The Gateway Alchemist

A/N: Ta-da! Since it's almost my birthday, I'm having Big Update Time, but I'm also introducing a brand-spanking-new fic, FMA style! This is about 20 years after the Promised Day, and follows the next gen's adventures, mostly Ed's son and daughter. (Don't worry, the adults will be there too, Edward Elric is my heart and soul, I love him so much I'm seriously out of control.) The kids you meet in this chapter are:

•Wesley Elric → born 1918, aged 17 (Edward & Winry)

•Elizabeth Elric → born 1920, aged 15 (Edward & Winry)

•Jade Elric → born 1924, aged 11 (Alphonse & Mei)

•Opal Elric → born 1924, aged 11 (Alphonse & Mei)

•Henry Elric → born 1929, aged 6 (Alphonse & Mei)

Resembool, Eastern Sector, Amestris 1935

"That was a perfect transmutation, Elizabeth," Alphonse Elric spoke, looking on at his 15 year old niece. Living half of each year in Resembool, whenever Al was there he would instruct his niece and nephew in the physical aspects of alchemy, as they could only learn theoretically from their father.

"Of course it was, Uncle Al, I am my father's daughter after all!" the girl replied, grinning up cheekily at her Uncle, who merely rolled his eyes. Elizabeth Elric certainly inherited her mother's looks, but she was an interesting spitfire of a combination of her parent's personalities. Alphonse couldn't help but be reminded of his brother at her age.

"Don't be getting a big head there now, your dad may have been an alchemy genius, but even if he got his alchemy back right now I could still kick his butt!" the older Elric bragged, as he clapped his hands together and cleaned up the yard from all the transmutations they had worked on.

"I wish I could transmute without a circle," Elizabeth pouted, looking on at her uncle enviously. Alphonse gave her a grim look.

"El, Al, Winry's putting dinner on the table," Edward Elric said, popping his head out the front door of his home. When Ed and Winry had first gotten married, they built their home where the old Elric house was, and later a small cottage right next to it for Al and Mei's family, who lived there when they weren't in Xing.

"Great! I'm starving!" Elizabeth exclaimed, rushing into the house, her blonde braid flying behind her. Al smiled at his older brother.

"She's a chip off the old block."

"Yeah, I know. But don't think that excuses you trash talking my fighting skills!" Ed said, giving his brother an elbow jab before entering the house with a pout.

The two brothers went and sat at a bustling table where all their children were already seated, Edward's 17 year old son Wesley, Elizabeth, Al and Mei's 11 year old twins Jade and Opal, and their 6 year old son Henry.

"And then Mom hit the guy with the wrench, it was awesome!" Wes said, shrinking when his mother placed a dollop of potato on his plate with a glare. The younger kids chuckled, they found great amusement in their older cousin's fear of his mother.

"Was it Rusty?" Elizabeth asked, taking a sip of milk, which she unlike her father and brother, did not hate.

"No thankfully, otherwise I think the guy would've gotten instant tetanus," the boy replied, referring to Winry's favorite wrench.

"You can still see bloodstains from when she hit Uncle Ed," Jade murmured, exchanging a fearful glance with Opal.

"Ahh, trusy Rusty." Wes sighed nostalgically, as the adults gave him a weird look.

"Wes, El, when your Aunt and Uncle leave for Xing in a few days, we'll be heading to Rush Valley. Garfiel called, and he's got orders coming in left and right, so he wants me to help out for a couple weeks." Winry said, finished serving and sitting in front of her own plate. "He's getting older and he doesn't think he can handle the rush even with Paninya trying to help out."

"I could finally get that wrench I've been saving up for," Wes said thoughtfully. Even though he looked just like his dad, and liked alchemy, he enjoyed tinkering with automail and experimenting with using alchemy in the process of making it. Mei was even teaching him alkahestry to see if it would help with automail installations.

"Aww, Rush Valley, there's nothing alchemy related there, it's all desert and automail," Elizabeth whined quietly. Her dad overheard her and smirked.

