Chapter 4: The Great Railroad Heist *
The cover for this chapter is simply a picture of Edward slumped over a desk covered in books and papers. Hey, it’s just like whenever I try to study or do schoolwork for anything!
We cut to a train on the rails as a compartment with a man in a waist coat, short hair and hardened face is with his daughter, son and wife. The daughter is, of course, enjoying the train ride by looking out the window (The only thing keeping train travel from pure monotony). The man talks with his family, and how his daughter promised him to find somewhere fun for them, that he can take some time off work. Ahh, a true family vacation. So it’s only fitting that some assholes come in to ruin it by pointing Lugers and MP-40’s at them (Which further cements the whole 1930’s Germany thing). Their leader comes out of the shadows, revealing himself as.....Naked Snake?! * Anyway he says “Family vacation’s over, but don’t worry....We’ll make this a memorable experience.”
We cut to a building with a staircase adjoured with twin lion statues, as a voice talks about the situation, and that the attackers are East area radicals named the “Blue Force”, * and that the man is named General Halcrowe The voice continues as it notes that they have written their demands, but her apparent superior dismisses it as we get to see their faces. The military uniforms in this series are based on late 19th century uniforms, blue, fancy uniforms. Can’t really describe them properly. Anyway, the voice is from a Blond haired assistant who has her hair done up at the back. Her dismissive superior is a man with black hair. He and the other officers in the area start discussing the heist, who include Harry Potter, Spock and Kittan * . The black haired colonel is more worried about the fact that it’s interfering with his planned date. He tosses about the idea of just leaving Halcrowe for dead (To which Furey simply dismisses him). He sees that Halcrowe has his family on board much to his frustration, before seeing one thing on the paper. A smile breaks over his face as he realizes that they don;t need to do anything, as the Fullmetal Alchemist is on board. What a coincidence! * So yeah, you can probably guess what the plot is going to be
We then cut to Ed sleeping on the seats as two thugs are holding the passengers hostage. one of the thugs is amazed that he could sleep at at time like that. He tries poking him with his gun, but when that fails he yells at him and calls him a shrimp in the process.
Ed wakes up with the mood you would expect. He proceeds to grab the guy’s gun and transmutes the barrel into a trumpet. Oh come on Ed, that’s way to reckless. Trumpets can easily be used as guns! *
After kneeing the guy in the face, his partner points a gun at Ed (naming him small fry in the process), but Al lifts his hand up and tries to settle this in a calm way. Ed however, just beats the shit out of the guy. Al points out that he will kill the guy at the rate he’s going ( *). Ed stops before going “And who’s this guy again”. I find that utterly hilarious, since It reminds me of this.
We then see the bound thug spilling his guts about the other hijackers on the train, since is is now visibly terrified of Ed. The news about the other hijackers puts the other passengers in a state of concern, as Al comes down on Ed for losing his temper. So the Elrics decide to take matters into their own hands, as Al takes the direct route through the train, and Ed will take the roof. As the other passengers ask who they are, the Elrics respond; “We’re Alchemists!”.....Riiiight before Ed is almost blown of the outside of the train due to turbulence.
Ed manages to right himself and move off. Inside the train, one of the thugs remarks about how the guys at the back are not responding. Moving forward, he runs into Al. His reaction is one of gunfire, while Al tells him not to shoot, as the bullets might ricochet. And then do. Into the guy’s leg. His partner comes in and has the same reaction and subsequent result. At the front carrage. The gang starts panicking about the lack of response from the other members. Halcrowe takes the time to mock them on how weak and disorganized the gang is, which I guess makes sense, being a senior military officer and naturally against stuff like this. Snake Blood simply blows a chunk of Halcrowe’s ear (‘’Ouch’’) as he proceeds to reveal his automail arm cannon, threatening to send the next shot up Halcrowe’s rear (‘’’Ouch’’’)
Blood suddenly hears footsteps on the roof, and just fires his cannon up, and apparently scores a hit. Blood says “A rat” (Rats don’t have foot print sounds) and the other thug goes to check it out. Ed coils back, as it turns out that the bullet just hit his automail leg. This apparently make it personal. We cut to two thugs holding the coal shovelers at gun point, but Ed throws the bullet into the carrage as a distraction as he leaps in and kicks one of the thugs into a pipe. Before the other thug can respond, the shovelers whack him over the head and then go to town on both thugs with their shovels. Which looks ‘’painful as hell’’.
