Chapter Text
Aizawa Shouta sighed as he eased into his seat at the conference table. While he hadn’t been involved in the fight at Kamino – unlike Yagi, who was still wrapped in bandages and sporting a cast on his arm – exhaustion permeated his body.
The two weeks since the battle had been hectic for everyone. Between All Might’s impromptu retirement, the destruction of Kamino Ward, and several of Shouta’s students now in the hospital – and under watch thanks to their hairbrained scheme of infiltrating a villain hideout – his migraines had only worsened. Shouta massaged his forehead, idly wishing for his sleeping bag. Hopefully the pain medicine would kick in soon.
Looking around the table, he was greeted with the sleep deprived faces of other members of the team. Nezu and Detective Tsukauchi sat at the head of the table, and other Heroes and members of the police force were also in attendance, including Yagi, Gran Torino, Snipe, and Hawks.
“Thank you all for coming,” Nezu finally spoke up, an uncharacteristically grim expression on his snout. “As I’m sure you know, the events at Kamino have shaken Japan and the world of Heroics to its core. However, it’s done far more than that.” The small white furred mammal clicked a small button on his remote, and the screens around the table came to life, displaying a photo of the Nomu Factory. “We've been conducting an investigation into the villain of Kamino and his headquarters, including his creation of 'Nomu'. During our search of the ‘Nomu Factory,’ we came upon a very startling discovery.”
The screen changed to show the body of a man, a corpse. Short of preservation, judging by the state of him, he’d been dead for at least a few weeks. Despite that, the man’s face was intact enough to ID: he looked vaguely American, Shouta noted, with no visible quirk. And, strikingly, the victim was wearing a strange blue outfit. While much of the jacket was destroyed, enough remained undamaged to give it a vaguely uniform or militaristic look. It reminded Shouta of the official dress uniforms soldiers wore to the few formal functions he’d been forced to attend.
But it was also clear this was no ordinary corpse… patches of the victim’s visible skin were blackened and degraded, reminding Shouta of the Nomu. Considering where he’d been found, perhaps this man was a failed or incomplete version?
“I don’t recognize that uniform,” Hawks frowned, leaning forward to look at the screens.
“You wouldn’t,” Nezu said, eyes flicking back to the crime scene photos. “Information about the Nomu Factory has been restricted from the public to prevent panic, but this…” Nezu turned to face them. “This information is not to be shared without the express permission of myself, Detective Tsukauchi, or government authorization. It is a matter of international concern, because this officer is from a nation known as Amestris.”
Everyone stiffened. Shouta felt himself pale.
Amestris.
“Like… from the continent of Atossa, Amestris?” squeaked Sansa, the cat-headed officer’s fur standing up in alarm. “The Hidden Continent? Where quirks don’t exist and technology doesn’t work and planes can’t fly over it lest they fall out of the sky? That Amestris?! ”
“Yes,” Nezu nodded. “That Amestris.”
Shouta took a deep breath. The continent of Atossa, popularly called the ‘Hidden’ Continent (despite it being nothing of the sort), was a landmass to the west. Most of it was bordered by ocean, except for the uncontested eastern border near Russia. Uncontested, because there was a damn near global agreement not to enter the Hidden Continent. That was thanks to the Hidden Continent having the same reputation as the Bermuda Triangle, the continent’s very bedrock made technology sputter and die.
And because, on the Hidden Continent, quirks did not exist.
It wasn’t just that quirks had never evolved, making every resident of Atossa quirkless. Any visitors to the continent wouldn’t be able to use their quirks. Even mutant-types suffered from constant fatigue. In fact, anyone that crossed the borders into the Hidden Continent quickly fell sick, with constant nausea, migraines, and bone-deep exhaustion.
They only knew the bare basics about Atossa — the names of the countries located there, what their borders looked like, and occasionally who was fighting who. Apparently, at one point, Atossa and the rest of the world had interacted much more freely, but centuries ago, long before the advent of quirks, travel to and from Atossa began to lessen. Rumors emerged, whispers that Atossa and its people were cursed. It wasn’t until the emergence of quirks, several centuries later, that travel had been outright banned, as Atossa barricaded itself to outsiders.
So the fact that there was an Amestrian soldier in the Nomu Factory…
“As you may have deduced, we have informed the Amestrian government of this development,” Nezu said. “This has become an international issue, one we are no longer handling alone. Amestris is sending one of their best officers to aid in the investigation.”
Tsukauchi continued. “As far as the public is concerned, the Amestrian is not here to investigate anything. Officially, the Atossans are trying to reconnect with the wider world. But, in truth, our visitor will be representing the Amestrian government on an adjacent investigation into Kamino and the League.”
“That’s why you’ve been selected,” Nezu said, gesturing to the Heroes and police officers around the table. “Tsukauchi's team, Gran Torino, All Might and Eraserhead are all involved in the investigation into the League of Villains and All for One. Snipe, Hawks, and myself, on the other hand, have collaborated on cases involving foreign individuals and governments.”
“An Amestrian is coming here?!” Snipe whistled, the sound coming out distorted through his mask. “I can’t remember the last time someone came over the border. Legally, I mean.”
