Chapter Text
Central Amestris, 1899
Van Hohenheim was a man who would, given a choice, gladly exchange travel and adventure for the familiarity of his own fireside. Once, perhaps, he would have been an enthusiastic explorer and investigator, but five hundred years of lonely wandering had dulled that impulse and left him desiring only a home, a safe and happy place. He seemed to have found one with Trisha, and yet here he was—far from that home, in enemy territory, so to speak—breaking into what looked like an abandoned mausoleum in central Amestris, in a forgotten cemetery hidden beyond Central City’s borders.
Deep inside the mausoleum, Hohenheim lit a dark lantern and held it up to examine the walls and floor. He saw the scraping marks on the floor with mixed hope and worry that this was still not the right place.
Hohenheim simply transmuted the hidden door out of the way. Inside the circular chamber, the walls were lined with the pipes that ran everywhere under central Amestris—veins carrying the tainted lifeblood of the country to feed its ravenous founder.
A transmutation circle hummed and pulsed slowly on the floor with a sickly light, surrounding a central plinth. Lying on that plinth in a glass casket was a golden-haired child.
The hair rose at the back of Hohenheim’s neck. With a swift movement, he scuffed out a sharp break in the outer ward of the array with one foot. The circle quieted and died. The fragment of philosopher’s stone above the child’s head cracked and dissolved into the air.
“Edward,” Hohenheim whispered. He waved the glass out of the way and carefully lifted the child. Edward barely stirred, but his chest rose and fell regularly.
Hohenheim left the mausoleum as he had found it, save for the dead circle and the child clutched protectively to his chest.
Leore, Amestris, 1914
Petals floated down around Cornello, landing on the crowd. He caught a falling blossom and held it between his hands. With a crackle of electricity and a flash of red light, the flower became a rosette of crystal.
“That’s definitely a transmutation reaction,” Edward Elric said.
“Mhm,” Alphonse Elric confirmed. “The light and discharge is no different from anything we’ve done. But he’s ignoring conservation of mass.”
“He turned a flower into a crystal, too. That’s multi-step at the very least, atomic manipulation for sure… Organic matter to inorganic? Possible, but requiring a lot of control, and that’s ignoring the issue with conservation of mass.”
“You’ve seen the miracles for yourself,” Rose said. “You can’t tell me you don’t believe now!”
Edward was about to reply when he stiffened, the hairs rising at the back of his neck. Something was wrong. Rose was still talking, but Edward couldn’t hear it. His every sense was straining.
“Ed?” Alphonse asked.
“Something’s coming,” Edward said. “Something…”
He was interrupted by a scream.
Edward began to run.
The scream came from the other side of the crowd. Edward couldn’t push through the press fast enough. He dashed around the circumference of the crowd instead. People had begun to push and shove; there were more screams. Edward ignored them and pushed himself to run even faster.
There was something at the far edge of the crowd. It limped toward Cornello’s podium. It was a vaguely humanoid shape; a set of what looked like asteroids or planets in miniature hovered around its head. Some buried part of Edward—an instinct he hadn’t known about until now—was screaming at him in a language that was not Amestrian.
Edward whirled on the stunned acolytes of Leto. “Don’t just stand there gawking! Start evacuating people! Use the side streets. Get the crowd out of here. Go!”
The acolyte snapped out of his frozen state and began shuffling toward the church entrance. “Useless,” Edward growled. He grabbed one of the men who had been at the lunch counter earlier. “Start an evacuation, get people out of here. Use the side streets. Get them inside the church if you have to and bar the doors. Do it!”
The man jerked out of his stupor. “Right!” He hurried off, shouting “Start moving out of here! Get people into the church!”
Edward clapped, pulling a spear from the pavement. Copper, tin, beryllium, trace metals. Not his usual choice, but something told him that alchemically-refined steel was not going to help him this time. His heart was racing. The thing slowly jolted forward. How was he going to stop something like this? Edward was used to dealing with people, not whatever this was!
Well, the first thing he was going to do was not standing still. Edward dashed forward, swinging the butt of his partisan up at the creature.
The blow connected with ease. The creature didn’t even try to dodge. It turned and looked at him without eyes.
