The Mathew Heidieger Files: Preview
"talking"
'thinking'
ANs and comments
s==============s
'If only things had been different, if only none of the events that day had happened, what would have become of me?'
An old man in his late 70s stood in an underground hideout. His face was wrinkled and full of scars and burn marks, his eyes had permanent black circles and looked tired. His hair was light gray and shortly cut haphazardly, he had been cutting his hair alone for years now and he wasn't going to care much about his appearance when he could die any time now. His right ear was half ripped off and looked ugly and deformed. His skin was very pale and it looked like almost his whole body was full of scars. His clothes were old and had seen better years but he didn't have the lux to ask someone to wash them for him because, you see, he was a wanted man.
His name was Mathew Heidieger, from a small village in Amestris that no longer existed. It had been attacked, pilaged and burned to the ground by bandits when he was just 15. His whole family, friends and neighbours had been killed. He survived by sheer dumb luck by deciding to take a risky move.
===Flashback===
It was a peacefull night, the crickets were singing, the fire was burning in the oil lamps in every house, making the small village glow. Suddenly there was shooting and screaming. A group of over 50 masked men on horses with guns and torches came running in. They shot everyone who entered their sight, laughing like maniacs. Part of them broke into houses and took everything valuable, others led the animals with them, some even went after young girls and r*ped them, then killed them. He and his family tried to run but were spotted. His father had been shot while trying to protect him and his mother.
"DAD!"
"GO! Run away! I'll stall them."
"Hahaha! Like you can!" - the bandit shot him in the head.
They were then chased by horses and instead of getting away, in their panic they went the wrong direction and got ceperated. Mathew ran and ran, the sound of horses coming closer and closer. He then saw a light and ran toward it but it turned the light was from the burning houses of his village. Everyone had been killed, each house pilaged and set on fire along with the houses. The sound of the approaching bandits was coming closer and louder.
'I don't wanna die!'
Mathew frantically looked around.
'What should I do?! Do I take the risk? Of coures I do! I at least have a sliver of a chance of surviving!'
He then did the most illogical thing in his life up untill then. He hid inside the closest burning house. He knew fire wan't burn it instantly and that smoke rose up, so he entered the burning house and hid near the wall, laying on his belly, a handkerchief on his mouth.
"DAMN IT! Where did that brat go?!"
"We have to leave! The smoke might have been seen by now!"
"Yea, but the brat we were chasing disappeared somewhere! We have to kill 'im!"
"Shut up! What's more important? Your life or some stupid brat?!"
"Yeah, but.."
"No buts, ya idiot! It's not like he had seen us so give up before the military comes!"
They left but be didn't dare to come out yet. Even as cinders and burnt wood fell and burned his skin, he waited untill he was shure it was safe. After that he carefully crawled out of the burning house. He then hid in the woods near the village untill the sun rose. By then the fires were almost gone. He silently cried as he dragged his slightly burnt body around the village.
'Everything is gone...just like that.'
He saw a few men in military garb and asked them for help. They were surprised seeing him.
"Tell the commander we have one survivor." - one of the men said to his coleague.
"What do you mean? What about my mother? She was alive!" - Mathew shouted and coughed from straining his throat too much.
The soldier quetly led him to a place with a few bodies covered by white cloths.
"We found her on the road. Is this your mother?" - the soldier asked as he removed the cloth form one of the bodies.
Mathew's legs softened and he fell on the groung. His mother's bruised face being revealed was too much for him to bear.
'I'm all alone now...'
===End===
This had happened over 60 years ago and he still remembered it as if it had happened yesterday. He sighed tiredly and rubbed his wrinkled face. He sat on a chair next to a desk near the wall. He took a few old books, folders and journals. He lined them neatly on top of the desk. He then removed a brown diary from his coat's inner pocket. He leafed through it with a look of nostalgia. All but the very last page was full of neat writing. On the back was glued a picture of a few men and wemen standing in different poses, all in military garb, showing their watches off, their proof of being state alchemists. In the middle stood he, still young and full of life, his face clean, except the small burnt mark on his left cheek.
'I was only 28 when we took this picture. It was really a great time.' -he mused.
He took a pen out and started writhing on the last page.
===Flashback 2===
The now 23 year old Mathew was nervously sitting in a chair inside the Central. He was taking the state alchemist exam.
After the wipeout of his village, he found a temporary work and a place to stay but he was not satisfied. Like some heavenly forse had heard him, he met an alchemist by the name of Lyon Graham. He had then begged the man to take him as a disciple. Fter bugging him for a month, he agreed and took him in. Mathwe learned vigorously and worked on his practical skills even more. In only 7 and a half years, he had learned enough and became an alchemist. His teacher had congratulated him because people needed at least 10 years plus additional training to be able to use alchemy but he managed everything in roughly 7. After that he applied to take the state alchemist exam. He studied more and practiced untill the last possible day. Heck, he even entered the building reciting all the known elements and their composition.
