Hey everyone!

Behold, my first honest to God chapter fic. It's a joint project with Ferio Wind over here or sicarius66 over at Livejournal. The story idea is hers, and she's also illustrating it with some of her absolutely fabulous art, which you can find linked on my profile. I definitely suggest you take a look!

Spoilers: Eventual spoilers for the whole series, the movie, and early bits of the manga.

Warnings: Mild language and violence.

Summary: After Ed and Al are unceremoniously thrown back into Amestris, they find that they are wanted for horrible crimes that they didn't commit.

Enjoy!

Ed opened his eyes and was immediately assaulted by the stark whiteness of the world around him. He rubbed slowly at his aching lids with his automail hand and let his dented trumpet fall to the ground with an endlessly echoing clang.

Gate, he thought, awed.

They were in the gate, and it was just as white and empty and sprawling as ever.

He looked up and noted warily that there was at least a ton of rubble suspended above him, hovering and rotating in thin air, and that was when he noticed that he was thrown bodily over his baby brother – an attempt to shield him from some of those massive stones, he remembered. Now, looking at it hovering there, he vaguely realized that his ditch effort to save his baby brother would have done diddly-sqawt – he was glad he'd had a backup plan. He could vaguely remember drawing some sort circle over his brother's back, in dirt and debris and maybe blood – he couldn't really tell at this point, it had all happened so fast.

Al twitched and groaned beneath him suddenly, and Ed quickly shoved himself off and put a hand on his brother's back. Al raised himself to his hands and knees with a musical clatter, a metallic scraping noise, that Ed recognized as his little brother's violin. It was in splinters now beneath his brother's hunched form, and despite everything happening, that saddened him. His brother had loved that violin, had taken such good care of it despite everything, and now it was in pieces.

Al still had the bow clutched firmly in his right hand when he raised his eyes to Ed accusingly.

"You broke it!"

Ed gaped. "Al, have you – "

"Why'd you have to pounce on me, I was going to go stand in that doorway, that's what all the experts say to do – " He leaned over the shattered remains of his violin with an absolutely broken look on his face. "Now what'll we do? I'll have to buy a new one, we can't afford that right now!" Suddenly, Al seemed to realize that something much more important than his broken violin was going on, and his jaw went slack with surprise. He stood, shakily, and Ed followed him, brushing off his pants and noting offhandedly that the dust and dirt hung, suspended and stationary, in the air, just like the pieces of building above them. Al reached up to touch one of the swiveling hunks of debris – a giant red 'A' with little lightbulbs in it, probably from the sign of the movie house that they had been performing in front of when the Earthquake had hit.

He watched the 'A' turn in place for a moment, slow and mesmerizing. Ed watched it too, the ticking of a dreamy smile starting on his face, before Al suddenly rounded on him, brandishing his ragged violin bow. "This isn't San Francisco, Brother! What did you do!?" He thwapped Ed over the head with it, and several more horse hairs sprung free.

"Nothing!"

"Liar! Did you kill us?!"

"No!"

"Brother!"

"Not – intentionally!"

"Edward," Al raised his eyebrows, crossed his arms, tapped his foot. Al-speak for answer me now, or else. Ed snorted defiantly before he realized there was no one here to question his dignity (or masculinity) if he succumbed to the intimidation of his six-year (one year! his mental-Al chastised firmly and Ed flinched) younger brother.

Ed deflated, and, rubbing the back of his neck, decided there was nothing better to do in the gaping white void than to let his little brother yell at him. "You – remember how we were experimenting with movement of the Earth and plate tectonics and volcanoes and all that? For powering alchemy?"

"Experimenting? Ed, we never got to the experimenting stage, all those arrays were purely speculation."

"Right, yeah, I know that," Ed said, before adding under his breath, "if someone had just agreed to splurge on the boat ticket to the Hawaiian Territory, we might have known what that fucking array was going to do!"

"Excuse me for wanting to eat, Brother!"

Ed flung his hands into the air. "You're not excused!"

Al thwapped Ed over the head again, and Ed howled and snatched the still swiveling 'A' out of the air, poised to attack when –

You're not dead.

Ed paused in his assault and looked left and right, up and down. Al, violin bow still raised comically in the air, did the same.

"Did you – ?" Al said, but Ed was already wise to the gate's game.

"Alright, you, show yourself!" He threw the 'A' aside. It never hit the ground, just kept on spinning indefinitely through the air where Ed had thrown it. Ed often forgot that Al had never truly interacted with the gate. He had flown through it enough times, body and soul, and he had been consumed by it, but it had never been in his head, it had never taken apart his soul and displayed it for him. It had taken his memories away, and coldly and clinically, it had given them back. Just the same exact way it had taken his body.

"Brother?"