A chill ran up Edward’s spine. He couldn’t name the thing that urged him to leap backward, but the instinct saved his life. A sphere of what looked like rock slammed with brutal force into the pavement where he had been standing a second before, leaving a crater. It hurtled up and snapped back into place in its orbit, undamaged despite the wisps of smoke whipped to nothing by its passage.
Edward reassessed the creature. Whatever it was, it was a significant threat, quick to retaliate; those stones orbiting its head were weapons.
Edward dived back on instinct and swept the blade of his glaive forward, slashing its leg. The creature barely seemed to notice. It swung its arm toward him; Edward leaped back again. A game of cat and mouse ensued; Edward slashed and stabbed, dodging away from the creature’s retaliation. A stone struck his thigh, leaving a deep bruise; the creature’s hand clipped his side and burning pain blazed through his stomach and back, though the creature had barely touched him.
Edward’s heart raced. He was fighting on the defensive and he knew it. Even if the creature didn’t, it had the upper hand.
This had to end. Somehow.
Ed brought his hands together around the staff, fingertips connecting in a circuit. The pavement surged up and coiled around the creature. He stepped forward, wiping away the sweat from his forehead.
Only to dive back again as his alchemic trap burst outward in a shower of shattered stone fragments that hummed this way and that like angry hornets.
“Ed! Over here!”
Ed dived to the side, dodging another sweep from the creature’s arm. He darted out of the way, flipping over backward, drawing the creature toward Al’s circle. Al activated the circle standing, ready to intervene. The creature sank into the pavement chest-deep, its arms trapped.
“Good going, Al!” Edward shouted. He stood back, panting, trying to think of how to finish this fight.
Except that cracks were forming around the trapped entity, glowing with void light. Edward charged, swinging his weapon, but he was too late. The explosion knocked him backward with bruised ribs and another deep bruise on his left arm. He took control of his tumble as best he could, back on his feet in half a second. Then they were back at it as if they had never stopped.
With every step, every dodge, every pivot, every attack and counterattack, pressure built within Ed. It roared through him like a rising tide.
With a shout, Edward swept the glaive across and down. Light—harsh, searing, unrelenting—sprang to life along the haft, blazed down the blade, and struck the creature.
Its arm, severed at the elbow, struck the ground with a thud.
It shrieked in pain and reeled back. A smoking gash was carved deep into its chest.
Edward sprang forward to the attack. He was carried forward on that same tide, that roar of power from deep within. The steps were familiar, as easy as a dance. He was barely touching the ground at all now; all but weightless, except when it came to driving a blow home.
He darted around the creature, attacking, reversing back, harrying it like a hunting dog—like a whole pack—with a wild boar. The white heat began to build within him once more. Edward kept moving. He saw the opening, the killing blow, and almost hesitated. He didn’t kill. He didn’t want to kill it—did he?
Did he even have a choice?
Even as he froze mentally, he was still flying forward. A quick sidestep carried him out of the way of its arm without losing the opening.
He had no way to contain whatever this thing was.
And with that, his decision was made.
With a shout, light burst into existence along the blade of his weapon. Edward brought the long blade of the glaive down, trailing cascading sparks, on the creature’s head. An explosion of radiance clove the head in two.
The monster stood still. Red sand crawled down over its head in layers of sandstone, small trails of reddish sand dribbling to the ground. The stone spread over the featureless face and over the shoulders. The orbiting stones slowed, dulling. They came to a halt, frozen in the air for a second, then fell around its feet, harmless as a shower of light pebbles.
Edward stood still, breathing hard. His heart was still pounding. The dust of the street began to settle around him.
Slowly, frightened faces began to appear from the shadows of buildings, from the doorways of shops. They gathered around him, drawing in close. Edward looked around their awed faces, still panting. Stinging sweat ran down into his eyes. He blinked rapidly to clear them. The square was dead silent.
A man dropped to his knees, then another, then a woman; more and more, until the crowd were all on their knees around Edward. He looked around desperately. A woman took the hem of his coat reverently in both hands.
“Please don’t,” Edward begged. “Please, stand up.”
Already, murmurs were echoing, repeated through the crowd: “prophet,” “messenger of Leto,” “Leto has visited his people.”
