Fullmetal Alchemist: Gateway [NOW ON: Chapter 3]

[Dr. Cakey]

Yes, I'm taking yet another crack at this fanfic business, seeing as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood finished its run just a few weeks ago. If you're unfamiliar with Fullmetal Alchemist (and I can't imagine why) - get familiar with it! There you are, all 64 episodes subbed by Funimation themselves.

 

Oh yes, open to all the comments, criticisms, and reviews, etc. Because apparently you're not allowed to make a suggestion unless the author has said you can.

 

 

[spoiler=Chapter 1: Gateway of Truth]

Alchemy begins with the circle. The circle is a conduit which focuses and dictates the flow of power, tapping into the energies existing within the Earth and matter. It represents the cyclical flow of the world's energies and phenomena and uses those means to decompose and reconstruct. There are times, however, when too much is attempted out of too little, and the alchemic forces rebound, fluctuating unpredictably in a wild dance to restore balance to the equation of equivalent exchange. That is the truth.

 

So when an insignificant human dares to cross the limit and question the reality of birth and death – whether because of hubris, desire, or desperation – the universe opens up and the truth engraves itself in their souls.

 

Michael Schroeder had read the accounts of the gruesome results of human transmutation, but somehow he had expected the result to be different for him. After all, he had used precisely the materials of the human body – water: 35 liters; carbon: 20 kilograms; ammonia: 4 liters; lime: 1.5 kilograms; phosphorous: 800 grams; salt: 250 grams; saltpeter: 100 grams; sulfur: 80 grams; fluorine: 7.5 grams; iron: 5 grams; silicon: 3 grams – and that was the equivalent exchange, right? But the universe disagreed.

 

Force swirled along the edge of the circle. Ribbon-like hands emerged from its lines and reached out, latching onto him and peeling him apart particle by particle. He felt almost no pain as it happened – maybe those particles wanted to be separate. His eyes were decomposed last, so he could see a bottomless gray eye open up beneath him and drag him away into oblivion.

 

The world was white. At first, it seemed as though there was nothing more than this whiteness, stretching away past infinity, but then Michael began to recognize a “ground” beneath his feet. It seemed neither to resist nor to give way; it simply existed. Behind him towered a stone door – ten, fifteen meters high, though distance didn’t seem to contain much meaning here – inscribed with the primal forces of the universe: chaos and order, light and darkness, creation and destruction, knowledge and ignorance, peace and war. Everything was organized around a clear central point, but that point was blank.

 

A white figure emerged from the world’s white, seeming to balance between presence and non-existence. It sat casually, as if it had always been there. Perhaps it had.

 

“Yo,” it said, in a voice that reverberated on either side of the moment.

 

“Who…who are you?” he managed. He had read vague accounts of what occurred beyond the rebound from human transmutation, but those memories seemed to have dripped out of his head. Now it felt almost as though he were trapped in a formula of not-knowing. The white world vibrated.

 

“I am what you call the world. Or perhaps the universe, or perhaps God, or perhaps truth, or perhaps all, or perhaps one. And I am also…” a hand rose, finger pointed accusingly, “…you. Welcome, you stupid fool who doesn’t know his own place.”

 

The door rumbled and swung open, reveal a pure darkness within. The huge gray eye emerged from the darkness, bringing with it the ribbon-like hands that snatched him up, pulling him within the door. He struggled against them, but they had an inexorable strength he couldn’t fight.

 

“Quiet,” the white being commanded, “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? I will show you the truth.”

 

The door slammed shut.

 

The universe was compressed into a tight spiral, and Michael was falling right down the middle. The discovery of alchemy flashed for an unseen instant, followed closely by his sister Isabel showing him the alchemic basics. The fall of Xerxes, the Ishvalan Civil War, Xingese sages curing illnesses, the foundation of Fort Briggs, a slave laboring for the master alchemist of Xerxes, hapless townsfolk praying to a false god, an infinite desert, all flashed by, ending in light that blazed brilliant as the sun.

 

“How was it?” asked the being. Michael’s skull swirled with five thousand years of history. But in all the disparate images, some kind of truth was hidden beneath the surface.