"Tell me about it."

"Actually, Winry, Mei and I were thinking, if Wes and Elizabeth wanted to come with us to Xing and then come back here when you return from Rush Valley, then that would be a nice little adventure for them," Al said, exchanging an excited look with his wife.

"Xing? I'm not sure..." Winry said, looking at her children with a concerned expression.

"It'd only be until you're back from Rush Valley. A vacation, basically." Mei offered as she cut up Henry's meat for him.

Winry remained silent, pondering their offer in her head. Elizabeth and her brother exchanged a hopeful look.

"I think they should go, Win. Elizabeth would certainly be more entertained in Xing than in Rush Valley, and Wes is old enough." Ed said, breaking the silence. His wife sighed.

"Well, I suppose the majority has ruled then. But, kids, be good for your Aunt and Uncle, or else!" Winry said, smiling dangerously.

Wesley and Elizabeth both gulped, but Jade and Opal high-fived, clearly excited for their cousins to see their other home.

"I'm so excited, we'll get to play with Wesley's hair all the time!" Jade babbled, causing Wes to blush.

"And there's so many ancient boring things you like so much, Elizabeth, especially in Uncle Ling's giant library!" Opal exclaimed, matching her twin's fervor.

"You little pests wouldn't know what's interesting if it smacked your faces," Elizabeth growled lowly, so none of the adults would hear. She was often scolded for thinking the girls annoying. Wes shot her a disapproving glare.

"We could take you to meet the emperor," Mei said, smiling at her niece and nephew.

"Oh, Ling? What's he been up to?" Edward questioned, not having seen him for quite some time.

"He's been setting up an alkahestry university, actually. He's offered for Alphonse and I to teach there. We're still considering it."

"It's a wonder he's not fat in his middle age," Ed said randomly, even though he was shoveling his own dinner down pretty fast.

"Well he does have 4 children he probably helps to train himself, that might keep him in shape," Al pondered.

"We both know Lan Fan probably does the brunt of it, even if it's considered improper. Honestly, the way he is, it's a wonder he and his family don't eat most of Xing's crops."

"And why's that, Dad?" Wes asked, as neither he nor Elizabeth had ever met him, despite hearing a story or two here and there, usually one about eating a shoe in the stomach of a homunculus.

Alphonse chuckled. "He has a rather large appetite. When he was a prince, he had a habit of pretending to be collapsed and having people buy him food."

"Not a normal amount either, he stuck me with huge room service bills! Luckily, State Alchemists make bank, so at the time it wasn't an issue, but it was still annoying as hell," Ed grumbled.

"Being a State Alchemist must've been super cool," Elizabeth said. "I'd love to be one someday."

The Elric brothers exchanged a worrying glance, and Winry's hand tightened on her fork. "Not really, El. Back in those days, State Alchemists were basically human weapons. I only joined so I could research ways to get Al's body back from beyond the Gate, and I got off pretty lucky because the bastard colonel mostly let me do just that."

"Edward, he's not a colonel anymore, he's the Fuhrer," Winry warned.

"Hold on a second, Fuhrer Mustang was your commanding officer?" Opal asked, her gold eyes wide as she looked between her father and uncle.

"Don't you listen when they tell stories? It's not like that's a secret." Elizabeth said, taking a bite of potato.

"El, they're only 11," Wes admonished, as the twins gave a wary glare to their girl cousin and started speaking rapidly in Xingese to each other.

"I hate it when they do that, it's like they're mocking me," Elizabeth grumbled to her brother. "It's even worse when they try to confuse me by pretending to be each other."

"Maybe you should learn to tell them apart, like everyone else?" Wes teased, earning a tug on his ponytail. "Ow, Elizabeth, that hurt!"

Winry stood, collecting dishes from their meal. "That's enough bickering, you two."

The two quieted, but when their mother's back was turned, Ed whispered "She's one to talk," causing the pair to erupt into giggles.

