The Price of Life [Fullmetal Alchemist]

Chapter Twenty Nine

Powers Restored

•••

"My help?" Ed cocks his head to the side. "With what, exactly?"

Sonia grabs his shoulders. "Just look at me, okay? I need to concentrate. I want to see if my powers work still."

"What do you mean? Have they not been working?"

"Not exactly. They haven't been flooding my thoughts ever since that night in the Fifth Laboratory. Granted I only tried one other time since then, but it didn't work then, either. Would it be okay if I tried it on you?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

"After years of learning how my powers work, I've managed to read people much more easily. I'd just need a second of eye contact. But ever since I couldn't read those homunculi or my one attempt on King Bradley, I can't do it. I'm thinking if maybe I just focus on one person, with no one else around, I can do it again. Help me out, Ed."

He pushes her arms down from his shoulders. "Okay, but it better work."

"Thank you." She motions him to sit down on the rocks and sits in front of him once he's sat down. "Now, don't say anything else. Look at me. Don't look away until I close my eyes."

Sonia leans in as if that would help her. She feels the pull of his past, but can't quite grasp it. Not looking away from his eyes, she gropes around for his hand. Once her fingers touch the cold iron-based automail, she gasps. Ed's surprised face is the last thing she sees before a flood of his memories comes to her. She closes her eyes, and her hand slips off of his metal hand.

•••

A white room. A white figure, outlined with some sort of black fog. A frightened child. Edward Elric. The figure smiles, then a door behind child-Edward opens. Sickening tentacles grab him as he struggles. Tentacles drag him through an overload of information. Secrets of science and alchemy. Every feasibly possible factor of the universe, invading this young Ed's brain and body - and now mine, too.

'What am I seeing? This is unfathomable.'

Just as my head feels like it's about to split, everything stops, and I return to the white room, Edward and the figure on either side of me. The memory is fuzzing at the edges, so I let it fade away completely, satisfied.

•••

Sonia's eyes open once more, and her breaths are ragged. While she was content with her powers returning to her, it took a good chunk of her energy and concentration, and the information she received from Edward's memory was more than overwhelming.

"Hey, did it work?" Ed guesses yes, seeing the state she's in.

"What... was that?" she breathes out. "The white room, the door, that... thing." The alchemist practically shudders and almost immediately does Ed understand what she had seen.

"The Truth," he says in awe. "You took that from my memories?"

"I did. My powers work again." She smiles. Her determination truly did get her places. But Edward had a look of fright on his face.

"Sonia, when was the last time you used your alchemy?"

She taps her chin. "I don't think I've used it all this time in the desert. I haven't needed it for anything."

"Can you transmute something for me? Just here, with the sand." He pushes a handful of sand in front of them.

"Sure, let me just get my gloves." She fishes into her coat pocket, but he stops her.