“From what I’ve heard, most don’t want to cross anyways,” pointed out Detective Ikibara, one of Tsukauchi’s colleagues. “Doesn’t just being at the border make you sick?”
“Yes,” Yagi nodded and the room turned to look at him, surprise permeating the air. “I went near the land border, once, when I was in France. It truly does live up to its reputation. There is a… wrongness about it, you could say. I am not a superstitious man but…” Yagi pressed his lips into a thin line. “The deeper you try to go, the worse it gets.”
“You said they’re only sending one person?” Shouta asked, hoping to get the conversation back on track. “Isn’t that a little… lacking? One of their soldiers was killed, and this operative will be in a foreign country.”
“We’ve been told by the leader of Amestris that this officer is one of their best,” Tsukauchi reassured, though the man’s eyes said he too was uncertain. “But he’ll retain the right to commune with his superiors on the case, and we will help with any communication needs if they arise, due to the technological divide.”
“We will also be overseeing him during his stay,” Nezu added, tail twitching.
Shouta frowned. Overseeing… “You can’t mean to say they’ll be at U.A.? We’re a school, not a hotel.”
“Yes, but several of the staff including myself are involved in this investigation,” Nezu explained, nodding to the various U.A. teachers present. “And considering the differences in technology and that this is a foreign country… he may need more readily available resources and an escort. Plus, the dorms are currently under construction, so we can offer housing.”
Translation: they may need to be taught Japanese, how to use modern technology, and be given protection.
Shouta sighed. This better be counted in his paycheck from the Underground Association and Nezu.
“So when are they arriving?”
“In two weeks,” Tsukauchi tapped his remote and a map appeared onscreen, showing the continent of Atossa and the neighboring satellite states of England, France and Spain. “A translator and a couple officials from Foreign Affairs will be meeting the delegate at a seaport on our side of the Mediterranean. They’ll accompany the Amestrian on a plane to Japan, whereupon we’ll start the investigation.”
The Continent of Atossa - art by @quasar-crew (aka me!)
“Who are they sending?” Gran Torino asked, looking over the map to where a rough approximation of the Amestrian borders were drawn, the circular shaped country in the almost center of the continent.
“I don’t know much about them,” Nezu admitted, and wasn’t that a thing in itself, that Nezu didn’t know. Atossa truly was isolated. “I haven’t been told much beyond his name and title: ' der Vollmetallener Alchemist.' It’s something granted to what they call State Alchemists.”
“Alchemists ?” Shouta asked, tilting his head at the unfamiliar word.
“As I said, I haven’t been told much. Führer Mustang said his man would explain what’s needed when he arrives, it's more secure than by written correspondence. But I do know his name: Edward Elric.”
Edward groaned, rolling his shoulders as he stepped off the gangplank onto solid ground. He stumbled as the earth swayed beneath him, his legs like jelly after several days at sea. Gritting his teeth, Ed rode out the nausea, struggling to breath around the hot, humid air that stuck in his lungs.
One of the nearby Aerugan sailors chuckled at his misfortune. “Got land legs, Amestrian? Careful, ya might trip!”
Ed muttered some choice swears in the direction of the sailor, valiantly attempting to stand upright. It didn’t work. Of course I get my sea legs only to have it backfire the moment I set foot on solid ground again, Edward grumbled. The worst part was, the Aerugans that had ferried him across the Mediterranean Sea said it was tame compared to the swells on the ocean.
After a few minutes, the ground stopped heaving and Ed was able to walk away with some of his dignity intact. Technically this port and the ferry were only semi-legal. It wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t exactly legal either. Travel between Atossa and the Outside was forbidden, but most of the enforcement was done by natural barriers. The Mediterranean served as a divide between Atossa and the continent of Afrika, and the Ural Mountains east of Xing separated the land border.
And that of course, wasn’t even considering the effects of crossing. Not all of Ed’s nausea was due to the waves after all.
With his bag in one hand and coat flipped over his arm, Edward wandered inland. The nondescript coastal town wasn’t very big – the sailors had mentioned that Cairo, found a hundred miles further inland, was much larger – but thanks to the… questionable legality, they’d refused to take him further. Even still, people bustled around Ed, the reek of fish filling his nose as nets were unloaded. Vendors called out to him, most in a language he didn’t understand but Ed caught fragments of Aerugan and English amid the noise.
Scanning the crowd, Ed searched for his contacts, wishing he’d gotten a picture of their faces. The Japanese said they would have someone here to meet him…
“Well that’s one way of doing it,” Ed said incredulously as he finally spotted his contact.
They were standing on the end of the docks, painfully obvious in the professional clothing that was very ill-suited to the heat (though Ed’s own clothes weren’t much better). The figure shifted from foot to foot as they looked for him, their bright blue hair standing out like a spotlight. Oh, and they were holding a sign that read: “Edward Elric” in Amestrian. But, blue hair.
Edward blinked, then sighed, rubbing his eyes. Right. Quirks.