"You must know the gate by now, Al."

Al's eyebrow's furrowed and his violin bow fell forgotten to his side. "Yeah. Not – intimately. I. Remember being here when I – when you – died."

Intimate. That was a good word for what the gate had done to his brain – it had raped it. Pillaged, plundered, ravaged.

"I said show yourself!" He snarled.

We're here. We've been here all along.

Suddenly, there was a sense of presence. There was no shadow to cast over them because there didn't seem to be a light source here – it was just endless light in all directions, perpetual beams that spread into infinity – but there definitely was a sense of something being there. They turned, simultaneous and slow, and sure enough, there it was. Just as enormous and breathtaking and horrifying as Ed remembered it. He clenched his fists – he hadn't thought he would ever be seeing this again, and he most certainly hadn't missed it.

Elric brothers. A pleasure to see you again.

Alphonse.

Without warning the doors flew wide open, faster than Ed had ever seen them, faster than Ed had thought hinges as old as time capable of, and several slithering black hands shot out. A thousand horrific memories flashed through his head all at once and Ed moved frantically to step in front of his younger brother when he saw where they were headed, but there was no sense of spatial relations here, in this realm controlled by the Gate. Ed could have run forever and his little brother still would have been ten feet away. He could only watch, horrified, as the tiny little hands crept to his brother's face and, ever-so-gently, caressed his cheek. Alphonse blanched to white and shivered.

We've missed this body. We kept it so nice for you. Do you like it? It's grown so much.

Al nodded, cautiously, as if he was afraid to disturb the hands stroking his cheeks. His eyes flitted to Ed.

"Leave him alone!" Ed screamed to the open air. "What," it came out querulous and weak, so he started again. "What do you want?" That one wasn't much stronger, but it echoed, not just the tail end but the full sentence, indefinitely, until he couldn't hear it anymore. Strong enough. Al clutched firmly at the violin bow in his right hand as the tendril-hands suddenly stopped, receding slightly, and the voice resumed.

Always straight to business with you, Edward Elric; just like your father.

Ed's felt his nostrils flare out at the offhanded mention of a man he respected now and repeated, "What do you want?" Because that question would make or break him.

What makes you think We want anything?

"You always want something!"

You insult Us Edward.

"Don't insult them, Ed!" Al hissed from his place a few feet away.

The Gate's laughter sounded like a thunderstorm, a thousand chittering voices descending on them at once.

No, he is right, We do want something. But We don't need it from you.

There was a sudden influx of cold air, and then, with a faint popping noise, they were surrounded by hundreds of people. Al shied away from those around him, shifting discreetly toward Ed, and even though Ed was inclined to do the same, he stood his ground in the face of the Gate.

The people weren't alive like he and Al were, that was for certain. They were gray-tinted and ragged-looking. Torn clothes and open red wounds and darkly burned skin. A man on Al's right was standing freely, but his eye socket was hideously empty and the left side of his body was caved in entirely, like something tremendously heavy had landed on him.

Ed eyed the rubble above him, and tried not to think about what he would have looked like if the array hadn't worked. The people around him just swayed quietly in the open air.

We wanted life. The Earthquake that brought you here took it. This is good enough. We assume you want through?

Ed glanced over at Al and licked his lips. "Yeah. We want through."

Al gazed at the void inside the gate dubiously. "Wait – you're just going to take these people and let us go? You're not going to take anything from us?"

Much life was taken today, and you have paid much already. We are satisfied.

"You're not going to like – steal an arm from me on my way over?" Ed inquired cautiously.

Much awaits you on the other side, should you choose to cross. Your price is easily paid. These people grant you that. Your experience grants you that. In addition, We are tired of your constant forays into accessing Us. You wake Us. You pull Us, you push Us. Cross now, never seek our wisdom again.

Ed thought, distantly, that he would have very little trouble with that.

"Well...yeah alright. Send us through." Ed opened his arms genially, felt his voice quaking with the words, and Al looked at him like he'd just made a deal for his soul with the devil himself. Excitement bubbled up in his throat and formed a lump there though, even though Ed refused to acknowledge it just in case this was all a lie, just in case the gate took them inside itself and just shredded them. He swallowed it down, reached out to take Al's hand. They were both shaking when, falteringly, they found each other and exchanged twin looks of anticipation.

The doors rumbled open slowly, and all of the bodies around them simultaneously lifted their heads to watch its progress. Ed adamantly ignored the goosebumps prickling at his skin and kept his eyes on the Gate.

Farewell Elric brothers. This is the last time we'll meet for quite some time.

They walked forward, and a thousand tiny hands enveloped them in a familiar embrace.

This is the prologue -- it is relatively short compared to chapters to come.

Feedback is very much appreciated!