A/N: I wrote this a while ago and posted it, but took the story down after a while. I don't know why I did that, but I'm reposting it. I also changed the name of the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Full Metal Alchemist or the characters.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Conspiracy

Fullmetal Alchemist quote:

"Water: 35 liters. Carbon: 20kg. Ammonia: 4 liters. Lime: 1.5kg. Phosphorus: 800g. Salt: 250 g. Saltpeter: 100g. Sulfur: 80g. Fluorine: 7.5g. Iron: 5g. Silicon: 3g. And a trace amount of fifteen other elements."- Edward Elric

Chapter 1: The Failed Transmutation

A young blond haired boy looked at his brother when he finished making the transmutation circle. "Are you ready, Al?" He asked, smiling a little nervous smile. The boy put his paint brush down and brushed his hands off on his shorts.

The light brown haired boy looked nervously at his brother. "I don't think we should do this, brother. We're just kids. We can't do this. It will end badly. Let's stop this now." Al replied as he started to stand up and back away from the transmutation circle.

Edward turned around to look at his brother. "Are you chickening out on me?"

"Brother, we both know this is a stupid idea. Don't do it." Al replied scared. He was afraid his brother would attempt the transmutation even without him.

"If you aren't going to help me with this then get out of here, Al. It's going to get rough soon." Edward growled and turned back around to the transmutation circle. Part of him was scared and nervous to the do the transmutation. He knew the transmutation would never work. The other part of him wanted to try it and see if he could do it, even though he knew in his heart and the back of his mind that he wouldn't be able to do it, but he had to at least try just for experience and knowledge.

Edward knew, just as Al knew, that it wasn't possible to bring back the dead. They both trained under Izumi Curtis for about six months and she kept telling them the same thing over and over. Life only goes in one direction. You are brought into this world and you die eventually. You can never come back. Once you die, you are dead forever.

Even knowing this, Edward wasn't going to back out. He came too far to back out now. A little thing like fear wasn't going to stop him. His father abandoned them when he was four and their mother died two years later. The only thing he had to live for was his brother. Whatever happened during this transmutation, he wasn't going to die and leave his brother.

"But brother…." Al started as he looked at Edward's back fearfully.

"Just go, Al." The older brother growled. "I want to do this already."

Al turned around and headed to the door to leave the room. He took one more glance at his brother before running out of the room and out of the house. He had a feeling this was going to go bad so he had to go get help fast, hopefully fast enough that his brother could be stopped before he attempted the transmutation.

Edward heard the door closed behind his brother and sighed. It was time to attempt the human transmutation. He was glad that his brother decided not to do the transmutation with him. He was afraid that Al would get hurt in the transmutation. He didn't care if he got hurt, but his brother meant a lot to him and he didn't want him hurt.

Edward took a deep, calming breath and placed his hands on the circle in front of him. His eyes closed, Edward beginning the transmutation.

The young alchemist opened his eyes and saw the golden light surrounding the room as the creation in the center of the circle began to take form. A door behind the creature appeared and opened with little black hands coming out of it. The arms grabbed his left leg and right arm.

Edward tried to pull away from the arms, but their grip on him was too strong. His eyes closed for a second in pain after he saw his leg and arm began to disappear. When he reopened them, he was now in a white area with a big door in front of him.

Al ran all the way to Winry's house to get her and her grandma's help to stop his brother, or save him if he was too late. "WINRY! GRANDMA PINAKO!" He yelled as soon as he got to their house. It was storming outside, but Al ignored the storm. He had to save his brother.

The door to the house opened and a young girl with blond hair stood there looking at her friend confused and worried. "Is something wrong, Al?"

"Winry, you have to help me." Al exclaimed frantically.

"What is going on, Al?" Pinako asked, coming up from behind her granddaughter.

"Brother, he is….. he is….." Al stopped, as he tried to calm his racing heart. The young boy took a deep breath. "He's attempting human transmutation. We have to go stop him."

Winry stared at Al with wide, scared eyes. "He's what? Isn't that forbidden?"

Al looked back towards the direction of his home and saw a light emitting from the top of the hill, most likely coming from his house. "He's already doing it. We have to go and get him. It's going to end badly." Al replied, with tears beginning to slide down his face.

Before anyone could say anything else, a loud, painful filled scream reached their ears. Al screamed when he heard the scream. "BROTHER!" The young boy turned around and ran back to his house, forgetting about Winry and Pinako.

The two women looked at each other, then ran after Al. "AL!" Winry yelled, as she chased after her friend.

The three ran to the room where Edward attempted the transmutation. The light from the transmutation died down by the time they got to the house. When they made it to the room, nothing could have prepared them for what they saw.