"What was that, Ed?!" Winry asked, lifting the wrench the children had named Rusty.

"Nothing, Win!"

Later on that night, Wesley knocked on the door to his sister's room, and opened it to see her in pajamas with her hair down, reading an alchemy book. "You really shouldn't be so mean to Jade and Opal," he said, plopping down in her desk chair.

"It isn't my fault they're annoying," she replied, dogearing the page she was reading and closing the book.

"They're worried you hate them."

"I don't hate them, Wes, they just do little annoying cousin things that irritate me."

"Are you sure you aren't just jealous they like me better?" Wes said, a gloating look on his face, not unlike the one their dad would get when he told stories of his adventures. "Just try being nicer to them while we're in Xing, maybe they'll stop playing pranks on you."

Elizabeth turned away from her brother, and reached under her bed, pulling out a map and travel guide she'd found in her dad's old briefcase. "Yeah, about that... We aren't going to Xing."

Wes looked at her blankly, his gold eyebrows knitting together. He hated being pulled into his sister's schemes.

"Instead," she continued, "We're going to Central!"

"...and however do you plan to pull that off?"

"Easy peasy, to get to Xing by railway we have to stop in East City first,but when we get there we'll escape Uncle Al and Aunt Mei and hop a train to Central. And from there we can find a way to research transmutation without a circle and once I figure it out, I can become a State Alchemist just like Dad!"

"El, you know as well as I do that only people who've preformed human transmutation can use alchemy without a circle, and I'm sure as hell not letting you do that!" Wes said, standing up and looking down at her, a severe look on his face. "Don't be such an idiot! In Xing you could do all the research you want without getting in any trouble, and if you wanted to go to Central so bad, you could go with Dad when he has to give one of his 'take ten, give eleven' speeches."

"You don't understand, Wes," Elizabeth said, looking down at the map and travel guide. "In Xing, they're more concerned with medical applications of alkahestry, trying to find appropriate research would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Besides, who knows how long it would be before I have another chance to travel?"

"Uncle Al and Aunt Mei are being very nice, offering to take us to Xing with them! I can't believe you want to betray their trust like that!"

Wes continued to look down at her, and she lifted her head to meet his stern gaze. "I want to find a way to see what's in the Gate without preforming a human transmutation. I've asked Dad and Uncle Al but they won't tell me anything about it. I figure it'll be easier to apologize than to convince them to let me go to Central."

"El, why is it so important you do this now? What's wrong with waiting until you're old enough to go on your own?" he whispered, a little frightened for her.

"I want to give back eleven."

"Godammit, you have got to be kidding me!"

Elizabeth stood, and began to pace around her bedroom. "No, I'm serious. We've had such a good and sheltered life here in Resembool, while there's people out in the world who haven't. I feel like I could help them if I could be like Dad was. Except, I don't have the ability to transmute without a circle, which is why he got to be a State Alchemist so young in the first place."

"People like Dad and Uncle and Grandma Izumi think of that ability as a mark of their sins. They shouldn't have even survived their attempts at human transmutation."

"But if I didn't do a human transmutation, then there would be no stigma attached."

"It doesn't feel like a good idea," Wes remarked with a frown. "It feels like the beginning of a cautionary tale. I feel like you're going to make some horrible mistake!"

"You can't stop me," she spoke defiantly, daring him to go against her.

"I know, you stubborn idiot, and that's why I'm coming too, but if I think it's too dangerous then I'll haul your ass home and make you give it up!" he said, before leaving the room so she couldn't have the last word. However, she smiled, knowing this would be his reaction.

"Thank you, brother."

A/N: Wow! The first chapter! Honestly, if you had told me a few months ago I was gonna write an FMA fic, I would've said "What's FMA?" I randomly decided to dive into the series a while back and now I'm completely obsessed. It's frightening really, how quickly I fell in love with it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, please, let me know what you think!

Love,

MyHikari