It wasn’t that Amestris and the rest of Atossa didn’t know about quirks, it was more that they were regarded as utter myth. After Mustang had requested Ed take this mission, he had read through almost every government record and shady newspaper article on the subject. Most of it boiled down to: “Quirks: strange powers and physical changes developed by people on the Outside. Responsible for Atossa completely closing its borders to the Outside around 200 years ago.”
So yeah, really helpful.
…
“The fact of the matter is, we know very little about the world outside Atossa,” Mustang said, nodding to the globe on his desk. On it, Ed could see outlines of the rest of the continents, beyond the borders of Atossa. The Outside. “Xing has the primary land border, while Drachma, Aerugo and the other countries are bordered by water. There is very little if any exchange of information between them and the Outside, let alone with Amestris, who has been at war with our neighbors for the better part of centuries.”
“What about Xing?” Ed asked, nodding to the border it shared with some other Outside countries. Kazakhstan and Russland — Russia? — if he was correct. “Ling’s the Emperor, and our ally. Couldn’t you ask him about sharing their records on the Outside? Al’s has been going through quite a few Xingese texts about alkahestry.”
Mustang made a half-hearted gesture. “We could, but the rail line across the desert between Amestris and Xing is still under construction. We don’t have any reliable way to transport government documents until then. Though… perhaps I will speak to Alphonse about researching Xing’s knowledge of the Outside.” Mustang nodded to Hawkeye, who scribbled a note. “But regardless, it’s still secondhand information. Visitors, legal visitors, to or from the Outside are almost non-existent.”
The Flame Alchemist and Führer sighed as he leaned back in his chair, taking off his glasses to rub his face. “Unfortunately, I have very little intel to give you. While the murder investigation is of concern, this is also an information gathering mission. We need to know what the rest of the world is like, what we’ve missed in the past centuries. We need to know about threats.”
Edward grimaced. “You can’t mean to declare war, Bastard?” Mustang’s coup, Promised Day, had only been a mere four years ago. They had barely just settled the new peace treaties.
“No, but knowledge is a powerful thing, as you well know. And it’s something we’re lacking.” Mustang smirked, a mischievous look in his dark eyes. “Think of it like research, Fullmetal. You love doing that, don’t you?”
Ed rolled his eyes. “Why me then? You wouldn’t have pulled me out of retirement just for research. That’s what you’ve got Breda or Falman or the rest of Investigations for, and they’re terrifying at it.”
(It was true. Ed was good at research, he knew that, but he wasn’t a specialist for the kind of information gathering or investigating that Falmon or Breda could do. The members of Investigations were smart, tactical and very good at their jobs, and it arguably would have made more sense to send some of them.)
“Fair point,” the Führer nodded. “Frankly? Aerugo. They control the nearest border, and refuse to let an intelligence squad through, but they’re willing to entertain letting one soldier through. You.”
“And Aerugo is suddenly fine letting a damned State Alchemist through?”
“Oh not in the least,” Mustang smirked. “But you don’t look like a soldier, Fullmetal. You’re unassuming. Don’t mess around with alchemy in Aerugo and you’ll be fine.”
Ed restrained himself from taking the bait. “So it’d just be me going?”
Mustang sighed. “Yes. I wouldn’t have done this lightly Fullmetal. Putting aside your lack of political skill, you’re the best I have. You’re experienced, not just in research. You have combat expertise, can make and revise plans on the fly, and have a talent with languages. State Alchemists are known as one-man armies, you more than most.”
Ed grimaced at the reminder, covering it with a cocky grin. “Aw, complimenting me Bastard?”
“I’m surprised you can see it.”
Edward’s hackles were up in an instant, teeth bared and already swearing a blue streak. Ed didn’t even know if he was actually angry at the slight anymore. It was just an instinctive reaction by this point, a fact of nature. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Mustang mocks Ed’s height and Ed goes up like a volcano about it.
Eventually, Mustang sighed, rolling his eyes. “Your temper is going to cause another international incident.”
Taking a breath, Ed stared at Mustang, eyes narrowed. One-man army. “Do you think it’ll come to that?” He asked quietly, ire dissipating. The question – with Aerugo, or with the Outside? – went unsaid.
“I hope not,” Mustang muttered. “But it's best to be prepared.”
Ed grunted. From there, the conversation turned to other things; when he would leave – in three weeks – how he’d get there – semi-legal travel through Aerugo, then the Japanese would get him the rest of the way – and how he’d contact Mustang about his findings. And, of course, there was the matter of language. Because he was travelling to a foreign country on the literal opposite side of the globe.
“None of this is in Amestrian,” Ed muttered as he shifted through some of the letters Mustang had received from the Japanese officials. “Why’d they send letters in… what language is this? It has a similar alphabet to Drachman and Amestrian… like that,” Ed pointed to one of the words on the page. “That’s the mord root, like murder.”
“It’s called English,” Hawkeye explained, nodding to the page. “It does have roots in Atossan languages. It’s an offshoot from the satellite state called ‘England’, it emerged from before travel was barred and then developed independently. Anyways, there’s no books on learning the Japanese language in Amestrian, but our translators can convert between English and Amestrian. That’s why the letters are in it.” Hawkeye handed him a set of textbooks. Ed flipped through them, finding them all in the same bastardized Drach-Amestrian as the letters. “For this trip, you’ll need to learn English and then learn Japanese.”
