The Other Half (Female)

OoC: This is so that Altra can get a gf, and a little romance and human contact back into his life. Please try to choose a char that will match Altra's personality well. And no guys please!

BiC: Altra sighed. He looked sadly down at the remains of his many bottles and chemicals. Shards. All shards. Every last one. Walking through the battlefield, Altra looked passed the trees at the setting sun. Good God. What a long battle. Altra looked back down at his ruined equipment again. I guess I'll have to go to the nearest town if I want any more supplies.

Picking up the black leather coat up off the ground, the alchemist headed down the road.

* * * * *

Altra sighed with distaste, looking down at the city. Hmp. Civilization. Who needs it? Crime, murder, theft, war, filth, crowds... Image after image flashed through the alchemist's mind.

Blood, Death, Hate.

"No!" Rubbing his eyes, Altra started down the road again. As the alchemist approched the city gate, he began to pull nervously at his coat, as he always did when he approached crowds. He was stopped by a tall, burly man in red and black livery.

"Whats your business in town, sir." The guard asked in a rough voice.

"I need supplies." Altra replied, rubbing his hands on the side of his coat as they began to sweat.

Fire, Flames, Heat.

Blinking rapidly, Altra wiped the sweat off his forhead. The guard looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Are you ok? You look kinda......sick." The man started to step forward.

Altra waved him off. "I'll.....I'll be fine. It just a passing illness."

The guard still looked at him funny, but waved him through. Altra wavered as he walked. That was a long time ago. Its in the past. You're not affected by it anymore. The alchemist walked around the corner and put his head against the stone wall surrounding the city. Yeah, right. You wish.

Pulling himself together, the ninja walked down the street. Turning a corner, he came across a sight that shocked him. A large mob had gathered in the center of the square, yelling angerly. Confused, Altra grabbed one of the men nearby. "Whats going on?" he shouted above the din.

"The man didn't reply, but rushed forward, yelling, "Get her!".

"It's just 1 meal's worth of food!" Kika shouted at the crowd. She didn't usually theve in daylight, but she hadn't eaten in a while. The black mage was surrounded. She looked for a way out of the crowd. The only person that stood out was a man in black, only standing out because he stood near the peasents. Some people walked closer, ready to tackle her down. Voices of the people yelled with rage as the ran over to grab her.

"Fire", she whispered. A fire dome appeared around her. Most stopped and ran to their homes in fright. Some unforunate ones hit the fire and burned themslves badly, they laid where they tackled unconsuis. She removed the dome. Feeling sorry for the burned people. She wrapped some bandages she had around the burns. Looking around, she saw the man in black still standing there. She ran to an abandon building away from the center square. The food wasn't much, but it felt like a feast to Kika.

OoC: Hmmm...... a 25 year-old-guy and a 16 year-old-girl... Oh, well.

BiC: As the girl ran down an alley, Altra leapt onto the side of a brick building and climbed up to the roof. He ran across the flat expanse, leaping across to the slanted roof next to it. He ran, jumping from roof to roof, following the girl. It wasn't untill he watched her duck inside an abandoned building that he wondered why he was following her.

Who is she? Why would she heal those that just attacked her? The ninja leapt over the alley to the roof of the building the mage girl had ran into. Grabbing a pipe, Altra lowered himself to the level of the top-most window. Wiping at the dirty glass, he saw the girl scarfing down a small packet of food.

I should get my supplies. He thought to himself, but he didn't move. He felt sorry for the girl. He knew what it was to be hungery. I remember the first few weeks I spent on my own in the wilderness..... I would have killed for a loaf of moldy bread.

Pulling himself up to the roof, Altra got an idea. He walked over to were he estimated the mage would be, and clapped his hands together. Placeing them carefully on the brick, he opened a small hole leading down into the empty building. He reached inside his coat and pulled out three carefully wrapped packages. He dropped them through the hole one at a time, meat, cheese, and bread.

The alchemist stood up and started to walk away, but hesitated after a few steps. Should I go talk to her? The young man looked back at the hole he had formed. Strange thoughts and old memories raced through his head as he debated these strange feelings he had never had before.

Ooc:uhhh.....

