10 CHAPTER 10

Full Metal

Chapter 10

By: BigTofu

Beta By:

Roy Mustang

Exceptional Trouble magnet.

I really hate portkeys. That was the thought I had as I was dumped out over a meadow somewhere in the world with a doorknob in my hand. Instead of landing on my face, I conjured a pocket of air below my location. This allowed me to land safely on the grass while I started to wave my wand summoning protective shields.

Not liking the fact that I was almost fully out of my element: I started up a set of transfigured round shields using some of the Gras in the area. Three was what I was looking to create as they took the form of caps shields. Two for the angles and one for the back just in case. And since I was extra paranoid, I set the shields to rotate like the shells in Mario kart.

Staying low, I checked my surroundings only to find an arrow on the ground a few feet away from my landing location. In the distance there appeared to be a tree line, but I already knew that the only way out would be to follow the arrow. So I did just that as if I was on the yellow brick road.

Sticking the doorknob into one of my inside pockets, I strolled along with my floating shields with my senses at full alert. Strolling along, I followed arrow after arrow until I had arrived at a boat sitting on top of a still lake. Frowning at the lake, I cast a quick and simple dirty blasting curse to see if I could get a reaction out of it and of course, I got nothing.

Not even a ripple out of the damn lake, well fuck. Letting out a huff, I decided it was easier to just check the damn boat. When I did check the damn boat, I found something that made me almost double over and laugh. Right In the middle of that damn boat was a hole insert asking for the activation key. The reason why I found it funny was that it was clearly meant for the doorknob that I had in my pocket.

That could only mean that if I was some other random asshole that came and then threw the doorknob away I would have been shit out of luck without the summoning charm. Actually, while thinking about that, I took the doorknob out of my pocket and placed it on the ground. Walking about ten feet away I did a quick three-sixty pivot before flicking my wand to summon the blasted thing.

Of course, it didn't come flying into my hand; not even when I started to call out with the summoning spell accio. Yeah, I would have been so fucked if I had just thrown the damn thing away. Funny thing is that is how the modern wizard saw their portkeys now. A one and done thing instead of something that could possibly be reused.

Picking up the doorknob, I then settled into the boat and did a quick check to make sure that my shields were still set to rotate and protect my person. I then inserted the doorknob and the boat started to move gracefully across the lake.

What I was not initially aware of but was also expecting was the island in the middle of the lake. The shore surrounding the island was beautiful with black sand which ran up into the treeline and disappeared beneath the bushes. The trees themselves weren't those you would find on a tropical island but those found in any common park.

The boat came to a gentle stop but I hesitated as I was still in wonder of it all. This place has clearly been untouched for some time now, yet it still appeared as if it was fresh out of a painting. If I was being totally honest with myself, it was eerie as fuck.

There were no animal trails: which means no forest critters at all. No chirping means no birds with no buzzing indicating there were also no bugs around. That brought me to one swift conclusion given there were no animals or insects of any sort.

Only a few things could even produce an environment like this one and that was either a closed location, but I can clearly see the sun up top, or wards powered by a mighty artifact keeping everything out except for the one with the key.

Sending out two shields to protect my person, I bent over and pulled out the knob key before stepping out of the boat. As my right foot touched dry land, the boat started to shimmer before vanishing as I yanked out my left boot. Grumbling to myself about my own stupidity, I then turned to glare into the forest after I was finished with my little bout of foolishness.

Letting out a little huff, I sniffed the air as I picked up the scent of sulfur, interesting, either a volcanic area or dragons. Then I dismissed the idea of dragons since I didn't smell the usual foul smells that came with charred carcasses within the area. Anyone worth their salt that's worked on a magical husbandry farm would be able to pick up the scents of the livestock in the area and this little island wasn't giving off any.

Walking further onto the beach, I then pulled out my wand to cast the most basic spell: point me. With the thought of the destination being my next marker in this quest, interestingly enough, my wand didn't point back towards the other side of the shore. My wand turned at a frothy five degrees and pointed off to the left side of the island.

Rubbing my chin, I made up my mind as I dug out one of my seekers. Setting the seeker to hover before me, I then reached into my trench coat once more and pulled out my personal grimroe. Humming a little tune to myself, I flipped to my maps page to find where I was in the world. I could have used it earlier, but hindsight is twenty twenty and all that.

With a light toss, I threw the seeker into the air then watched as it multiplied into three before flying off. Putting my grimoire to float before me, I made a few motions with my wand directing my seekers towards where my wand had pointed towards previously.