 

"There’s something…” he began – an image of Xerxes ruined, thousands of bodies littering the streets – “…yes, yes…I see, human transmutation is possible, I just…” he wracked his brain for more, more from behind the gate. “Show it to me again!”

 

“I can’t,” the being said bluntly, rising to its feet, “I can only show you this much for the toll you’ve paid.”

 

Michael's racing, ecstatic thoughts ground to a halt. He knew what the being said, but the meaning seemed to be suspended somewhere above his head.

 

“Toll?” he asked, dumbly.

 

“Yes, toll.” The being said, its white hands replaced with hands of flesh. The grin on its blank face was impossibly wide. “It’s an equivalent exchange, right? Alchemist?”

 

Michael glanced down – the white world had covered his hands, made them disappear. No, that was just denial. They were his toll.

 

The white world broke away, returning him to the world where there was pain, and Isabel was still dead. He had been shown the truth.

 

 

[spoiler=Chapter 2: Familiar Faces]

Selim Bradley was the young son of Führer King Bradley, who had died in the chaos of the so-called “Promised Day” of twelve years past. His mother had taken care of him alone since that day, and he was kept safely within the wall’s of the Führer’s mansion.

 

Four years ago, Selim had expressed interest in learning the art of alchemy. The new Führer, Roy Mustang, had been hesitant, but eventually had a certain newly-minted State Alchemist teach the eager youth: the Kitten Alchemist and de facto ambassador to Xing, Alphonse Elric.

 

Carefully, Selim chalked a transmutation circle onto the floor. Alchemy was an exact science, requiring a circle drawn as perfectly as possible to expedite the flow of energy. For this attempt, he was using a simple circle for manipulating inorganic carbon. Alphonse had made him memorize the whole table of elements, from hydrogen to plutonium to prepare him for actual alchemy. He also had to memorize and differentiate each corresponding circle, no matter how similar they seemed. Also, he had to be able to balance all sorts of chemical equations in his head, keeping energy equal on both sides. Too little resulted in rebound; too much could cause the alchemic transformation to overflow. Alphonse hadn’t wanted him to start real alchemy yet, but he was on business in Xing again, and Selim had decided to try it himself.

 

Mother had always called him a sensible boy, and maybe he was, because he started with the simplest of alchemic exercises. He set a graphite block in the circle – two inches high and four inches long. The goal was to invert it, making it four inches high and two long.

 

He put his hands to the circle, guided a quick burst of alchemic energy along its lines. The block twitched, and he poured in more. Decompose: the block collapsed into a puddle of dust. Work on control. Reconstruct: he gathered the atoms back together, drawing them up into a sort of fused cone. Work on control.

 

-

 

“Did alchemy without supervision?”

 

Führer Mustang held the report in a gloved hand, rereading it.

 

“Führer Grumman would have acted on this immediately,” put in a general.

 

“But I’m not Grumman,” Mustang replied, “Any aspiring alchemist wants to outrace their teacher. It’s only natural: that’s what it is to be young.”

 

“Selim is not ‘any aspiring alchemist’,” the general protested, “he’s -”

 

Mustang held up a hand. “I know what he is, better than you do, and I understand what you’re thinking, but this is hardly incriminating evidence. I’ll move Riza to coordinate Selim’s watch; she’ll have the authority to do whatever she deems necessary. She’s certainly tougher than I am.”

 

-

 

“Hey! What’s going on?” Alphonse yelped, as several rough-looking men surrounded him. They seemed out of place on the country road, armed as they were with clubs and boards. Their leader had a pistol, instead, which he waved threateningly at him.

 

“That silver pocket watch means you’re a State Alchemist, right?” the man said, gesturing with the gun, “I was just thinking the government might pay a lot to get you back.”

 

“That’s it?” asked Al, “In that case, I don’t feel so bad about doing this.”

 

He pressed his gloved palms together, creating a flash of blue light and kicking up a cloud of dust. The man panicked and opened fire. When the dust settled, he was aiming at what appeared to be a giant suit of armor, more than ten feet tall, that had been from the sand on the road. It made one clunking step, and then another, nearly crushing some of the bandits as they scrambled aside.