Ic:Kika was done with the food. Soon she heard a sound behind her. She turned with her staff ready. She saw packages on the floor. One held Cheese, another held meat, the last held bread. Huh? she thought. She put them in her poutch for later. She wanted to see who dropped them. She saw a small hole near the top, light flickering from it.

"I guess I'll climb" Kika said when she saw loose boards sticking from the wall. She started to climb. As she climbed, one board broke. She started to fall.

Altra's confused mind was instantly made up as he heard a shriek from below. Without thinking, the young man ran and doved headfirst through the the hole. The alchemist clapped his hands together as he fell. He slapped the wall next to him, causeing board after board to sprout out of the wall.

The young girl crashed through the boards, slowing her fall. Altra flipped over as he reached the girl and grabbed her out of the air. he landed as softly as all of his ninja skills would allow him. Looking down at the girl in his arms, he saw she was unconcious. "Damn. I guess the multiple crashes were too much for her."

Altra carried the girl over to the corner under the hole in the ceiling. He gently set her down and took off his coat. He folded his coat into a pillow and placed it under her head. Sitting down next to her, Altra waited for her to awaken.

Once again, he thought to himself, Who is she?

Kika slowly drifted into consious. She got up fast and checked her surroundings. She was still in the building. She saw the man in black next to her. Out of surprise, she jumped up and pointed her staff at him.

"Who are you?" she said. He got up slowly. She backed up slowly. He seemed calm.

"I am Altra" he spoke. She put her staff down next to her body. She tensed down, most people who ambushed her would not tell her their names.

"I am Kika, are you gonna turn me in?" Kika said to Altra.

OoC:I changed Altra's history a little. He is now 18. XD

BiC: "No." Altra replied, holding up his hands. "I won't turn you in." The two stood there a moment looking at each other. In the silence, Altra contemplated his feelings. He seemed calm on the outside, but for some reason he was nervous on the inside.

Looking down, Kika saw Altra's coat. "Oh....ummm, heres your coat." She said, holding it out to him.

"Thank you." As he took it from her, a package fell out of it's many pockets.

Surprized, Kika picked it up. She opened it to find a hunk of cheese. Remembering the other packets of food, she asked, "Did you give me that other food?"

"Ah....umm....well, you looked hungery, so I just thought...." he said apollogetically.

Kika smilied, her cheeks coloring. "Thank you. That was very nice of you."

Altra blushed. "If you're still hungery, I have some more food. Maybe......we.....could eat together?"

Kika smiled again. "That sounds nice. But," She looked around. "Lets go somewhere else. This place is rather dreary."

Altra nodded. He knew Kika would want to stay from the villagers too. Kika walked to a small hole in the wall. Kika looked through it. Nobody was walking on the road. Kika walked back to Altra.

"Let's leave the village before people come on the road" Kika spoke. Forgeting about his supplies, he agreed to Kika. 'Why do I feel this way?' thought Altra as they walked on the road to the village gate. The guards heard about the 'crazy magic' in the village and were hiding in the bushes. A long medow and a large forest spread before them.

"So where do you think we should eat?" asked Kika.

Altra looked around. He pointed to a lone tree out in the meadow. "Lets go over there." As the two started down the path, an instinctive alarm started going off in Altra's head. Those bushes..... He thought to himself, looking around. I don't think they were there before....

Staring at the bushes, Altra heard a slight creak and saw a little metallic glimmer. As if in slow motion, Altra saw the arrows fly from the bushes, headed straight for Kika. The ninja swept his leg out under the mage's legs and caught her as she fell. The young woman yelped in startlment as a dozen or so arrows flew over her.

Immeadiatly after the arrows, fifteen armed soldiers leapt out from the bushes. "You are under arrest!" The leader shouted, drawing his sword.

"For what?" Altra asked, stepping in front of Kika and clapping his hands together.

"For the assult on several citizens and theft!"

"That was self defense!" Kika protested, quickly thinking of a spell. As the soldiers ran at the two, Altra passed his arms over each other. A shield formed over his left arm and his right hand turned into a large hammer. Four of the men surrounded Altra. The alchemist ducked under the sword of one of them, and swung his hammer-arm into his gut, sending him flying.

