Disclaimer: As per the tradition of writers, I, too, shall emphasize that I, (unfortunately), have absolutely no rights to anything Fullmetal Alchemist related. I do own some beautiful posters and a nifty keychain and an authentic bootleg Chinese pocket watch, but that is the extent of my ownership. Even though I am not Hiromu Arakawa, please enjoy this humble corruption of her work, regardless! m( )m
Prologue
Everything had gone to Hell.
Now, Edward was an atheist, and after what he and his brother had just seen his viewpoint hadn't truly changed. If anything, it had just increased his disbelief in God; like an anti-religious experience, one could say.
That – thing – had called itself "God", but Edward was quite sure that wasn't what it was. It had, however, allowed him to see "The Truth". For a price, of course. That, of course, was when it had gotten a little hazy.
He had lost his leg – his leg. That, he knew for sure. And, more importantly, his little brother, too, had disappeared into that horrible void. All he could truly remember (besides the terrifying sight of the thing-that-wasn't-their-mother gasping and shuddering on the ground) of the events that immediately followed was all all-encompassing need to have his brother returned. Now.
He did remember pleading with the gatekeeper. He had drawn a circle (an image from one of the half-buried new not-his-memories obtained from inside The Truth) in his blood on the dead not-mother. Approaching the body was the first of several difficult things that he was to do that evening. It was only complicated by the fact that his leg was gone. He had returned the not-mother to the thing that called itself God, who had frowned in the way that a vegetable seller does when having to give up fresh fruit in exchange for returned rotten carrots they had tricked you into buying earlier. There was another toll – interest, you see, my dear alchemist – it had said with its' wide grin. The not-mother had disappeared when Edward had blinked, and the right arm of the self-called God had solidified.
And he was back on the bloodstained basement floor, and Al was screaming and Al's legs, too – bothofthemohGod – were gone and his arm, too, his arm, and all he wanted to do was throw up so he did.
Granny Pinako had always said if they were ever in trouble, they had to come over to their house, and something, the big-brother Edward in Ed's mind calmed. They had a phone. He could get help. It was in the kitchen though, and they were in the basement.
Leaving Al bleeding, crying (Ed sympathized, he wanted to cry too, cry and scream and —) down there and dragging himself upstairs was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. Somehow, however, he pushed down the pain and he managed to slowly pull himself up the stairs (the ones that they'd bounced down so happily just – was it only an hour ago? – a little while before.) The kitchen was close. He couldn't hear Al's pained screaming anymore. Ed had to hurry. He hauled his heavily bleeding self (he had done nothing to where his arm should have been, and the makeshift bandages of his leg-stump had bled through somewhere between the bottom of the staircase and the top) onto the cold linoleum of the darkened kitchen. He tugged desperately on the black telephone wire with his remaining arm. The entire phone clattered to the ground beside him and the plastic receiver bounced around on the floor beside his head.
Never had he been so glad to hear the monotonous dial tone. He dialed the familiar number (difficult to work the rotary dial, his red fingers kept slipping). He listened to thirteen rings (he counted, fuzzily), as he bled on the floor.
Finally, Granny Pinako's sleep-blurred voice answered. "Rockbell automail services. Now what was so important it couldn't wait until morning?"
He felt like crying.
"Granny," Ed whispered hoarsely. "We need help."
"Edward? Is that you?" Pinako's voice was sharp, but concerned. "What's wrong?"
What was wrong? Ed swallowed the taste of copper in his mouth, feeling lightheaded. "Please, we need help. Please, Al's bleeding." I'm bleeding. "He's in the basement. Help."
He didn't really hear Pinako's response. He felt tired. He hurt, but it was a far-away hurt. Soon enough, he heard the soothing ring tone once more, but he was long unconscious by the time the Rockbells arrived. He didn't even wake up when the kitchen lights snapped on and Winry saw the thick blood trail. Her screams went unheard.
Prologue: End
Act OneIt was going to cost a lot. They needed three metal legs, and an arm. Even though Granny Pinako said that they were family, and they didn't need to pay (and they were supposed to be good boys and were always supposed to listen to what Granny Pinako said), the Elric brothers knew that it just wouldn't be fair. They were already depleting the Rockbell stock of painkillers, after all.
It was nighttime, and the room was dark. The brothers were lying on two small beds (small beds for small children), side-by-side, in a room they hadn't been allowed in before in the Rockbell household ("These are only for patients" Granny had said). They were talking. In slurred voices (due to the painkillers, but they hadn't ingested enough drugs to counter their shared insomnia) they whispered plans.
What was unspoken, however, was the mutual hope that this plan would turn out better than their last one.