Edward leveled a glare at Mustang. “Did you seriously just give me homework? And tell me to learn two languages in three weeks?!”
Mustang, the absolute bastard, gave him a smirk. “What, you can’t do it?”
“Shut it, Bastard.” Ed flipped through the textbooks, scanning the unfamiliar letters and words. English didn’t look that hard, it even had the same alphabet as the western Atossan languages. And Japanese shared some similarities with Xingese… “Two languages in three weeks, huh?” Ed snapped the textbooks shut. He was in for a lot of late nights.
Edward looked at Hawkeye. “My pay better be doubled for this. At least. ”
Riza nodded, the corners of her mouth twitching up. In the background, Mustang made some sort of noise. Probably objecting being ignored. “Shall I send it to the Rockbells?”
“Yep, that’ll work. Thanks, Riza.”
“‘Thanks, Riza’,” Mustang parroted, his voice pitched high. “When am I going to get a ‘Thanks, Roy! Wow, you’re such a great commanding officer!’”
Ed waved a hand at Mustang, sharing an amused look with Riza. “The leader of our country, everyone.”
That set off several minutes of banter between Edward and Roy, which only devolved further when Mustang made a comment about Ed’s height. It ultimately ended with them wheezing for breath from laughter, and Hawkeye giving them both a dry look. “Are you done yet?” The comment was accompanied by a pointed stare.
Ed sheepishly went about collecting his papers and the language books, and was just turning to leave when Mustang called out: “Oh, and Edward?”
He turned.
“Please, be on your best behavior,” Mustang said, raising an eyebrow. “We don’t need another international incident.”
Edward flashed his teeth. It was not a smile. “No promises, Bastard. You know how I work.”
“Yes,” the Führer of Amestris replied dryly. “That’s what worries me.”
…
Edward eyed the contact, then flicked his gaze around the port. No one else seemed to be waiting for any wayward Amestrians. And no one else had such an obvious or bright quirk. He heaved a sigh. Well, no time like the present.
“Hello,” Ed said in Japanese as he approached the presumably-Japanese-contact. Blue-Hair startled, looking at him with wide eyes. Edward hoped he hadn’t accidentally insulted her (?), but his Japanese wasn’t that rusty. He hadn’t studied this for nearly three weeks straight for nothing. “You are Japanese? I am Edward Elric.”
“Uh, yes!” Blue-Hair recovered quickly, nodding and responding in Japanese. “I am Hamada Yazuki, they/them.” Right, they, then. “I’m with the Japanese government and I’ll be your translator and escort to Japan, Elric-san.”
That’s right, in Japan they used surnames for everything.
“Thank you… Yazuki?” Ed tried and then immediately swore. No, that wasn’t right, wasn’t the name order reversed? And which honorific was he supposed to use? “Er, sorry… Hamada?” Blue-Hair, Hamada, nodded and Ed relaxed slightly. He gave a slightly sheepish smile, continuing in Japanese. “I am sorry for any bad speaking. I am new at this.”
Hamada waved a hand dismissively. “No worries. We weren’t actually expecting you to know Japanese, that’s why the department sent me. My quirk is Polyglot. I can understand and speak any language I hear spoken.”
Edward had two thoughts at that moment.
First: How does that work?!
Second: You mean I didn’t need to learn two entire damn languages?!
Instead of cursing out his Bastard Führer, Ed stared at Hamada with wide eyes. “Seriously?! That’s incredible!” Ed exclaimed. “So, how does that work? How much do you need to hear? Can you understand written languages? How many languages do you know? Also… seriously. How does that work. ”
Hamada chuckled. “That’s right, you’re unfamiliar with quirks!” They waved at Edward to follow. “Come on, we can talk more in the car, and I can answer any questions you have. Including about my quirk.”
Following, Ed and Hamada wound their way through the port. Eventually they were spat out on the far side, approaching something that certainly looked like a car, but was unlike any model Ed had ever seen.
“Here we are.” As Hamada approached, they stopped and glanced back at Ed. “Uh, do you know what a car is?”
Ed nodded dryly. “Yes, I know what a car is.”
Hamada heaved a sigh of relief, nodding to the car. “Great, let’s go then.” Hamada climbed in the front, joining the driver, and Ed took up residence in the backseat. He immediately gave a sigh of relief as cold air washed over him, a stark contrast to the heat outside. Some sort of internal cooling unit? Glancing around, Ed found that the vehicle’s seats were quite a bit softer than those of Amestrian cars, fabric instead of leather, and some sort of plastid resin covered quite a bit of the interior.
Once he was seated, the car came to life with a low rumble and pulled out onto the road. Ed leaned forwards, looking between Hamada and the driver. “Where are we going?”
“We’re headed to the airport,” Hamada explained, pulling a slim black rectangle from their pocket. A pocketbook? “It’ll take a few hours to get there, so I apologize for the long trip.”
“It’s fine,” Ed muttered, distracted as Hamada’s fingers touched the black rectangle and it suddenly lit up with light and color. As their fingers moved across the rectangle’s surface, the surface changed, colors and text spilling across it. What on earth? “What is that?”