Without stopping, the young man spun around, holding his shield in front of his to intercept two more blades. The ninja knocked the blades away and leapt up over the two guards, kicking their heads back as he passed over them.

Turning to the fourth guard, Altra saw Kika blast several of the others with a jet of water. The fourth man ran at Altra, brandishing his sword wildly. The alchemist shook his head sadly at the lack of skill. He ducked under the man's attack easily and transformed his arm again, turning it back into his hand, but with a blade reaching over the top of it.

Parrying the man's next attack, the young man kicked out at his knee. The soldier fell back, clutching his leg. Altra twirled around a weak jab and knocked the guard in the back of the head with his shield. Turning to Kika, he saw her erect a dome of electricity around herself, six more of the men surrounding her, and the other five unconcious.

Two of the solders didn't know what it was. They ran to the dome and put their swords to the dome. Electricity flowed up their swords to their bodies. The next instant they lay on the ground, dead. Kika eyed the corpses with sadness. The other four ran.

They screamed, "Witch! Witch!" Kika shot fireballs to the solder's legs. They triped and hurriedly put out the flames, which gave them more of a reason to run. Altra walked next to Kika.

"Are you alright?" Altra said with concern.

"I'm fine Altra" Kika replyed with sadness. She looked again at the corpses. She didn't want to be a killer. A picture of her brother flickered on in her head.

"Is something the matter?" Altra asked, seeing Kika's sadness.

"Its....its just...I killed them."

Altra looked back at the bodies. "You don't like killing?"

Kka shook her head. Altra nodded as he remembered his own past. "I...I know how you feel. I hate killing." Looking at the bodies again, Altra told Kika to wait a moment. The young man clapped his hands together and touched the ground near the bushes. Two long holes appeared in the ground.

Dragging the bodies over into the graves, Altra recovered the holes. Kika watched as he said a little prayer for the guards' souls. "That was very nice." She told him when he came back over. Altra smiled grimly and the two continued down the path.

When they arrived at the tree on the hill, the two sat down under it. Altra asked Kika if there was a spacific reason she didn't like to kill. She told him about her brother, and what had happened. The young man raised his arm to put around her to comfort her, but hesitated. Is that too forward? He thought to himself, but Kika inched closer under his arm before he could lower it.

After wiping away a few tears that memories of her brother brought her, Kika asked Altra why he hated killing. Should I tell her what I did? What if she hates me for it? "I-I was in a war a few years ago. I use to belong to an organization called the State Alchemists."

"How come you're not still a member?"

"Because......they lied to me. They...." Altra struggled within himself. "It doesn't matter. Thats in the past."

Kika looked like she wanted to ask more about the State Alchemists and the war, but Altra changed the subject to why she was in the city.

"I was passing by, I just do that with most towns, I just steal when I need supplies" Kika answered. Altra sat there, thinking of anything to talk about. As he thought, dusk came and Kika used magic to put a fire infront of them. She kept in place so it wouldn't move so it couldn't start a conflageration.

"Can you please tell me about your past?" Kika said suddenly.

Ooc:Sorry that it's short

Altra softly clapped his hands together and touched the tree behind him. Two long poles with prongs transmuted out of the trunk. Breaking them off, he handed one to Kika. He rumaged in his pocket until he found ........

OoC: Some marshmellos! Yay! Marshmellos!

BiC: a packet of meat. Opening it, he handed a hunk to Kika, while sliding one onto his own pronged pole. He held it out over the fire and sighed. "Are you sure you want to know?" He asked, turning to the mage. "Its not a very pretty or honorable past."

Kika nodded. He sighed again. "Alright. I was born on a farm. I had several brothers and sisters, a father, and my mother. The fourteen years I lived there was the best years of my life. When I turned fourteen, I did as men in our family had done for generations. I went out on my own to start my own life. I decided that I wanted to join the State Alchemists." Altra closed his eyes and wondered how his life would have turned out if he had made a different choice. Not that it matters now.....

"As soon as I was made a full achemist, I was sent to a recently "allied" land that was rebelling." The young man sneered "allied" as if it was a posionous word that represented everything wrong in his life. "The State told us that the people were rebelling against the State, burning innocent people that they suspected to be spies. On the way to the outpost that I was to be stationed at, we passed my family's land." He clenched his eyes together, holding back tears.