In the transmutation circle, there was this bloody, misshaped creature. In front of the circle was Edward laying in a big puddle of blood. His right arm and left leg were missing. His left arm was grabbing the place where his right arm should have been.

"BROTHER/EDWARD!" Winry and Al yelled at the same time and ran towards the young boy. Pinako walked behind them, more slowly. She didn't have the energy to be running all over the place. She was old.

"We need to get him back to our place so we can bandage him up before he dies." Pinako said.

The two kids nodded their heads and gently picked Edward up between them. They followed Pinako back to Winry's house as fast as they could.

It was a few days before Edward woke up. His whole body was in pain as he shifted in the bed he was in. When he tried to sit up, a hand was placed on his shoulder and held him down. "Don't get up yet. You need to rest and your wounds need to heal." Edward recognized the voice as Winry's.

Edward obeyed her and instead turned his head to look at her. His eyes squirted against the light coming in through the window. "Wh….." He stopped speaking and grabbed his throat with his left hand. His throat felt dry and hurt.

A glass appeared in front of his mouth and a hand was placed under his chin. The chin under his chin tilted his head back a little and poured the water in his mouth. "Is that better?" Winry asked, as she took the empty glass away from Edward's mouth.

Nodding his head, Edward wiped his mouth free of the water that slid out of the corner of his mouth. "Thanks. What happened? How did I get here?"

"Al came to get my grandma and me. He told us you were going to attempt human transmutation. We were too late to stop you. When we got there you were lying unconscious in a puddle of your blood with your leg and arm missing. We brought you here to bandage you up and you've been unconscious for three days." Winry explained to her friend.

Edward turned to look at the ceiling. "Winry, please don't be mad or upset, but can you give me automail? I have money up at the house in a box in a closet I can use to pay you with."

"Why? Why do you want automail?" Winry asked sadly.

"I'm not going to go through my life with a stump for an arm and leg." Edward replied. "Please Winry. I don't want to go through the rest of my life like this."

Winry looked at her best friend with sad and painful filled eyes. She hated the pain her friend was going through and the pain he was willingly going to give himself. "Do you even have any idea of what you are asking for? Automail is extremely painful. The surgery itself is hell, but then you have to live with automail for the rest of your life. Automail is painful to your body. It will hurt you every day. When it gets really cold, the automail will freeze and send painful jolts into your body. When it rains your automail ports will be sore. When it is really hot, your body will burn around the automail ports. You'll be putting yourself through hell every day."

"I've already gone through hell once. I can live through it. Please Winry." Edward begged, looking at Winry with hopeful and pleading eyes.

"I'll talk to my grandma first, but I can't stop you from getting automail. It's your choice since you will be the customer, but I need to talk to grandma about it first." Winry said, as she started walking to the bedroom door. "I'll tell Al you are awake and have him bring you some food."

It didn't take Al long to get upstairs with some food for his brother. He put a bed tray in front of his brother and helped him sit up so he could eat, then he grabbed a chair and sat beside the bed. "Brother, are you okay?" Al asked in a pain filled voice.

Edward looked at his brother with a small, sad smile. "Yeah, I'm fine Al, for the most part."

"Is it true what Winry said? Are you really going to get automail?" Al asked.

"Yeah. I need it for my plan and I'm not going to go through the rest of my life with stumps for an arm and leg." Edward replied.

"What are you planning, brother?" Al questioned.

Edward ate for a few minutes before he glanced back at his brother. "I'm going to leave Resembool. I want to find dad and find out while he left and while I'm at it I'm going to help anyone who needs my help. The military doesn't help anyone who actually needs it. They just go to war and kill everyone there. I'm going to help people while looking for leads on finding dad."

Al looked out the window and watched as birds flew by. He was quiet while his brother went back to eating his breakfast. After a few minutes of silence he spoke again. "I'm coming with you, brother. I'm not letting you do this alone. You'll need help and I'm going to give you that help. And I'm not taking no for an answer. I'm coming with you and if you say I can't, then I'm telling Winry and Grandma Pinako not to give you automail."

The older brother looked at his brother with a smile and laughed. "Well, I guess I have no choice. You'll just have to come, even if I would rather you stay here and be safe." Edward sighed and looked out the window. "Can we do one thing before we leave?"

"What?" Al asked, curious about what his brother wanted.

"Can we burn down our house?" Edward asked, not taking his eyes off the window. "Finding dad will take time and we have nothing left in that house but memories. And some of those memories I want to destroy. I'm worried that if we leave the house how it is then we might give up on finding dad when it gets too hard and just come back here."

"If that's what you want, brother. We'll do it right before we leave." Al replied, sadly. He didn't want to burn the house down, but he could understand why his brother would want to do it. This was also a way for him to erase the mistake he made and move forward.

The human transmutation is in the past and it was time to move forward and continue their lives.

A/N: Please Review!