After many hours of hushed discussion, it was decided. Al would write it (his handwriting hadn't suffered much; he still had his writing hand). They would publish some of the vast mental alchemical libraries of knowledge that had been jammed and squeezed into their minds like a foot being forced into a shoe just a size too small.
Ed had not-quite memories full of tiny anatomical structures present in all living beings, of a fetus's first thoughts, of seven-angled circles, of transmuted souls, and of circleless transmutations.
Al, too, had not-memories; some of the latter of Ed's overlapped with his. The younger knew the chemical fashion in which flowers bloomed, of how ancient giant lizards regulated body heat, of the reasoning behind the First Bird's flight, of circles within circles within circles… And these were just a few of the ones they could put into words. Some of the not-memories were more difficult to understand, harder to decipher aloud than others, as they were processed in long-dead languages. Very little of what they had both seen had been present in their fathers' notes, even less they remembered from Teacher. The Truth was old, older than their father, older than Teacher, and certainly older than them.
It gave them something to focus on, other than pain and panic.
Gracia Hughes was getting disillusioned with her publishing job. It had been her dream as a child to write books, until she'd found out that she had nothing to write about. Anything she attempted to pin down in writing fluttered away, out of her mind like escaping butterflies.
She had finally decided she wasn't going to be a slave to the unresponsive muses and had chosen to help others achieve their dream of writing. She had borrowed some money from her father and purchased a giant printing press. It had all been so grand, when she was young.
Now she was married to a loving husband, a decade older, and all she was getting for commissions were badly written bodice-rippers. If she read one more tale of passion of Vanessa-Georgette and her peak-of-masculinity lover Sir Roberto Biggerstaff, with their "throes of violently passionate passion" she was going to sell off her press for scrap metal. She had been planning on having a child anyway, and it probably wouldn't do to change their diapers with ink-stained hands…
It was then that the manuscript arrived in the post. It was neither particularly long, nor particularly short, being just about two hundred and fifty pages long. The entire thing was hand-written, printed in neat, round letters, reminding her of her handwriting back in grade three (when she had tried, in vain, to write down her first novel – The Adventures of Mrs.Tiddles, the Friendly Neighborhood Supercat, if she recalled correctly).
The cover letter was addressed politely to a "Mr/Mrs. Publisher", and went on to say that "we, two orphan brothers", need money for medical treatment and had written a book to sell. It was signed, "Sincerely, Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric". The latter name was written in shakier, more childish writing.
Her heart softening, Gracia flipped to the first page. It had a date; October 11th, 1910. "Mum died today. Brother says we won't forget her." She read aloud, slowly.
Gracia turned to the next page. It was dated over a year later; November 13th, 1911. "Big brother and I left Dublith today on the 10:15 train to East City. With some of the money Teacher gave us, we bought some delicious sticky rolls from the vendor on the platform. Brother ate two of his before the train had even started moving, even though I'd told him they were supposed to be our lunch too. Brother never listens to me! He said that they had pork and vegetable filling on the inside, though, and they taste best hot. I suppose he would know, because he'd already finished his. I'm saving mine for lunch, but he'll probably pinch one of mine before then. I'm going to try to distract him with a game of cards. I hope he doesn't cheat this time, he always cheats at cards."
It was a travelogue, Gracia realized, and she turned to the third entry.
November 14th, 1911 "We stopped in a dusty town called Xenotime today. The inn had some impressive cutout designs for gold siding on their dining room wall, but the innkeeper said that they didn't have any gold anymore. Brother seemed to like the innkeeper, but I think it was only because he gave us free pie for dessert. I've never had lemon pie before. I thought that it would be more sour, like lemonade with no sugar, but they put some whipped cream in as well and it tastes very good. Brother didn't believe me when I said that the cream was made from milk. He said it tasted too good to have been excreted from a cow." Gracia smiled. Now this was something that people should read; just the thing to take one's mind off of the recent civil war in the east! It also was, apparently, to support a pair of orphans. She would have to meet these young authors. She'd take Maes along, too. Her husband needed some vacation time off work, anyway.
Act One: End
Author's Note: Well, I've finally gotten off my butt to actually write something besides reviews! XD I love reading fanfiction and writing long reviews – especially for well-written A/Us and crossovers (so if anybody has any recommendations… ;) ). So, I figure it's probably about time that I write my own (decent, I hope) Alternate Universe to add to the mix for others to enjoy!
I've also written the first four chapters of a Harry Potter/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover, but I've gotten seriously stuck so it probably won't be posted for a while, until I get out of my writing rut.
Just as an aside, "Biggerstaff" is, scarily enough, an actual surname. :P Oh, er, and I hope you enjoyed the fic so far:D