“What?” Hamada glanced back at him, following his gaze to the thing in their hand. “Oh, this is a cell phone!”
Ed looked at it skeptically. “That’s not a phone.”
“No, it is,” Hamada twisted in their seat, showing it to him. As Ed watched, Hamada moved their finger over the ‘cell phone’, brightly colored icons appearing and moving across it. “It’s got a lot of uses. You can call people with it, take pictures, use the internet, text or play games!”
What. On. Earth.
“Okay, explain each of those?”
Over the next hour, Hamada showed Ed the various functions of the ‘cell phone’. Ed was dumbstruck. This thing was… well, Ed didn’t even know how to describe it. It was a radio and telephone and camera and mail carrier all rolled into one. It could access a non-physical library called the “internet” that was so vast, Ed would need ten thousand lifetimes to see it all. And all of it somehow existed on a flat black device that fit into the palm of Ed’s hand.
What. The. Hell.
Hamada seemed to find his amazement amusing, barely pausing to consider the implications of the innocent looking flat tablet held in their hands. Then, they tried giving Ed his own. Ed vehemently refused, because this thing had to be worth ten times more than his automail! It had to be worth a small country! He’d never be able to afford it!
And then, Hamada proceeded to rock his world further by informing him that these things were so common that a significant portion of the population carried one around in their pockets.
“Truth,” Ed muttered in Amestrian as he cradled the small device. “The Outside is amazing.”
Of course, the cell phone had to have limitations. It wouldn’t work when Ed was wearing his gloves, and when he attempted to tap it with his automail, nothing happened. Apparently, the touchscreen worked by electrical capacitance, or something. Hamada had also warned him that while this brand was sturdy, cell phones were fragile. So he couldn’t throw it at anything and would have to be careful when holding it with his automail. Made sense, Ed reasoned, it couldn’t be all powerful.
Eventually, Ed ended up stowing the device in his pocket, intent on investigating the other anomaly in the car. Namely, the plastid resin making up the doors.
Edward pressed his fingers into it, testing its sturdiness. It flexed ever so slightly, its rigidity almost like wood. Carefully, one eye watching Hamada and the driver, Ed pressed the palms of his hands together and laid one on the strange material.
A connection sparked in his mind, the subtle current of alchemy flowing through him. He poked at the material, tugging on different elements and compounds as he worked to analyze its chemical structure. He didn’t initiate a reaction, didn’t deconstruct it, he only examined it. Carbon. Hydrogen. Chains of layered polymers. Polyethylene and polyester.
Ed drew his hand away, letting the alchemic energy fade. “Huh.” He looked towards Hamada. “Hey, Hamada-san, what’s this material on all the doors?”
Hamada glanced back. “Oh, that’s plastic. It’s an artificial material. Used in almost everything.”
Nodding, Edward opened up his phone and made a list in the ‘notes’ app. Alongside a list for “Making Outside technology work in Amestris” which included phones (he was going to figure out instant ‘video’ messaging), he started another list: “Outside Materials”.
He may not have been planning to do alchemy, but if he needed to transmute something, he wanted to know what was in it so as to avoid a rebound. Better safe than sorry.
You’re not getting anything from me, Truth, Ed thought in the direction of the entity.
He could almost feel Its chuckle, reverberating through dimensions. Aw ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~, you don’t want to come and play?
No, Ed thought viciously. Head-Truth may have been his imagination, but he wouldn’t put it past the Entity to somehow still be there. I’ve paid my Tolls. You swore it.
That I did… Ed could almost see Truth’s too-wide grin, could almost see the Being thoughtfully tapping Its chin with a right hand made of flesh and blood. You got the Answer, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~. You solved the Riddle. You exchanged your arm for your brother’s soul, your alchemy for your brother’s body.
But you didn’t take my alchemy, Ed muttered, rubbing at the metal in place of his right arm, taken once more after the Promised Day. I made the Exchange, but my alchemy stayed with me. Why?
Because you’re not done, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~, Truth said, had said, a thousand voices clashing and clamoring and harmonizing. You could do it without alchemy, but it is quite fun to see you use it. And, well…
An image suddenly pressed into Edward’s mind, no mere phantom but vivid and bright and w h i t e . It was Truth’s razored smile and the Eye of the Gate looming behind It. A warning. A threat. A promise.
You know what happens if you attempt to disobey the Laws. Your soul is m i n e.
The w h i t e abruptly drained away, as if it had never been, and Ed was left with static filling the Void in his mind. Besides, I never specified when I would take your alchemy away, Truth chuckled, had chuckled, waving the right arm that used to be Ed’s dismissively. The Toll will come in time, ~Li-ttle Al-che-mist~. You need not fret.
“Hooray,” Edward grumbled, leaning back into the seats of the car. “Lucky me.”
“What was that?” Hamada twisted, looking back at him.
Edward waved a hand, automail imitating the gesture of Truth. “Nothing…” he said in Japanese. “Nothing at all.”