“I’m not Leto,” Edward protested, helplessly. Someone took his hand and kissed it. Edward pulled away weakly.
“Please,” Cornello’s voice came, soothingly. He looked every inch the benevolent founder. The crowd parted to let him pass until he stood before Edward, who was torn between mistrust of the con artist and relief that someone—even if it was the swindler—was going to put a stop to this nonsense. Of course, Edward had gatecrashed his religion, however unwittingly, and Cornello must be plotting wildly to regain control of the situation.
“The hour grows late, and the messenger of Leto is clearly weary from his task,” Cornello announced. “I’m sure he will join us again tomorrow for the day’s worship. For now, it is only right for the Church to attend to his wants.”
The crowd parted; the woman let go of Edward’s coat. Cornello’s hand landed heavily on Edward’s shoulder, steering him through the crowd. Edward made note of that and decided to make Cornello regret it later. Alphonse followed.
Cornello guided them into the church through the main doors, down the aisle, through the sanctuary into the sacristy, through a back door, and toward an office. As they proceeded through the sacristy and offices, more and more of Cornello’s acolytes gathered to wait just outside the office in an unsubtle threat.
Cornello shepherded Ed through the door, allowed Alphonse to enter, then closed the door. He turned the key in the lock, removed and pocketed it. The benevolent old man act had vanished. “Who are you really?”
Edward had been on the back foot ever since the creature had turned to stone. Now, though, he was back on familiar ground. He dropped into an armchair and leaned back in it lazily, crossing his right leg over his left, the picture of relaxed comfort despite the grit and sweat covering him. He grinned at Cornello. “I’m an alchemist. You may have heard of me. I’m Edward Elric; it’s nice to meet you.” Indolently, he held out a hand.
Edward knew exactly what this incident meant for Cornello, even if he didn’t know what it meant for him.
Cornello didn’t take the hand. “The state alchemist? The Fullmetal Alchemist?” His face had gone an interesting shade of purple.
“Yes, that’s me.” Edward grinned, all teeth. “What can I do for you?”
Cornello said nothing. His face said you can go right back where you came from and leave me in peace, without much hope that it would actually happen. Edward’s grin widened.
“You and I both know you’re a fraud,” he said. “You’re just lucky Leore is in the middle of nowhere—everyone’s heard of alchemists, sure, but no one’s actually seen one—much less seen one at work. How fortunate for you.”
“What do you want?” Cornello demanded.
“I want a straight answer, Reverend.” Edward uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in the chair. “Your alchemy clearly defies the laws of nature. So it’s miracles, huh. Unless, if you happened to have something that amplifies alchemy… such as a legendary stone. The philosopher’s stone.” Ed grinned like a fox with a rabbit. “That’s your ring, isn’t it.”
Cornello’s face froze over in an expression of comical shock and dismay. Edward savored that look like a fine vintage—or not; alcohol smelled disgusting. “I’ll make it simple for you. Give us the stone, and we’ll be on our way.”
It was several minutes—Cornello’s face working all the while—before he answered. “You’re in such a hurry. Stay a few days, make a few appearances as Leto’s emissary, and you’ll have solidified my position enough for me to give you the stone.”
Edward surged from the chair. “I’m not helping you swindle your followers by pretending to be someone I’m not!”
“Oh? Then what are you, if not an emissary of Leto?” It was Cornello’s turn to look smug. “I certainly didn’t see any circles, ‘Fullmetal Alchemist.’”
Edward glared and slid his watch out of his pocket, holding it up in front of Cornello’s face just long enough to allow him to identify it. “My alchemical processes are a state secret.” Technically, every state alchemist’s was. Not that that would keep any half-decent alchemist from figuring it out by observation of the array and its effects.
“You could be a false prophet. Or the adversary,” Cornello said. “My followers will believe what I tell them.”
Edward glared at him. “You really think that?”
Cornello broke eye contact first. “It’s getting late. This is going nowhere. We can resume negotiations in the morning.”
“He’s going to try to double-cross us,” Alphonse said, once they were alone in the church-run hostel. “That was a play for time if ever I saw one.”
Edward grinned. It had been a play for time, a desperate effort to regain control of negotiations. “He’s definitely going to try to double-cross us.” He leaned back on the hostel bed. “I look forward to it.”