Ed leaps back onto the train, telling the shovelers that he can handle it, before seeing Blood’s goon aim his rifle at him. Ed dodges the shot, and retaliates by transmutating a cannon which fires a huge cannon ball at the guy (Somehow....), missing him, but sending him careening down the hatch he came from. One of the shovelers yells at him to keep off the tender. Ed thinks about the tender (The fuel carrage which is water and coal) *
Down in the carriage, the thug yell “Blood! That’s no rat!” *. One of the other thugs hears the other members screaming about a suit of armour, before hearing gunshots I assume they met the same fate as the other two guys) as the line goes silent with the thugs moaning “Help...Us...” *
Suddenly, a PA loudphone shaped like a chibified Ed gets trasmutated onto the wall, as Edward’s voice threatens that the entire train is under their control, and to release the hostages or get subdued with extreme prejudice. Blood dismisses him so Edward responds by telling the hostages to hang on tight as he trasmutates a pipe into the wall and floods he carriage with water from the tender. The entire group (Save Blood) gets washed out the carriage where Al is there to greet them. With pain.
Blood gets up yelling that it’s not over yet, but Edward drops down and transmutates his automail blade. Blood charges at him, only to have his arm cannon impaled by Ed who says “Cheap goods. Go figure”. Al appears behind Blood and both he and Ed take down Blood, with Al whacking him over the head and Ed slicing his arm cannon clean off (Which appears to be hollow. Guess it really was that cheap)
The train arrives at the station, as Ed is greeted by the Colonel, who Ed is not happy to see at all. He notes that he hasn’t gotten his limbs back yet. Ed says that he has been working on a way, spending all night studying, and going from city to city, but they have been finding it very difficult, and they have been constantly been coming up empty handed. The colonel states that Ed has been getting a name for himself.
- Ed: “Nothing escapes you does it?”Colonel: “You’re the one keeping a high profile.” (Al nods in the background)
The cold reunion is broken up as Blood escapes from his ropes, stabbing two soldiers in the process with his hidden blade, and a look of pure malice on his face. Ed is more annoyed than anything. The colonel’s assistant asks to take blood down, but the Colonel take matters into his own hands. As Blood charges at him, the colonel snaps his fingers, sending a spark alongside transmutation energy, which then explodes into a fireball, sending Blood into a smoking heap on the ground. The colonal strolls over to him and says: “I’ll spare your life this time. Pull that stunt again and you’re barbeque. Capish?” *
Our chapter ends with Blood asking who he is, to which the colonel responds:
“'’'Colonel Roy Mustang. Better known as... The Flame Alchemist'''. It’ll do you good to remember it.”
....Okay. I know what to do.
Roy Mustang CMOA count: 1
- Current: Showing everyone why he is the goddamn Flame Alchemist.
That was in his SECOND APPEARANCE. Roy Mustang is awesome. So awesome, that as he says on the bonus panel, he is taking over next volume of “The Flame Alchemist!”
Alright. Not really. But as we will see, Mustang would make a great protagonist.
One last thing, I have to say that this story was done much better in the First Anime. It was done at a different point in cannon, which made it fit the story better, we had an Early-Bird Cameo in the form of Mae Hughes and the villains were made to be more threatening. The only bad thing was Blood giving a nonsensical speech to Ed about his metal arm getting him prosecuted or some crap.
So that’s it for Volume 1! Now before anyone asks, I will not be doing any of the Omakes at the end of each volume, as they really can’t be recapped. There are several bonus chapters but I am only doing two of them, as they introduce two minor characters.
Oh and on the spine on each volume (The Chuang Yi editions), Arakawa does sketches of characters that have died, rising up into the sky as angels. It's a little quirk of hers that stems from the general Dark Humor of the series. This is something I will be keeping track of.
- Current Body Count: 1
- Volume 1 casualties: Cornello
Volume 1 was mostly covered in my analysis for the Lior arc and the intro to Chapter 3. It’s simply an introduction to the Elrics and the world they live in. Nothing really to say. But from this point on, there is no more filler. The series will become a heavily serialized one, so it should be easier to fit into a groove. Volume 2 introduces some key themes, and establishes some major characters. It is also, in my opinion, the darkest volume of all.
NEXT TIME: The Elrics have an experience they will never forget. *
