impressed. That seemed like a mighty useful skill to have around, especially for people who dreamed of war. Ed didn’t seem too comfortable with the idea, but Katou barely paid attention to that.
“Well, I guess that’s not so bad,” Katou said, shrugging. He still wasn’t sure any sort of military position was a good idea to throw a kid into, but it wasn’t his problem. “I take it ya didn’t manage to raise the dead?”
“It’s not.I’ll never use it.” Ed insisted with a bit of a annoyed expression as he folded his arms uncomfortably. Scar wasn’t someone Ed wanted to emulate. He hadn’t’ told very many people he could actually do it either. The skill didn’t help anyone. Ed tried to bury it since he had discovered it. Likely only Lina and Riza knew he could at this point.
“Yes and no. What I brought back wasn’t human.” He admitted as he closed his eyes under the sun that started to get a little hot over head. “ It had the shape, but no soul. I didn’t account for it.” He frowned and chewed his lower lip, expression darkening some. “I lost Al’s entire body in the process and half of mine because I fucked up. “ Yeah he’d gained abilities he probably shouldn’t have had, but at what cost?
“Your loss,” Katou said, shrugging. If Ed didn’t want to use it then that was his prerogative, but Katou couldn’t help but think about how useful something like that would have been in his dreams. Still, some people were squeamish about that kind of thing.
He frowned at that, crossing his fingers across his chest. “Shit,” he said, after a moment. “Your little bro, Al? He’s… dead?” ‘Lost his entire body’ didn’t really sound like it translated into ‘dead,’ but he couldn’t think of what else those words could mean, and then the answer struck Katou in the face and he was a little embarrassed that he’d missed it, given that the same thing had happened to himself. “Or didya stick his soul into something else?”
Ed had only used that technique once and didn’t intend to use it again. He shrugged at the response to it. He knew most people would be the same if they had the ability to take away a human life at the touch of a hand that deserved it. But who were they to decide who deserved it or not? That was Ed’s major issue. He didn’t want to be judge, jury, and executioner. He was just a kid. Even if he wasn’t one he doubted he’d be interested in using it the same way as an adult either. Even though Scar had used it without a second thought….
His own thoughts were interrupted by Katou’s voice and he chewed at his lip. “I was able to bind his soul to a suit of armor, but I lost his body in the process.” Reasons he never complained about his automail. Al had it so much worse. “I think he hates me for it. People keep telling me otherwise but...why wouldn’t he?” Ed shrugged and looked off at his crumbling building a little sadly. “I’d hate me.” He did hate himself sometimes, rather often actually..
Katou’s philosophy in life was live and let live, and don’t do more work than you have to. Since killing people was a lot of work, especially in this world where there was clean-up involved, instead of in his dream world where he was stuck in the middle of some war, Katou tended to avoid it. But if someone was trying to kill him or the people he cared about, he’d be sure to take them out first.
“I doubt that,” Katou said, and because he sick of standing around he dropped to the grass, one leg spread directly in front of him, and the other abducted and bent at the knee. He waffled for a moment, deciding which anecdote would be more appropriate here, but then he decided telling Ed the things he had done to his sister, and the fact that not only forgave and loved him, but had named her son after him, was a little too personal for his taste. “There’s this kid in my dreams. Name’s Setsuna. Real fucking bratty idiot, all noble and all that bullshit. You know, the kind of guy who’s just so good and selfless you just wanna punch him in the mouth. We went to high school together, and I fucking hated him. Would kick the shit out of him after school,” or try to; unless Setsuna saw blood, he was unbeatable, “and one time even kidnapped his sister just to fuck with him.”
Katou… really wasn’t coming across well in this story so far, and it struck him suddenly. He spoke a little quicker and avoided looking at Ed so he didn’t have to see his reaction. “Anyway, the kid really did end up murdering me. Sliced me practically in half with a sword. And then I had to be his goddamn guardian in Hades,” where Katou tried to kill him, “and the brat fucking kills me again. I mean, I literally forced his hand in the matter, but that’s not the point. The point is, I hated this kid before I died, and he killed me twice. And then this idiot came for me, and brought my soul back, and my master was able to build me a new body and attach my soul to it. So if I can forgive Setsu for all of that, and call him one of the best friends I’ve ever had in either life, and be willing to die for him, I bet your little bro can forgive you for making a mistake when you were a kid and saving his life.”
No, Katou was right he didn't exactly sound great from his story but he was lucky. Ed wasn’t usually the sort to judge people by what they did in the dreams. Of course there were always exceptions, like if Scar showed up. There would be so much judging. But he was also a murderer plain and simple as far as Ed was concerned. Katou on the other hand he was getting to know. He doesn't seem that way. He seemed to care about what he'd done or he wouldn’t have liked away like he did from the younger teen. Ed just listened. He'd always been eerily mature for hours age but it especially showed at times like this. There was a certain aged look to his golden eyes as they focused on Katou and his story and he seemed to accept the logic. “Maybe. I just don't think I can ask him something like that you know? I've thought about it. Just asking but…” He was scared. He was still a kid after all, and hell he was human.
“The way the dreams are going I'm pretty sure I might die too.” Ed admitted with a strained grin. “We should form a club if it happens. You know tshirts and shit.” He tried to lighten the mood a little.
“You don’t gotta ask,” Katou said. “If he hated you, you’d know. Haven’t you ever hated someone?” He shrugged, thinking back to his own father. “It don’t matter if they’re your family or not. You can’t hide something like hate.”
Katou laughed. “Oh shit yeah, we definitely need shirts. I think it’d be a pretty big club though. Sounds like a lot of people tend to bite it in their dreams.”
Ed thought for a moment. “...I guess you got a point there.” He had hated several people before, Scar specifically stood out. Even that though was a complicated hate. “So. You kidnapped me to drag me all the way out here..does that mean now I get to drive the bike?” It seemed logical, his turn for kidnapping. Nevermind that he’d never driven shit before. He tried to change the topic of death and despair around a bit. He never was one for lengthy brooding sessions.
“Do you know how to drive a bike?” Katou asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
“Err...no. I’m a fast learner though?” He gave him a shit eating grin as he glanced over at the bike. He had no idea how to drive or ride anything, but it seemed like it wouldn’t break as easily as a car would under his grip. It mostly seemed made of metal or chrome a lot like whatever he was made out of.
“Oh, well in that case,” Katou started amiably, though his tone quickly shifted to a deadpan. “Not a chance. Besides, my sister would probably kill me if I let a friend total my bike.” Well, he doubted that, because his sister seemed capable of forgiving Katou for anything he might possibly conceive of doing, but a normal sister would probably be annoyed. “You’re stuck riding bitch until you learn howta drive one.”
“Tch, cheapskate.” Ed commented, though he was mostly amused by the response anyway. He glanced over at the bike thoughtfully for a moment. “Show me?” Or was that a weird request? He had no idea.
“I ain’t no expert,” Katou said, shrugging. He didn’t even have his license yet, though Kanan was doing a good job of teaching him how to ride the bike. “But yeah, I think I can pro’lly teach you everything I know.”
“No shit?” Ed practically beamed at that. He probably could have asked Neal too, but the motorcycle looked pretty damn awesome. “When do we start, can it be now?” When it came to learning new stuff Ed was like a kid in a candy store.