Eventually, they made it into a more populated area and Edward ended up with his face pressed against the glass of the window. Outside the car, the buildings built themselves higher and higher, unfolding like flowers made of metal and glass and concrete. The world moved by in a blur of greens, grays and browns, until the driver finally pulled to a stop at a large building that glinted in the sun.
“Cairo International Airport,” Ed read in English. He blinked. “What’s an airport?”
Hamada laughed, pulling their own luggage out of the trunk of the car. “You’ll see.” Ed followed them out, loosening his collar as the oppressive heat set in. Deserts, augh.
With the Japanese officer in the lead, they guided Ed into the shimmering metal building. Now in an area crowded with people, Ed was suddenly struck with the sheer diversity of quirked appearances. Everywhere he looked, it was like something out of a fairytale. He saw someone with a snake head, another with feathers instead of hair. His brain blanked for a solid minute when he spotted someone that was made of water.
“What the hell are quirks?” Ed muttered.
He could understand people with animalistic traits. They were like Darius and Heinkel, but instead they were natural chimeras. But some of this… How was it physically possible for a person to be made of water? Where was their brain? They were a person, obviously, but they couldn’t be anatomically classified as human!
Ed groaned. If he didn’t get some good research papers on the subject or some explanations he was going to scream.
Ignoring his mild crisis, Hamada tugged him away from the crowds, into a side terminal. “VIP treatment,” Hamada explained when Ed sent them a questioning look. “You’re travelling with permission of the Japanese government. We’ll be on the same plane, but we get to skip the lines.”
Ed smirked. Nice.
He knew when they were approaching the security checkpoint, Ed could recognize security officers a mile away. Even on a different continent, with different uniforms and with hair a vibrant shade of scarlet or spikes jutting from their forearms, they had the same demeanor as those from Amestris. Done-with-this-shit. Hamada produced their and Ed’s papers, handing them forward. Ed could tell when they reached the line regarding his nationality. The officer sent him an interested look, then huffed, nodding to a nearby contraption.
“Take off your jacket and put it on the conveyor belt,” Hamada explained, doing the same. They placed their luggage on the conveyor, removing a few items from their bags, including some bottles and a larger flat rectangle similar to their phone.
Ed did as instructed, putting his jacket in one of the bins and putting his bag on the moving belt. With that done, the officers waved them through what was basically an open, freestanding door frame. Weird but okay?
Following Hamada, Ed stepped through the door frame, and immediately hissed as a shrill beeping rang out. The security officers startled, glancing between their computers and Ed before they began talking amongst each other in their native language. Hamada cut in, adding their two cenz and nodding pointedly towards Ed. Ah yes, a conversation about him and the beeping gate, marvelous.
“Do you have any metal on you?” an officer asked in English, scanning Ed’s body.
Did he have any metal on him.
Ed couldn’t help his snort. He tugged off the glove on his right hand, exposing his automail to the air. He held his hand up to the security officers, letting the light glint off the metallic casing, a wry grin on his face. “Yes,” he said dryly, amused at their gaping expressions. “You could say that.”
The security officers muttered further until they finally pointed Hamada at Ed. “Uh, Elric-san, they’re wondering what those are and if they’re weapons,” Hamada asked, eyeing Ed’s metal hand.
“You don’t have automail?” Ed frowned. With how advanced the technology on the Outside was, why were they surprised about automail? When Hamada’s confused expression didn’t change, Ed resigned himself to explaining. “They’re prosthetics, mostly made of metal,” Ed explained in Japanese, trusting Hamada to translate for the security agents. He gestured down his right arm with his left hand, then rapped his left thigh. “My right arm and left leg, all the way down.”
Hamada’s eyes widened, some unidentifiable emotion in their eyes. “How does that happen?” They muttered quietly.
Edward ignored them. “It’s not a weapon,” he told security, which wasn’t entirely a lie. It wasn’t a weapon, yet. Ed’s arm wasn’t transmuted into a sword. “At least, no more a weapon than anyone else’s fists.” That was a lie. Ed’s automail could punch straight through walls and was much more damaging than a regular fist.
The security officers talked with each other but eventually they waved Ed through. His bag also set off alarms, which turned out to be his automail maintenance kit and silver watch. After Ed explained to Hamada, and Hamada explained to the officers, Ed was finally released alongside all his metal belongings.
As they walked away, Edward glanced at Hamada. “What was that thing?”
“A metal detector.”
Ed laughed. “No kidding.” The Fullmetal Alchemist, defeated by a metal detector. Thank Truth that Mustang and the rest of the unit wasn’t here, Ed would have been a laughingstock.
He and Hamada joined the rest of the colorful quirked crowd in the airport, navigating their way through towards their terminal. Eventually, they reached their gate – no relation to the Gate – and they found seats in the waiting area. “We’ve got a little time before our flight,” Hamada explained, sitting back in their chair. “It’s going to be a long trip. We’ve got a three hour flight to Dubai, a four hour layover and then a ten hour flight to Tokyo.”
Long trip, they said.
Ed gave an incredulous laugh. A long trip was taking several weeks to cross Amestris or the Xerxes Desert on foot. Travelling across the world in under a day?! They were travelling thousands of miles, and it was hardly noteworthy, as evidenced by the thousands of people streaming through this place.