The map floating above my grimroe started to fill out with the surrounding terrain, but it was the blue highlighted path that drew my interest. Welp, I guess magic was right, but even with that in mind, I didn't let my guard down. Checking my rotating shields one last time, I took a deep breath, held it in, then let it out before heading into the forest.

The pathway might not be the yellow brick road, but it was the only path to follow. As I walked I noticed that the path led into what looked like a mountainside that was clearly cut down to size. Flicking the map upwards to hover at my side, I checked the map to see what else my seekers had found. What I got in return was a whole lot of nothing which was only raising my apprehension of this whole situation.

Shaking my limbs loose, I stretched to limber up before casting two spell circles below my boots allowing me to hover in place. With a twist, I turned my body sideways before taking off down the rest of the path as if I was on a skateboard. With one eye on my map and the other for where I was heading, I glided across the path as if it wasn't even there. With a hum, I pulled my grimroe over to my side as I made a note to follow up at a later date. The note was a reminder to see I could reproduce a skateboard with magic but instead of wheels turn it into a hoverboard.

With the amount of first gen magical students in school, there were plenty of opportunities to make money. Then there was also the fact that this might spark something in the magical community, I really hated all of the stagnation.

My little introspection came to a rapid end as I arrived at the end of the pathway. Before looking over what was clearly a mountain cut down to size, I check my surroundings. Funny enough, while I was checking my surroundings I found the key slot for the door. The damn thing was hidden on the side of a tree off the side of the road. Actually no, it wasn't hidden before as there was a key slot on the rock face but that was so blatantly in your face that I was never going to trust it at first glance. Played far too much Tomb Raider before my death to fall for such easy bait.

Then again, the mountainside looked as if it was lifted right out from the movie Lord of the Rings. The elvish script at the top was clear for all to see as it also twinkled with little star lights. If I wasn't such a paranoid ass, I would have placed my hand on the middle imprint before putting the key into the slot shown.

The moment the keyfob connected to the hole in the bark, a ring of light appeared illuminating elvish letters. Once the letters were illuminated, the key ran down the side of the tree and then did a circle around the area before running up into the smooth rock face.

The sound of grinding reached my ears and I turned in time to witness the rock face split into two. Nodding my head and snapping my fingers twice as I sent out a pulse of magical energy, I summoned back my seekers to circle around over the edges of my shields.

Standing back from the hole, I rubbed my chin for a moment before nodding to myself: reaffirming my courage and making sure that I wanted this inheritance. Letting out the breath that I was holding, I did a head motion towards the tunnel and waited for the seekers to enter.

Standing at the entrance of the tunnel, I put my book away before pulling out a metal band that was shaped like a futuristic pair of sunglasses. If anyone took a closer look at the glasses they would be able to see little quartz crystals embedded into the frame.

Putting the glasses on, I then pulsed it with some magic and waited for the system to activate. In the lower-left of my vision, a map started to form while on my lower right a radar made itself known. Holding my hand up, I snapped my fingers a few times to check that the tracking was working before pushing a bit of magic into my fingertips.

Seeing that the magic scanner and detection system was working like it should, I then pulled out my wand and performed the same test. Once I got confirmation on that, I snapped off two spells, but frowned when the system couldn't recognize a simple blasting curse and a jelly leg jinx. I guess standard spell recognition was still too much for the scanner and detection systems.

Instead of calling a total failure, I marked it as a pass since it was still outlining magically charged objects. Taking one last look at the outside world, I then steeled myself before stepping onto the stairs that led downwards.

As I reached the tenth step, the earth shifted as the sound of the door closing behind me reached my ears. Tilting my head to the side, I nodded as I noticed that the night vision was working perfectly. Everything looked as if I was still outside in the daylight and as I got to the bottom of the stairs and looked upwards. I noticed that there had to be some type of spatial manipulation worked into those stairs with how deep underground I was.

The map in the corner of my vision rotated before giving me a depth sensor showing that I was at least two hundred meters underground. Stepping back onto the stairs, I set two shields to hover blocking the doorway as I picked up the incoming magical call.

Putting a hand to my ear in reflex, I answered, "Yeah?"

The first thing to enter my vision was black eyebrows glaring at me followed by black lips matching an equally black lace garment I had no name for. "Roy Mustang, where are you?" The clearly goth girl hissed at me.

Looking around I then turned back and shrugged, "Not a clue, but still on earth I think."

"You think?" Hermione hissed at me then pulled back confused.

