Stand Up and Walk

All Things Are Possible

"I still have too long a life ahead to get rid of these feelings, right? I want to try doing over the things I've left undone. I thought I was running after something carried over from my dreams, yet I'm stumbling into people on this narrow, winding road. It's not like I want to go back to the way things were back then; I'm just searching for the sky I've been losing. Here's hoping you'll understand. Stop making that sad face as though you were a victim. Sins don't end in tears; you have to carry the pain forever. Who am I waiting for in this maze of emotions with no way out in sight? I want to purge myself more simply, as if writing in a blank notebook. What is it I want to escape from? ...Is it reality? It makes me want to scream that we're alive for things to come true. Can you hear me? I can't put up with playing it safe. ...I've got nowhere to go home to! I'm always grateful for kindness; that's why I want to grow stronger (I'm on the way). I even welcome this pain for the things I miss."
—Yui, Again

...

"God's children would ever roam this land. Pray and thee shall be seen. Those who have lost their way, the sun god Leto shall surely..."

You roll your eyes at the voice droning on and on from the radio. "So what are you guys, anyway?" the man behind the counter asks. "Street performers or something?"

Ed does a spit-take. "Seriously? Do we look like street performers to you?"

The man looks a little confused. "Well, yeah, that's why I asked!"

Ed scowls. "Let's go Echo, Al."

You and Ed slide off the tall bar stools, but as Al stands up, his helmet knocks into the top of the stand, sending the man's radio crashing to the floor, where it shatters.

"Hey!" the man shouts. "Easy! I didn't mean nothing by it!"

You grimace. "Sorry, sir. Accident, I swear. We'll fix it!"

"How's that? It's smashed to hell!"

Ed chuckles. "Watch and learn, Gramps."

Al draws his transmutation circle around the broken radio. "Alright," he says, conscious of the ever-growing crowd around you. "Here goes!"

There is a swirling blue light, and then the radio is back together again, the voice droning on and on as though there had never been anything wrong.

Guess we are street performers after all.

"There, see?" Ed points flashily at the repaired radio, sparkling like Mister Armstrong (only less fabulously). "How's that?"

"Amazing!" the food-stand man murmurs. "It's a miracle! You've been touched by the sun god, just like Father Cornello!"

You sweat-drop. "Touched by whom?"

"It's no miracle," Al explains. "It's alchemy!"

"Oh," someone in the crowd says. "So you three are alchemists. Yeah, I've heard of them!"

Ed folds his arms over his chest smugly. "Well then, maybe you've heard of us! This is Echo Slade, and we're the Elric brothers!"

The man behind the counter taps his chin thoughtfully. "Echo and the Elric brothers, you say?" he repeats. "Wait, I do know those names! The Smokebomb Alchemist, and her buddy Fullmetal, is that right?"

You flick your thumb under your nose proudly, watching Ed as the crowd surges around you and Al. He is smirking smugly, not noticing the fact that the recognition is not being given to him, but rather to you and his brother.