“You keep saying it’s an air port, and flight,” Ed commented instead, tilting his head as he eyed Hamada. “Why?”
Hamada gave him a mischievous grin. “Why do you think?”
“No.”
“Yes,” Hamada’s answering grin nearly split their face in two.
Edward gaped for a brief moment, and then an excitement that had been stirring in his chest burst. He practically squealed with joy. He didn’t care if it was unprofessional of the official Amestiran diplomat, humans had figured out how to fly! They could FLY!
“This is pretty exciting for you, huh?” Hamada chuckled.
Ed sent them an almost scandalized look. “How are you not more excited? Flight. Flying. Ever since humans first looked up we’ve been drawn to the heavens, and you lot can reach it! You can defy the force of gravity!”
“I suppose we can,” Hamada said thoughtfully.
With the anticipation of flying now on his mind, Ed couldn’t find it in himself to sit still. He paced alongside the bay of windows, and his gaze was quickly drawn to the strange machines that he could see out of them. Dozens of strange mechanical… things were either parked alongside the building, or moving across the large flat field outside. They were long metal cylinders with flat thin appendages like fins affixed to their sides, and even stranger, large cylindrical objects with fans inside them hung beneath the fins.
“What are those things?” Ed asked, pointing out the window.
Hamada glanced over. “That’s an airplane. It’s the machine that’ll take us there. It’s basically a big metal bird.”
Ed looked back at the ‘airplane’. “That thing can fly?!”
He called bullshit. There was no way that thing, a hundred feet long and with ‘wings’ like a flat ruler could ever support itself in the air. How on earth was it supposed to generate enough lift?
Hamada smirked. “See for yourself.”
They gestured out the window, onto the wide field. Ed followed their gaze and as he watched, he saw the distant figure of one of the ‘airplanes’ speeding down the field until… it ascended. Like magic or air alchemy, the metal behemoth lifted itself off the ground, easily rising into the air.
“Holy shit,” Ed muttered.
Okay, maybe that thing could support itself in the air. If it was moving fast enough… well, evidently those flat fins could provide a suitable amount of lift.
A few hours later and Ed found himself pressed into his seat on the airplane, the smooth plastic of his seat clenched between his fingers. He was practically vibrating as the craft finally pulled away from its docking station, and soon they were rolling smoothly down the field.
Then the aircraft roared and Edward watched as they moved faster and faster and faster until… Truth, they were rising. They were flying!! Edward pressed his face close to the plastic window, looking at the ground that was rapidly falling away beneath them. He felt equal parts wonder and terror as the buildings became smaller and smaller, and the clouds became closer and closer.
Ed looked at Hamada, seated next to him and staring with amusement. “Hamada. Hamada, can you get me the blueprints for this thing? I can be paid in blueprints. I want all the design schematics.”
Hamada laughed. “Planes won’t work in Amestris, no technology works there. There’s a no-fly zone around Atossa because planes could drop out of the sky if they go over.”
Edward continued staring at them. “That doesn’t matter. I just need to know.”
And who knows… once they had designs, maybe Amestris could make them work.
They touched down in ‘Dubai’ a mere three hours later, and Ed stretched his arms wide as he stepped off the plane. He grinned at Hamada, bouncing on his toes, who watched him with obvious envy.
“How are you so chipper?” they complained. “Plane rides are so boring!”
Ed shrugged. “I’m used to travelling long distances with little to do. Back in Amestris, I’ve probably spent weeks on the trains.” Hamada grumbled, walking away and forcing Edward to catch up. With his bag in hand, he hurried after. “So, when is our next flight?”
Edward wasn’t ashamed to admit he was excited to get in one of those machines again. He wished Winry was here, she would have loved this.
“Four hours,” Hamada said, checking something on their phone. “Our gate is nearby in this terminal, so we won’t have to walk far.” Indeed, they had barely walked for twenty minutes before they had found the gate their next flight would leave from.
Ed looked around the terminal as they walked, with its vaulted ceilings, glittering lights, and lined with gold, silver and white. Dozens of shops and cafes filled the interior of the building, Ed even saw a few book stores. “Can we visit some of these shops?” Ed asked, looking back at Hamada.
Hamada grimaced. “I wouldn’t recommend buying anything. Most things in airports are typically under quality and overpriced. Plus, this is Dubai,” they waved a hand to the opulence surrounding them, “everything is expensive.”
“Nah,” Ed waved the comment away. “I didn’t plan on buying anything anyways. Besides, I don’t have the right currency. Unless you think there’s a currency exchange that’ll accept cenz? ”
“Probably not.”
With Hamada’s blessing, Edward left his baggage with them and left for a bookstore. But not before the Japanese officer showed him how to set an alarm on his new “phone.” A good idea, if Ed was being honest.
The bookstore Ed decided on was small, barely a cubby hole in the wall compared to the vast libraries of Central City. But, it was filled with dozens of books, all of which Ed had never seen before in his life. Score. The first one he picked up had the title written in some sort of strange writing that was all squiggles. It looked kind of like Xerxian, if he tilted his head sideways and squinted. Another book in English proclaimed itself a: “Travel Guide to the Arab Emirates”.