"I shrugged once more, "Well yeah, dimensional portals are a thing you know, and seeing as I got here by porky, I'm pretty positive that I'm still on earth. Unless Rowenna figured out a way to boost the stasis effect projected by the portkey and put her inheritance on a distant planet. You never know with those old timers, hell they used fucking cord and knots to figure out the distance to Saturn and Earth back in the olden days.

"Stop, stop," Hermione sighed, raising a hand to pinch at her brows. "Even your rambling makes sense."

Grinning, I couldn't help but ask," Why the call?"

Hermione glared at me before speaking, "Well, you were supposed to be following behind me, but low and behold, you were not there." She huffed at me before then rolling her eyes," Dumbledore came around looking for you."

"Ahh yes, the insufferable old codger who refuses to die." I replied with a nod of my head.

Hermione rolled her eyes once more. "Well, pretty sure he is going to summon me and ask since a few of the Professors have already asked."

A frown came across my face for a brief moment, "Yeah, guess I can't hope he wouldn't pay me extra attention after getting him kicked on the Wizengamot. You would think his self-preservation would kick in."

"Yeah well, what did you expect, the man's been a lazy fucking snake all of these years and you stepped on his tail." Hermione huffed at me. "Just get back as soon as you can. I don't like the weird feeling I get, it's like I'm being constantly watched."

"Maybe one of the school elves, I haven't really given them any big commands, but I guess that will have to change," I muttered as I thought it all over in my head. "Thanks for letting me know, I'll get back as soon as I can."

Then before she could reply, I closed out the chat and made my way into the massive chamber. With the call closed down, I brought up my map. Then with a flick of the wrist I had it swap over to the school instead of my immediate surroundings, but I still kept an eye on my radar just in case.

I checked the first floor, then the third, fifth as I worked my way upwards. I checked the office and found no bloody dumbledore, so I kept on searching. When I did find that old codger, I found that he was with some very interesting company.

On the map inside one of the towers was one Severus Snape talking to what appeared to be a pacing Dumbledore. Well, that's such an interesting development, especially with Snape running away from the school when Amelia showed up. It was also such a night that Voldemort himself also vanished with Quirrell's body. Taking a snapshot, I forwarded the picture to gramps before clearing my magical HUD.

Shifting the map back with a mental nudge, I checked my heading before strolling deeper into the cavern. Honestly, I would have found the paved path beneath my feet odd, but this was clearly deliberately made for a lot more than just myself. The path was clearly worn from a lot of travel and as I went deeper and deeper, I started to notice the architecture was nothing like in the modern wizarding world. One of the fallen sculptures had me stop to inspect it some more and I was very surprised with what I had found.

The sculpture was a massive thing framed like a warrior woman with her bow aimed high ready for battle. Unfortunately, the head wasn't attached and it was the slight bump in the chest that clued me in to the gender. The reason I had stopped to take a look was because the head had fallen to the side and hadn't been broken into numerous pieces.

The head was cracked and broken of course with multiple cracks and fissures running through it, but one of the ears was still intact and that drew my gaze in like a moth to a flame. The ears were long and elegantly curved, well I'll be damned. Taking a proper scan, I stored it for later while also having my seekers mark notable structures like these on the map.

Once that command was given and processed, my map was instantly updated with multiple points of interest. Without a second thought, I activated my hovering magic and took off in the direction of the nearest mark on my map. When I got there, a frown graced my face since it was just the ruined foundations of some village.

Instead of landing, I flew to the nearest marker, and this time, I did land inside of what could only be a village. The moment that my feet made contact with the ground, I dove to the left in a combat roll as red flashed across my radar. Air whiffed across the back of my neck and I ignored it as I slammed a hand into the ground raising cover around my location.

This time I did hear the distant twang sound before something impacted off the side of my makeshift cover.

{Five o'clock high, crouched behind a boulder.}

Another object plinked off my cover giving me the signal that I was waiting for. Stepping out from behind my cover, I let another object plink off of my rotating shields as I lined myself up for my next action. As the arrow flew past my head allowing me to recognize it for what it was, I struck.

Feet firm on the ground parallel to my shoulders, I folded my thumb into my palm as I kept the rest of my hand loose. Then with one hard motion, I swung with intent and magic behind my actions. There was a yelp from the distance as three solid protrusions of rocks flew out of the ground diagonally to strike whatever was hiding behind the boulder.

Grinning at my own little recreation of earthbending, I dashed forward to catch whoever or whatever it was as their magical cloak vanished as they were struck.

Not letting this chance go, my wand slid into my hand as I took a leap into the air. A flick of the wrist was followed up by a silent body binding spell as I came to a very rapid and sudden halt of my actions.