 

“Sorry!” Al shouted from within the armor, as it jogged off down the road.

 

Al stopped once he reached the gate to Central City, where the armor dissolved back into the sand it had been made from. He strolled the rest of the way to Central Command. He presented his silver pocket watch to the guards, who immediately allowed him in.

 

For most people, even military folk, gaining an audience with the Führer was difficult. Al was not ‘most people’, though he avoided flaunting it. He ducked past majors, colonels, and captains, and two brigadier generals, his slightly wrinkled dress shirt and vest out of place among the polished blue uniforms. Al knocked on the door to the Führer’s office and entered. Mustang was in conference with three generals, who started at the interruption. Al waved an embarrassed hello.

 

“We’ll finish this later,” Mustang said, dismissing the generals, who filed out around Al with varying degrees of respect. “Sit down, Al. How was Xing?”

 

“Incredible!” Al began enthusiastically, “Ling is a great emperor. He adjusted rice distribution so that’s easily available in all parts of the country, even by the desert. It’s hard to believe…”

 

Mustang rested his chin on his hands. “But?”

 

“You remember what happened to Ling’s Philosopher’s Stone? He gave it to the old emperor, but when he explained how it was made, the emperor decided it shouldn’t be used. Instead, it was kept in the palace treasury.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “About a month ago, an alkahestrist requested the stone for research. He wanted to see if it was possible to make something like a Philosopher’s Stone, but without…sacrifices. The alkahestrist was well-respected, so Ling approved and sent the stone along with a heavy guard. But when they arrived, the stone was gone.”

 

Mustang’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. You’re saying the Philosopher’s Stone was stolen?”

 

“Exactly. All the soldiers were questioned, but none of them saw anything suspicious. There aren’t any leads.”

 

Mustang shook his head. “So there’s someone out there with a Philosopher’s Stone…and we were just finished dealing with the border skirmishes, too. I’m sure you want to go see Ed, but this is important. Tomorrow, you’re going right back to Xing and you’re not leaving until that stone is found. Got it?”

 

 

[spoiler=Chapter 3: Burned by the Sun]

Michael didn’t scream. He had survived God (or the world or truth or all or one), and an automail procedure, no matter how painful, wasn’t even on the same level.

 

The attachment process took over an hour, at the end of which the engineer – the best Michael could find – told him the recovery period would likely be at least two years.

 

His new steel fingers twitched spasmodically. “Two years? Two years?” his hands clanged down on the operating table, and thrust him off. “I’ll do it in six goddamn months! Damn it!”

 

His wrist popped a bit inside, and a few drops of blood dripped onto an automail hand.

 

“See?” the engineer grumbled, “You popped a blood vessel. Don’t move your hands for at least three days, got it?”

 

“Right,” Michael muttered, brushing past the engineer and out the door. He threw himself down on the floor of his lab, arms raised toward the sky. He focused intently on his steel hands. His fingers twitched. He tried again. And again. And again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again…again…again…again…

 

Again…

 

He was wakened by morning sunlight filtering through a half-shuttered window. He sat up stiffly, his back cracking and popping. He lifted one hand, looked at it. It was spattered with blood, but the pain was gone. He focused on the hand, clenched it into a loose fist.

 

With sudden inspiration, he slammed his palms together and smashed them against the floor. Blue light fanned out from them, and the floorboards began to ripple, surging like ocean waves. He raised the waves higher, until they grazed the ceiling as they churned in a circle around him. He released them so that they hung suspended around him like twisted mountains.

 

He did it again, this time returning the floor to its original form. From there, he walked to where his wild burst of alchemy had smashed a thermometer, with mercury leaking across the floor. Hands together, and the mercury raised up in a slender column. He tamped down on it, causing it to settle into a solid state.

 

“Alchemy without transmutation circles,” he said with a chuckle. “This really is incredible.” Another collision, and his hands rippled and distorted, the fingers stretching and lashing around like startled snakes before withdrawing back to their normal states.