They asked him some questions and then gave him the go on a practice fied. He passed the exam with above-average results. Other than him three more people passed. Two men and a woman. The woman's name was Sherry Gold, she had long blonde hair, green eyes and melodic voice, she was a natural beauty with the flaw she had the habbit of punching people that annoyed her. She was his first love.
===End===
He stopped writhing. On the last page were a few line that read:
If anyone finds this, then I have probably died during my last experiment. I'm just leaving my final words and regrets here. I have asked myself numerous times if what I did was wrong or right, had I overstepped the boundary of acceptable? Well, now I know I haven't! I learned a terrible fact about the 'hailed' Van Hohenheim. He is no saint, he's a sinner! He made the Philosopher's stone to achive his goals, made and is probably still making inhumane experiments and homunculi! Yeah, you can call me crazy but I know I'm right. Hohenheim had soiled the face of thrue alchemy! He is using the power of his stone to ruin the beauty and perfection of this art! People may say anything about me but at least I can say with clear consciousness that I have never commited an act that led me to see the so called "Gate of Truth" ! So, don't try doing things like him, you will regret it! Mathew Heidieger, the alchemist of fire and ice.
He closed the diary and put on a glove. It was white and had the circle for fire alchemy. He stood up, put a few pieces of wood in the fureplace and lit them up with a snap. He then took the first of the books and started tearing it apart with hidden hatred. He did so to half the books. If you looked carefully, you could see 'by Van Hohenheim' on each of them. After that he proceeded to burn everything else but his diary. A nostalgic look in his eyes.
'It's for the best. I can't allow anyone to find my work and use it for evil!' - he thought as he burned yet another journal.
After he made sure everything had turned to ashes and took a few chalks and started drawing many complex circles, lines and runes.
===Flashback 3===
Mathew was currently panting and hiding in the sewer. He was now 36 and his last mission was disastrous. He and a few more alchemists, along with Sherry Gold, were sent to investigate a case of mass disappearance of people. It was speculated an escaped criminal, refered to as the 'Mangle', famous for trying to make chimeras from literally everything. He was even crazu enough to try and combinr humans with plants or even items such as rocks, chairs or even knives. He was arrested but managed to were sent to this town to see if it's him and catch whoever it is that abducts the people.
His relationship with Sherry was going pretty well. He needed a few years to get past her hard shell and even harder punches but it had payed off. Tey were dating and were going to marry as soon as he retired in four years. Sherry had told him her biggest secret last year, she was sterile and couldn't have kids. Instead of pushing her away, like all men did when they heard, he pulled her even closer.
"What if you can't have kids?! We'll adopt one, or maybe a few! We'll mangae everything together! I love you and something like this won't change my decision to marry you!" - he told her that night.
After a few days they concluded the only place near here that can be used as a hideout was the abandoned bycicle factory. They readied themselves as they entered. An uneasy feeling settled in Mathew's gut. He hadn't felt like that ever since his village got burned.
"Wait! I don't think we should enter!" - he said to the leader of their group.
"Why?"
"Because I have a bad feeling! It's like something really bad will happen."
"Stop being paranoid. You're already, what, 30-40? Stop overthinking this. We go in, take the person out and clear the place. Easy as that. We're six and he's one!" - the leader dismissed him.
They entered and saw a workplace in one corner, a big ragged carpet in the middle and a few cages on the left with many mangled chimeras crying. Just by their shape you could understand each of them had human mixed in them.
'It's quiet, way too quiet. And where is the...' Mathew looked down at the carpet '...Transmutation CIRCLE!' - he realized.
"Everyone! Get away!" - he shouted as he jumped away from the carpet.
Some mechanism activated before the others could react and Sherry was more than 10 metres away from him. The carpet was quickly pulled out from under their feet and they fell on top of a giant circle. With horror Mathew saw the 'Mangle' clap his hands and acrivating the circle. The thing he saw next was horifying. His coleagues and love werscreaming as their bodies fused together to form a gruesome ball of hands, feet and blood.
"Oya. One escaped? Yo, Mangle, wasn't this plan of yours foul proof?!" - another figure made it's presence known.
It was their current Brigadeer commander, Malcolm Ferret.
"Iit was! No one managed to escape it untill now!" - Mangle answered with voice that sounded like he was gargling marbles.
Mathew's heart fell in his stomach.
'The commander worked with the Mangle? Why?!'
He pressed a button and a few or the doors opened and a lot of people wearing military uniforms came out and pointed their weapons at him.
"Today state alchemist Mathew Heidieger was revealed as accoplice to the wanted criminal the 'Mangle'. He betrayed his squad and used them as test subjects, luckyly a patrool heard the screams and saw him on the crimescene. Unfortunately the 'Mangle' escaped and the others were killed out of mercy. Heidieger is a wanted criminal and will be executed as soon as possible. Capture him!" - he ordered.
