The next morning, Natalie was up pretty early, even considering how late she’d been up the night before. Alphonse was also up.
“You guys were up pretty late last night.”
Natalie blushed. “I’m sorry Alphonse, did our talking keep you up?”
Alphonse shook his head. “Don’t worry, you didn’t. I just heard Brother leave and then come back that’s all. I figured it would have had something to do with you.”
It wasn’t long before Edward came downstairs as well. When he came in Natalie was helping Alphonse with breakfast. When she heard him, she turned around smiling, “Good morn… ED!!!!” she shouted, covered her eyes. When he’d come in he’d had his shirt in his hand and a towel around his shoulders. His hair hung long as well as he had yet to have put it up.
“What?” he asked innocently. He honestly had no idea why she was freaking out. Alphonse shot him a look. He’d figured out why Natalie had reacted that way.
“Brother, put your shirt on!”
“But I always…”
Alphonse kept the look on his face. “Brother…”
Edward sighed. “Alright, alright…” he said as he took the towel off of his shoulders and put his shirt on.
Natalie’s heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. Holy cow, he was a lot more toned than she had expected. Well she should have expected it though considering she saw the remainder of the scar he had left from when he’d had the automail. He’d had to get pretty strong to be able to use that arm he’d had. He never would have been able to fight the way he had in those days if he hadn’t gotten this way. She was just surprised that even two years after he’d stopped fighting he still looked that good. She’d never tell him that though. Edward’s ego was big enough as it was.
Edward walked over to Natalie and took her hands from her eyes. “Would you quit acting weird? I put a shirt on, yeesh. You’d think you’d never seen a guy with his shirt off before. How old are you again?” He couldn’t help but laugh at her.
Natalie didn’t think he was being so funny and she punched him in the arm. “I’m 18 thank you very much and for your information I HAVE seen guys with their shirts off before; it’s just…” her voice trailed off as she blushed a bit. She quickly shook it off though. “You just caught me off guard, that’s all.” She couldn’t tell if he had figured out the meaning of what she’d said to him last night or not. He didn’t seem to be acting strange though so maybe he hadn’t figured it out yet. That was fine.
“You’re older than me???” Edward asked, surprised by this.
Natalie nodded. “Yeah, but it can’t be by much, if it makes you feel any better. I just turned 18 not that long ago, and at least you’re taller than me… but not by much…” she said chuckling at him.
His eyes narrowed at her. “Are you implying that I’m short?”
Natalie stuck her tongue at him. “So what if I am… pipsqueak… Guys should be taller than girls.”
“That’s it! You’re going to get it now! No one calls me pipsqueak you giant freak!”
Natalie had seen this coming and had already taken off running before him. She couldn’t help but to laugh as she ran out the front door. So he was still sensitive about his height even though he had grown quite a bit over the last few years. Being around her height meant that he had to be at least 5 feet 8 inches tall, a far cry from the 5 feet 5 inches he’d been two years ago. And now that she’d stood next to him, he was a bit taller than her as she had joked with him.
Edward had managed to chase her around the house a few times before Alphonse came out and stopped them. “Come on you two, let’s eat.”
Edward and Natalie both stopped, finally out of breath anyway.
“Al’s right. Besides, after breakfast we get started with your training. I’ll pay you back for the pipsqueak comment then,” he said with that devilish look on his face. Natalie knew she was going to be in trouble.
So after they all ate and had cleaned up they headed outside. Natalie could only imagine what this training was going to be considering how Izumi had worked them when they were training with her. She had to be prepared for anything.
“Alright, so I’m going to test you by asking you a simple question,” Edward started. Alphonse smirked. He knew what Edward was going to ask. They’d spent a month alone on an island to figure this one out. “What is the meaning of ‘All is one and one is all’? If you can’t answer that then we’re going to have a lot more work to do.”
Natalie smirked at him. She knew this one, no problem. “The ‘all’ is the world and the ‘one’ is me. That basically means that I need everything around me to survive and when my time comes I’ll go back to the world that sustained me.”
Edward smirked at her. “Not bad, you’ve done your homework.”
“Do you think I would have come here to you if I hadn’t?” She was keeping up the lie that she had come here only for training. She had to wonder though when they were going to tell Alphonse the truth.