Bloody hell, it was an elf, and not just any type of elf, it was a drow elf. Eyes wide, I went into a low stance as I shot a silencing spell at the very hot elf before I was alerted that, yes, she was not alone.

Kong, came from the left as something heavy struck my rotating shields. The radar in the low corner of my vision started to fill with red dots after countless red dots.

Even with my radar showing them in my surroundings, I still couldn't get exact locations on them because of the cloaking spells in place, but that didn't mean I couldn't come up with an idea. I had an awful, nasty, horrible idea, and it just might work.

Summoning the body to my hands, I levitated the drow female up above my head as I applied a little tracking charm to her gear. Then before anyone could react, I threw her body towards the nearest red dot as I canceled the body bind and silencing spell.

Then before anyone could react, I tossed up a candlelight spell, but supercharged it for good measure since I was in an underground cavern and I had no clue when it was the last time they had ever seen light. Was it an asshole move, sure, was it honorable to face them in combat, sure. But fuck all that, honor would get you killed and it damn sure didn't fill the stomach.

The bright orb briefly went supernova blanketing everything beneath it and within at least one kilometers in intensely bright illuminating light. It was as if we were staring directly into the sun with how warm my skin felt, but I pushed all of that out of my head. Thankfully I had included the dimming feather for super bright days and damn did it pay off here.

My shades went from a pass the time hobby that I was working on to play Quidditch with to something that was viable in damn near everything I plan to do in the future. Nothing stopped me as I took off hard and fast towards the ceiling, but as I shot upwards. For the briefest of moments, I felt as if someone was trying to tug at my boot.

When I looked down to check it, I found an arrow sticking out with a rope attached, primitives. With a shake of my head, I pulsed a little bit of magic destroying the arrow. Forcing the screams from my ears, I thrust out a hand right before impacting the side wall to the cavern creating myself a little hole.

With no way back to the surface unless I was willing to teleport up, I would have to wait before I could explore anymore. Touching down, I pulled out a bottle of water and drank half of it in one go. Summoning a chair, I settled in to relax, but that all changed after an hour.

As I was reviewing the map and seeing what the seekers had been able to discover, someone stepped into my little hidey-hole. My senses screamed at me as I rolled backwards in my chair forcing the legs upwards as I used it like a makeshift cover.

Yet, the person that so rudely stepped into my little cave neither attacked nor moved from where she was standing. My radar couldn't even pick her up even as my senses kept screaming at me, danger. They or she actually didn't show up on my radar even if I could see, feel and hear her breathing right there in front of me, faint as it was. Okay, I was really going to have to get my hand on that cloaking spell and all of its variants because damn.

Looking her over, I could tell with the hard lines on her face and posture that this was a real badass and that didn't include my observation of her weapons. Two swords were upon her back in clear easy to reach locations while two dagger handles stuck out from behind her back on her waist in very easy-to-reach locations.

Even with the youthful look, she was clearly a mature older lady with the vibes emanating from her person. The sharp gaze that she gave me even had a little hit of approval in it as she watched me like an eagle in my defensive position.

All that I needed was one more reason and I was going to fill her with lightning.

"Our Queen requests your presence." The female drow spoke in a voice that flowed through my ear like smooth silk.

Okay, that I wasn't prepared for as I stood there blinking and somewhat stunned. Then I stood there blinking some more as my mind caught up with the situation. She was speaking elvish, high elvish to be more precise and I understood every word of it as if it was the Queen's English.

Instinctively, I pulled out the keyfob from Rowena that was to be used to unlock my inheritance and looked at it. That all changed when there was a sudden clang. Looking up I found the drow on one knee on the ground in a kneeling position. Her eyes were wide, but both of her hands were clasped before her, one hand cupping the other with the inside hand forming a fist.

Rapidly, the female drow spoke, voice tight. "Twilight's hair! Please forgive our rudeness!"

Just the name Twilight sent a shudder of revulsion through me. Ohh please don't turn me into a sparkly vampire, I could commit seppuku if that was my inheritance after all of this.

Author's Note:

Mixed up the magic and pushed the plot forward. Yeah, this Alternative Universe will have aspects of the books, Full Metal Alchemist the show, and some Dungeons and Dragons. It will be more of a mashup than anything, but one thing is for certain. So expect a lot of interesting creatures and demi-humans, still thinking about some dragons being able to speak or not.

I also hope you guys like that little bit of Avatar Earthbending with magic, because I plan to make this one wild ride. Tired of simple ole spells out of the books, this is magic so lets magic up all kinds of things.

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