The soldiers pointed their guns at him but unfortunately for them Mathew was ready and dodged everything as he ran and used alchemy to defend himself. While Ferret was talking, mathew had slipped his gloves on and shifted in a pose where he would be able to run at any time. After that he entered the town but there were soldiers there too, so he opened a manhole and entered the sewage. He tried to fix things after he escaped the town but it didn't work. It was a Brigadeer commander's word against a low-rank alchemist. Someone had also tossed 'evidence' that he had been a mole. In a month, wanted posters with his face spread all around Amestris.
His first love was gone, his career and life too. He had nothing more. At couple of times he thought about commiting suicide but in the end refused. He decided to live and gave himself a new goal. He became a scientist, traveled around the world with different names and faces. He had learned how to transmute realistic skin masks in order to not be executed on spot. He stayed a few years and learned from the Xing alchemists and started making his own theories about alchemy. Around his 47th birthday he found a very old book about human transmutation written by Hohenheim. What he read in it made him sick and disgusted. How could someone sully the art of alchemy like that?! Hohenheim became his enemy from that day forward. In Mathew's eyes, turning the beauty of alchemy in something so sinister and repulsive was a sin.
'Van Hohenheim...I'll make shure nothing of your reputation remains! I'll prove you'll be able to change the world without some stone made of human sacrifices!'
===End===
He finished the last part. This was the last and the most complex circle he had ever invented. He looked at his life's work and started preparing the materials.
===Flashback 4===
He had started experimenting on humans. They were already dead, mind you. He collected recently deceased bodies and tested on them but he still was blamed for human transmutation and the stories of Mathew Heidieger, the most evil alchemist of the century spread even wider and farther away from the truth, reaching the point they speculated he was trying to make a Philosopher's stone or is working for the devil. In reality he did some experiments that may seem immoral but in the eyes of an alchemist were normal when you have in mind that some secretly buy slaves to experinent on them. He only took dead bodies.
Something interesting also happened. As kis understanding grew and he made new discoveries like breaking down items to their molar and atomic composition, icroscopes that could see the smallest cell, defibrlator, DNA, RNA and many others but he couldn't share them due to obvious reasons, he reached a conclusion.
'As long as you have the DNA and compounds of a human and enough electricity to start the heart, a human clone will become a reality!'
He also realized he could do basic alchemy, like changing the shape of a rock or fiving a clay pot, without a cirgle. He either needed to clap his hands and touch the item but also if he had enough time to relax anc concentrate, he could just touch it and transmute it.
The first time he succeeded at the age of 54, he was so happy he whooped and jumped around like a little kid for half an hour!
'HA! In your face Hohenheim! This prove that with enough understanding and hard work you can learn to transmute circleless without going to tis so called "Gate of Truth"! I'm such a genius!'
After that he continued to improve himself and at the age of 62 he made his first attempt in transuting a living being. He created a perfect copy of a dog he found dead on the side of the road. It ran, barked, ate and did everything a normal dog could do. The minus was that he had to train it not to make meses inside. He then attempted several more transmutations untill he reached human one. He used the DNA of a young teenage girl that had died the previous day. He prepared every material he needed and transmuted a perfect copy. He then used two electrodes to shock the body and start the heart. The moment it started moving, he knew he cucceeded. He had created a human through alchemy!
Later he realised another problem. Because he had used animals he didn't notice it but when he tried talking to the girl, she olny looked at him and tried to imitate him like an infant would. He understood that even if he created a perfect copy, it won't have any memories, even though the body knows how to move out of pure instinct. This raised the question why did this happen.
He used the girl he named Chio to understand this. He raised her and taught her different things and monitored her brain functions. This led him to discover that the memories every human has is just memorised code of electrical pulses. Chio also amazed him. She reached the intelectual level of a 12 year old in 3 years but unfortunately, because of a heart defect that had been transmuted when he cloned her body, she died. After that he made shure to check the body's health before doing something. And if there was, to try and fix it.
===End===
All materials were set in different points of the complex diagram of circles. Two big batteries were set as suplement energy sources. Also a few other containers with different liquids in them, also a few empty ones.
He took off all his clothes and steeled himself. He knew this may kill him if the smallest mistake occured. He also didn't have anything to test it on, so he was going to be probably the first and last to test this last theory of his. He used a special ink he made to draw a strange symbol that looked more like a tattoo pattern than an alchemical symbol. He then went to the middle, laid on his back, clapped his hands and acrivated the circle.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
He screamed as his body convulsed and trashed from pain. He wantedd to run but gritted his teeth.
'I have always done illogical things in these type of situations. Both in the village and here. I would grab even the smallest chance and...never le...t...go.'
Darkness enveloped him and he fainted from pain. Blood flowed, parks danced, the batteries started their work, bones broke and skin fell. White light enveloped everything. No one heard of Mathew Heidieger anymore.