“Now let’s see if you have any talent. Do whatever you’d like; we just need to see what we’re working with.”
Natalie gave him a bit of a look. If she did what he asked then Alphonse would know that she could transmute without a circle like Edward could and she assumed Alphonse still could too. He gave her a ‘don’t worry’ look. “Well?”
Natalie took a deep breath, clapped her hands together, and then put them on the ground. When she did, she created a small ring of flowers from the grass that had been at her feet. Edward just looked at her and smiled. Alphonse on the other hand looked dumbfounded.
“You can transmute without a circle?”
Natalie shrugged like it was nothing. “Can’t you guys?”
“Yeah but that’s because we…” He cut himself off. He didn’t know that Natalie already knew everything and he certainly didn’t know yet that Natalie had gotten Edward’s alchemy powers back. He soon would know though.
Edward then stepped over to his brother putting his hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright Al. You might want to sit down, there’s a few things you need to know about.”
“Brother?”
“Please Alphonse, do as Ed asks,” Natalie said softly.
Alphonse did as Edward asked and sat down on the ground. “What’s going on you two?”
“This,” said Edward as he clapped his hands together and put them on the ground. As he lifted his hands, he pulled his favorite staff from the earth.
“Brother! You got your ability to do alchemy back! How did you do that? I’m still here so what did you trade? When did you even go back there? How did you get there?”
Natalie blushed and raised her hand. “I took him and I paid the price for him to get it back last night.”
“But how did you open the portal there?”
“I did that one too.”
“How? You need to make a sacrifice to open that portal and it doesn’t look like either of you did.”
“I don’t have to pay the toll to get there. I have the power to do that all on my own.”
“Natalie’s special Al. She has this weird magic that allows her to travel from world to world. She took me to the gate last night.”
“He caught me out here muttering because I felt guilty for lying to you guys. I actually didn’t come here to get training, I just wanted to meet Ed and then I had planned to leave. But after what you told me yesterday afternoon Alphonse and then how generous you both were and so welcoming, like I said I started to feel guilty. Well since Ed had heard everything I decided that the best way to prove that I wasn’t any harm to you guys was to show Ed how my power works and help him by getting his alchemy back. You said it yourself Alphonse, you wanted him to get up and move forward. I just wanted to help.”
Alphonse didn’t say anything. This was a lot to take in and Natalie and Edward both knew it. “It’s for real Al.”
“I can show you too if you want me to.” She then took her pen from her pocket. “You might want to shield your eyes, it gets kind of bright.” Edward and Alphonse both shielded their eyes as she suggested. “Charon Star Power Make Up!” Once again, she was in her sailor dress, her lantern staff in hand.
Both Edward and Alphonse took their hands away from their eyes. Alphonse was amazed by what he saw. Natalie couldn’t resist doing a spin. “What do you think?”
“When did that symbol show up on your back?” Edward asked. “Was it there before?”
“Symbol? What symbol?”
Edward ran inside and grabbed his old jacket, the red one with the snake and cross symbol on the back. “This one,” he said holding it up so Natalie could see.
“You’re kidding right?” Natalie ran into the house looking for a mirror. When she found one she had to contort herself a bit but he was right, there it was. She made her way back outside. “It had to have happened after last night but why?”
“Because you’re an alchemist now, and since it’s the symbol we’ve all used, Teacher, Alphonse, and I. I think, because the alchemy has been added to your other powers, it was actually fitting for it to show up on your costume.”
Alphonse was still reeling from all of this though. It took a little bit but they sat down and explained everything to him right down to exactly what Natalie had done to get Edward his alchemy back. She even demonstrated her powers for him.
“So you came from a different world and came here because you had read about what had happened to us in books and came here to meet Brother because you… Wait, why just to see Brother?” Alphonse asked, grinning at Natalie. He already knew and he could tell by the look in his brother’s eyes, he knew Natalie’s reason too.
Natalie just blushed. She wasn’t going to go through this again. “I explained it to Ed last night. If he got it, then he can tell you later.”
Alphonse just laughed. “You know, I had feeling when you got here that you’d be good for Brother. I’m glad you came, no matter where you came from.”
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