 

Isabel. His emotions plummeted earthward. Human transmutation, was possible, he just hadn’t gone about it the right way. He hadn’t properly accounted for the soul, the most important part, of course. There might be nothing in the whole world that could be traded for a soul.

 

Nothing but a Philosopher’s Stone. Out of all the chaos that had surrounded the Promised Day, the theory that such an object might exist had crystallized into certainty. However, the State had restricted its study, putting it in the same category as human transmutation. Only State Alchemists could even look at stone-related documents.

 

Certifying to become a State Alchemist was not the kind of delay he felt like allowing, particularly since he might not even be accepted. His automail hands would arouse suspicion, and his newfound ability to transmute without a circle would mark him immediately, mark him as a loose cannon, maybe, or someone “dangerous”.

 

He boarded a train for Central that afternoon. He could clench and release his fists now, the rest he faked with alchemy, with some success. It was no substitute for really being able to move them himself. That would come more slowly.

 

From the train station, he found his way to the recently rebuilt First Branch of the National Central Library. Any information on the Philosopher’s Stone would most likely be kept in there. It was nearly midnight, so the library was closed – not that he was planning on getting in that way. Instead, he made his way around to the back and pressed his hands against the marble wall, forcing it open with alchemy. He was in.

 

He removed a small lamp from the pocked of his coat and lit it, with difficulty – the pain in his hands was starting to flare up again. Its flickering light illuminated a tiny fraction of the immense library. The nearest titles seemed to be documents from the court-martial offices. He sealed his entrance behind him and made his way further into the library.

 

He was going to find what he was looking for.

 

 

Chapter 4: ||||||||||

Chapter 5: ||||||||||

Chapter 6: ||||||||||

[GenzoTheHarpist]

There was nothing this first chapter told me that I couldn't have learned by reading the origin chapters in the manga. Except that instead of Edward, the character is called Michael.

[CrabHelmet]

You changed too much from the FMA canon. It's like it's a completely different universe.

[Dr. Cakey]

You changed too much from the FMA canon. It's like it's a completely different universe.

 

What precisely do you mean?

[CrabHelmet]

Everything is so different. Ed's name is different and Al is gone! Sure, everything else is pretty much copy-pasted from the canon series, but those changes are so huge that I could barely recognize this as an FMA fic were it not for the title.

[Dr. Cakey]

Everything is so different. Ed's name is different and Al is gone! Sure' date=' everything else is pretty much copy-pasted from the canon series, but those changes are so huge that I could barely recognize this as an FMA fic were it not for the title.

[/quote']

 

o i get it ur bein crab helmet

 

Was Chapter 1 almost a re-write of the second episode of Brotherhood (because I'm too lame to read the manga)? Well...yes, it was. Did I take some dialogue directly from the episode? Yes, I did. Was it intentional? Yes, it was. If I offer up burnt offerings, will Crab Helmet forgive me? No, she will not. Is my second chapter very different? Yes, it is. Is it up now? Yes, it is. Am I entirely happy with this chapter? No, actually. Do I have an excuse? Yes, I couldn't find anything concrete to fix. Is that all? Yes, it is.

[Dr. Cakey]

Aw, come on.

 

BUMP.

 

Chapter 3 is up. Comment etc. etc.

[GenzoTheHarpist]

Michael still seems like Ed with a new name. The stuff involving the original characters was way more interesting.

[Dr. Cakey]

I've made a new topic so that I can can properly post updates and so forth. The topic is here. I've put a new chapter up, incidentally.

 

On to my replies. Reply. Whatever.

 

You are correct, and that's a shame. Ed is a strange character, in that he has his arrogance, his short-temper, and all his other endearing qualities, but has a very strong moral compass. So a slightly less 'moral' character would appear to act very much like him until he was severely tested. Michael hasn't had to make any tough decisions yet - going through the Gate is a harsh experience, but it's passive - the only choice was the understandable one to perform human transmutation. My intuition tells me he will be severely tried in upcoming chapters, and may become less like Ed and more like one of my personal favorite characters in FMA.