"The sargent had given me permission to visit them when we passed, so I was very excited. It would have been the first time I saw them since I left. When we got there........I couldn't believe it." The young man started to stutter as images of his house and family burning to death came to his mind.

"The whole place......was on fire. All-all of it. The house, th-the fields......." Altra turned his head so that Kika wouldn't see his tears. "I rushed right in. I had to save them. And I knew I could. I was an alchemist. I could do anything. Gods, I was such a fool. When I woke up, I had these. " He said, holding out his arms.

"The other alchemists said I had lost them in the fire. They also said.....I was the only survior. And then......and then they poured their filthy lies into me." Altra's body started to shake. "And I believed them! They told me that they and many more had been killed by the rebels because they thought they were spies! Can you belive that? A family with little girls and boys, spies!" The alchemist clenched his fist and pushed it on the ground, the auto mail making a depression in the soft grass.

"I was so angery.....unbelievably angery. The State made me hate them all. They fed me so many lies about what the rebels had done, that I turned into a monster. And then the State released me on them." Altra lowered his head as tears streamed down his face uncontrollably.

"I'm a killer. I killed so many innocent people, people who only wanted peace!"

Kika was a bit surprised by what he did. She wiped his tears with her finger. They sat silent for a moment, Altra still had a few tears. He hated his past and was pained to speak of it. Kika couldn't imagine all those corpses lying after war.

"It wasn't your fault Altra" Kika spoke suddenly. Altra gave Kika a questioning look.

"I mean, they fooled you. I know you wouldn't have done those things if they hadn't lied" explained Kika, "Did they use the fire as a thing to get you even angier?" Altra nodded.

"I chose to go with the State, I believed them when the lies came" Altra said, disagreeing with Kika. Kika stood up.

"You shouldn't get those thoughts to keep you sad, that's how I still use magic even though I killed......" she trailed off, "Well anyway, it's getting late, we should rest"

Altra nodded and stood up. "Yeah. Well, we obviously can't go back to the town, and we're still too close to it here." The alchemist looked around. There was an open plain to one side, the town to another, the forest he had come from at the third, and a road leading away from the city at the last side.

"What do you think about going down that road and seeing if we can't find an inn, Kika?"

"That sounds fine to me." The two walked down the hill and onto the road in silence. Altra was thinking about what Kika had told him. It was true the State had tricked him, but that didn't excuse the blood on his hands. He had killed everyone one he had seen, man, woman, and child. But then I turned to them and protected them. But does the lives I saved repent for the ones I took?

The sun was setting at the end of the road the two teenagers were walking on, coloring the brown dirt red. "Wow." Kika said admiringly, looking at the sunset. "Look at that."

"Yeah. Its beautiful." Altra replied. He looked down at Kika's hand, hanging at her side. He felt a sudden urge to hold it. He started to reach up, but frowned when he saw his own cold, metal hand. He lowered it and looked away.

Suddenly, something slid into his hand and pulled at it gently. He looked around and saw Kika's soft, small hand holding his. He looked up and saw her blushing. His face grew hot and he smiled at her. She smiled back, her green eyes staring into his.

The mood shattered however when he heard mutliple scraping sounds behind them. He whipped around and saw at least ten poorly armored men covered with dirt and blades of grass holding swords at him.

Damn it all! Not now! He pushed Kika behind him and clapped his hands together. He slapped the ground, a half circle of earth raising up to hide them. He grabbed Kika's hand and pulled at her. "Come on! Hurry!" The two ran down the road.

"Look Altra!" Kika said, pointing to a small group of lights in the distance. "There must be a village there!"

Altra looked back and saw the bandits close behind. The alchemist slipped a hand inside his coat and pulled out a bottle of gray liquid. He tossed the bottle over his shoulder, and pulled Kika to the side of the road.

There was an explosion and a vast amount of smoke immeadiatly filled the area. There was a smallish ditch on the side of the road. Altra clapped his hands together and opened a acove in the ditch, the opening covered by a sheet of hanging grass.

The ninja urged Kika in it before him, and quickly ducked in after her before the smoke cleared.