Fullmetal Alchemist: Gateway

[Dr. Cakey]

I'm starting a new topic for this, so that I can properly post chapter updates in the title. If the old topic could be locked, that would be lovely.

 

NOTE: I have temporarily skipped Chapter 4. You see, I find writing Al, Selim, and Mustang to be very difficult, and so I have not gotten very far in writing Chapter 4 (The Xing Investigation), while I have completed Chapter 4. Since there's nothing in 4 that you would need to know to read 5, I went ahead and posted it. Chapter 4 should be up by Monday, I expect.

 

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: ||||||||||

[spoiler=Chapter 5: The Secret in Xerxes]

“This is it!” Michael exclaimed, holding up a piece of paper triumphantly. Tucked away like a needle in a stack of needles, the battered transcript contained a short summary of the history of the Philosopher’s Stone.

 

THE FIRST PHILOSOPHER’S STONE KNOWN WAS CREATED BY A MASTER ALCHEMIST OF XERXES. FOR OVER 300 YEARS AFTER THAT TIME, THE SECRET OF CREATING PHILOSOPHER’S STONES WAS LOST. DURING THE ISHVALAN CIVIL WAR, THE STATE HAD THE CRYSTAL ALCHEMIST (DR. TIMOTHY MARCOH) RESEARCH THE CREATION OF THE STONE. HIS RESEARCH MADE SOME PROGRESS, BUT ULTIMATELY WAS ABANDONED. THIS RESEARCH WAS USED BY THE MEMBERS OF CENTRAL COMMAND FOR THEIR COUP AGAINST FUHRER KING BRADLEY, IN WHICH THEY INTENDED TO CREATE A HORDE OF IMMORTAL SOLDIERS POWERED BY PHILOSOPHER’S STONES. ALTHOUGH THE INGREDIENTS TO CREATE THE STONE ARE UNKNOWN, MANY BELIEVE CLUES CAN STILL BE FOUND IN THE RUINS OF XERXES.

 

It was a lead tenuous as smoke, but it was a lead. He pocketed the paper along with a few others he had found promising. He heard the sound of footsteps echoing from the lower stacks, and the lights clicked on. He’d been searching too long, and now the library was opening.

 

He scrambled to the window, glanced down. Too far to jump. He clapped his hands together and pressed them to the glass, removing it from the frame. He climbed out the window, returning the glass with alchemy. Then he adjusted his automail fingers, turning them into pick-like blades he jammed into the stone. He descended slowly, glad of the strength the automail afforded.

 

His escape complete, he ran to the train station. By noon, he was moving in the direction of East City – from there, to Xerxes.

 

He had not considered the heat of the desert. He had filled a canteen in East City, but managed to empty it by evening. He was glad for the cool that came from the sun’s disappearance and napped for about an hour before being wakened by the freezing cold of a desert night.

 

And so Michael learned the rules of desert travel: sleep by day, walk by night. This was doubly important for him, as the sun cooked his automail. After the first time that happened, he made sure to sleep under a layer of sand.

 

The sun was just pushing the first glimmer of light over the horizon when he reached Xerxes. It was the end of the second night, and by this time his throat was sandy and raw.

 

Even after five hundred-odd years, Xerxes remained impressive, with crumbling walls and soaring arches. For the moment, however, he was more interested in the spring that still welled up in the city square. He slurped up his fill of tepid water, then a bit more, and washed out his dusty hair.

 

He glanced up, and the secret of Xerxes looked back. It was etched with great skill onto the opposing wall. The top half had broken away, but it was still clearly a transmutation circle of some kind. It was formed of three concentric circles, along with smaller circles marking points along the inner two. These points on the innermost circle clearly defined a pentagon, but the damage prevented the design on the middle circle from being apparent. In the very center of these circles lay a worn emblem. Using alchemy, Michael created a hand out of the sand to raise him closer.

 

Based on the details, the points on the inner circle indicated certain positions of the sun. By extension, the points on the outer circle appeared to conform to the movement of the moon. Based on the placement of these suns and moons, there appeared to be exactly one place where a sun point and moon point would line up with the epicenter of the circles. He couldn’t be sure, of course, that sort of placement implied the two bodies having the same relative position in the sky – a solar eclipse.

The space between circles was filled in various places with strings of symbols. A lot of it was incomprehensible, the languages being different, but the basic characters were mostly the same and many Amestrisian words seemed to have their roots in those from Xerxes. He could pick out a number of alchemic symbols, including the Four Elements, male, female, and gold. Again there was no way to be sure, but if these were the same as most alchemic encryptions, the two genders represented two halves of a perfect whole, and gold was, of course, the Philosopher’s Stone.

 

The very center of the circle seemed to indicate some sort of locus of power, where nothing reacted but where everything was focused towards. But something didn’t seem quite right. He squinted, trying to see what was wrong. Frowning, he measured out a centimeter between his fingers and counted from the apparent epicenter to the edge of the innermost circle. Then he did it again in the other direction. That was it: his measurements were very rough, but the emblem seemed to be placed about three millimeters off-center. With the apparently perfect geometry of the rest of the etching, this error seemed very out of place.