But Edward’s favorite book by far was one in English titled: “Languages of the Afro-Asian Continent: Essential Phrases for Any Traveller.”
Ed had looked in it, curious to see if any Atossan languages were included – there were two: Xingese and Drachman, and the phrases included for both were rather archaic – and was greeted by a list of several hundred languages. While on the one hand it wasn’t surprising, the book covered several continents after all, it was still fascinating to see so many. Ed spent over an hour going through all of the phrases, checking their place of origin against the map in the back of the book.
Eventually, to Edward’s chagrin, the alarm on his phone went off and he had to replace the book on the shelf and head back to join Hamada. They raised an eyebrow as he walked over, a slight grin on their face. “Enjoy yourself?”
Ed’s smile nearly split his face in two. “I loved it,” he answered in Amestrian, before switching to Japanese. “There are so many languages on this continent, I’ll never be able to learn them all.” He chuckled, eyeing Hamada. “I guess you don’t have that problem, huh?”
Hamada shook their head. “Not particularly. Though, if I haven’t heard a language in a long time, my knowledge of it tends to fade. Of course, once I hear someone speak it, I can understand it again.”
Ed and Hamada chatted more about Hamada’s quirk until they boarded the plane. Ed had the same excitement for their take-off as last time, but once they were at cruising altitude above the cloud layer — 40,000 feet, 40,000 FEET!!! — the world below became a near endless field of white, which even Ed would admit wasn’t quite as interesting. (He still took dozens of pictures with his phone’s camera. He was going to lord this over Mustang until the day he died.)
After getting some water and snacks from the plane staff, Hamada put on some strange devices in their ears – headphones, they said – so they could listen to music on their phone. (“It plays music too?!”) After Hamada gave Ed a pair of his own, they showed him how to access the plane’s ‘WiFi’ and use the vast library known as the “internet.”
He was entranced.
After countless rabbit holes in which Ed learned more about the designs of planes and phones, he ended up researching history, hoping to understand what had happened on the Outside these past few hundred years. At some point, the search engine called “Googol” offered him another resource in his deep dive.
“history of the entire world, i guess?” Ed read off in English. “Well, that’s one place to start.”
He clicked on it.
20 minutes later, Ed resurfaced from the video. “You know,” he muttered to himself. “I almost want to say that Truth made that.”
Although it wasn't very in-depth, it had given him an idea about the last few centuries on the Outside, what they knew about Atossa, and when their information started to become scarce. A few more Googol searches later, and Edward figured he had a decent idea of their histories.
For starters, the weird thing that Ed had noticed (and that had really thrown him off for a short time) was that they had different dating systems. While it was currently 1919 in Atossa, the Outside listed the date as nearly two centuries later, saying the year was around 2100. Ed wasn’t sure when their dating systems had diverged, but evidently they’d adopted different calendar systems at some point.
Anyways, Atossa and Outside had fairly similar accounts for most of history. The Outside had records of the Arcadian Empire from when it had covered half of Atossa and the Mediterranean. They even had stuff from Xerxian philosophers like Plato and Socrates. But their records of events in Atossa really started to drop off after Xerxes’ destruction nearly a thousand years ago.
According to historians, after Xerxes “vanished”, travellers to and from Atossa became scarcer and scarcer, but not nonexistent. By 500 years ago, travel had almost dried up completely (which aligned with Atossan accounts), and although residents of Atossa could leave, they were widely ridiculed. The historians posited that this was when Atossan Sickness began to set in, also known as the sickness that came when anyone crossed the borders. One story, cemented in the local legends of the peoples near the Atossan border, said that the entire land had become cursed. In Atossa, ghosts roamed the earth, sucking the life force from anyone that set foot there. It became a forbidden location, one that no one was to enter.
While Edward wasn’t quite sure he believed ‘ghosts’ were the cause, the ‘Atossan Sickness’ was all too real. Ever since he left the Aerugan coast, Ed had felt it. His stomach was clenched like he had a case of mild nausea, and he felt on edge, like there was something big that had suddenly vanished from his perception. But, apparently it was much more severe for Outsiders entering Atossa, who would be bedridden with migraines, nausea and fatigue until they either died or left.
The other significant event, of course, was the development of quirks about 200 years ago. There was nearly a minute of the “history of the entire world, i guess” video dedicated to the past two centuries and change. The video described in broad terms how the first quirked baby had been born in China (“there’s a glowing baby ”), the spread of quirks (“rats? maybe”), the upheaval that had befallen the Outside (“every thing is broken”), and Atossa permanently closing its borders (“Atossa said no one but now they mean no one”).
By this time, Ed’s eyes were starting to hurt, the harsh light of the phone screen seared into his eyelids and the beginnings of a headache pressing into his skull. He groaned, downed another cup of water, and shifted back into his seat. Outside his window, the sky was pitch black save for a blinking light off the plane’s wing.
Edward yawned, eyes sliding shut as he leaned into the plastic wall of the plane.
They really do have a lot of plastic, Ed muttered, and that was his last conscious thought before sleep claimed him.