 

The sound of voices and feet on stone broke him away from the transmutation circle. He turned around, and saw a group of ten or twenty people walking from behind a large pillar. He shielded his eyes from the sun with his automail arm, trying to get a better look. What were people doing here? Then he noticed their dark skin. Ishvalans.

 

Even after then-Brigadier General Roy Mustang’s campaign to revive Ishval and its culture, some Ishvalans held their grudges, skulking in slums and alleyways. Some, it seemed, had their refuge in the Xerxes ruins.

 

“So, alchemist? Why do you do these things, when they are an affront to Ishvala?” challenged one of the men. Michael jumped off his platform, letting it crumble back into sand. Landing on the desert ground, he scooped up a handful of sand.

 

“See, that’s what I’ve never understood,” he said, letting it fall through his fingers. “What’s wrong with creating? Why can’t I take some sand…” he clapped his hands, the sand remaining in his palm glowing and transforming into a fragile glass flower, “…and make it beautiful?”

 

“Why can’t you?” the man repeated, “Because God created the sand to be sand! Just because your little flower is beautiful, doesn’t mean it is good.”

 

Michael crushed the flower. “I noticed you’re not calling it ‘grotesque’. That’s a start. But honestly, what’s the difference between my flower and, say,” he rapped the wall with his metal knuckles, “this?”

 

You’re comparing simple building with changing objects from their natural forms?”

 

Michael clapped his hands again, scooped out a bit of the wall. “See? Sand,” he put a palm to the ground and raised it, creating a small column of stone. “They’re the same, they just look different. Matter is matter, and I can’t change it any more than you can. It’s the Law of Natural Providence.”

 

The man crossed his arms. “That doesn’t change the fact that you use powers against the will of God.”

 

Michael threw up his hands. “Ishvalan, your ‘God’ dictates a system of morality – but morality systems are arbitrary constructs, created by people to suit their needs at a given time. And these constructs outlast their usefulness, becoming traditions. And these traditions limit you with their outdated ideas!”

 

“You - !” the man snarled, about to charge at him, but a companion restrained him. After a few moments, he shook the other man off and walked away. The rest of the group followed after him, casting hate-filled glances back at Michael.

 

He shook his head and lay back on the sand. It was tempting to try to make a more comfortable bed with alchemy, but it seemed frivolous after his argument with the Ishvalan.

 

He awoke as evening fell over the desert. He tossed himself to his feet. He’d missed his chance to make a sketch of the etching, so he would have to remain until morning. He stretched his legs and started to stroll around the ruins, when a sound made him pause. Something was skittering around on the stone walls.

 

He cast around for the source of the sound. He wanted to prepare a weapon in case he had to fight, but decided against it, since the light from the alchemic reaction would reveal his location.

 

He thought for a few moments, then clapped his hands and pressed a palm to the ground, running a surge of energy in a wide circle around him, turning sand and sandstone to glass.

 

The skittering rhythm changed, as if the source were flailing to find balance on the new surface. It stopped for a moment, then resumed more slowly. This time it was moving toward him, but he could tell where it was coming from, and it was on his playing field.

 

The sound accelerated suddenly, racing toward him, and he slapped his palm against the ground, causing a series of waves to run through the glass in the direction of the sound, which changed to that of shattering glass. It seemed he was using too fragile a medium.

 

Finally he could dimly see the source of the sound in the moonlight. It looked…like a spider. A huge spider. He pressed his hands together, touched the ground and pulled up a stone javelin. He judged the distance and threw – it was a lucky throw, seeing as he’d never done it before, and it pierced through the spider’s “shoulder”. It stumbled back, then one arm or leg pulled out the javelin and hurled it back.

 

He threw up his hands to protect himself, and it clanged against them. The hands rang, and he felt something give inside. He was reminded that these hands were still only five days old, and were being pushed past any reasonable limits.

 

Then the spider was on top of him, two legs pinning his arms, another two on his legs, with its front two weaving out silk threads.

 

“Got you,” it said.

 

 

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

 

[GenzoTheHarpist]

In the other thread you commented that Michael wasn't interesting yet, but he would be later. Do you see no flaw in having to read through many, many chapters before the main character becomes anything more than a carbon copy?

[Dr. Cakey]

In the other thread you commented that Michael wasn't interesting yet, but he would be later. Do you see no flaw in having to read through many, many chapters before the main character becomes anything more than a carbon copy?

Um...

 

I know how to spell?

 

Chapter 7 should probably satisfy you. 6 might prove to intrigue you as well.

[Tentacruel]

I enjoyed the irony of Al using armor, but other than that, this is kinda boring.

 

Micheal=Al. I recommend giving the character more depth.