A/N: Based off of the storyline as I perceived it of the AMV, 'From The Ashes' by Dark Moon Studios, originally made back in September 2006, to the song 'Hollow' by Submersed. I was re-watching it on my iPod when I decided to try writing for it. :D
He had lost everything. By a cruel twist of Fate – which had perhaps been The Gate all along – Edward Elric had lost everything.
When he was only a toddler, his father left. His mother died when he was ten. And then, at age eleven, he lost his brother when the two tried to resurrect their lost mother. At age eleven, Edward also lost his right arm and left leg.
And then he lost his home. But this time, it was on purpose; he burned it to the ground himself. Because what is a house when his family does not live in it? – Nothing but a building that deserves to be reduced to ashes.
So he left. He left behind all that he no longer had: a house, a home, and a heart. He steeled himself and went on his way, becoming a traveler in search of one thing: a way to gain back at least one of the things he should not have lost at all. His baby brother.
He joined the military. Gained access to their research records. Discovered the Philosopher's Stone: a method of getting without giving, a way to break the trade of equivalent exchange.
The lone Elric met Homunculi: imperfectly recreated humans with frightening abilities. He met a stray Ishbalan, a murder, named Scar; he met countless other people, all of whom he either busied himself with in between searching for the Stone or became an enemy of.
In the end, he found answers. But the answers scared him.
To create a Homunculus, one must attempt and fail at bringing the dead back to life.
To create the Philosopher's Stone, one must sacrifice live humans.
To kill a Homunculus, one must use the remains of those the Homunculus had been part of, coupled with alchemy.
And to get his brother back, Edward must do all of these things, or die trying.
So he did. He found Laboratory Five, a secretly operated base within the darker half of the military, and within it, Lust and Envy and Wrath and Gluttony. He found prisoners and materials for the Stone. And he found – and was stopped by – Scar.
He followed Scar, and got some answers from his people, the refugee Ishbalans. Edward was told of a city below Central, a city that had disappeared in a night, much like Ishbal.
He stopped in his hometown before going to the city below a city. He saw his father by his mother's grave. He fled; Edward hated his father for not being there when he needed him. And so he left again, this time heading for central.
He went there. To the large building in the center of the ancient city. Into the ballroom. Into the pit of Hell, where Sloth – his mother's Homunculus, his own sinful creation – awaited him. But what occurred afterward all became a rush of pain and misery.
Envy.
A battle.
Death.
Hoenheim showing up, having followed his son, and then sacrificing himself – he being but a worn-out old man who had lived too long anyhow, no need for his life but to give it up for his only living son – to bring Edward back in one piece, automail gone.
But Edward didn't want that. He didn't want to be brought back if it meant being without Alphonse, or a mother, or a family at all. Now he truly did have nothing, even if his limbs were now completely his own.
And so he made a circle and gave himself up. He was tired of running, tired of burning bridges and going through life alone. He missed his younger sibling. He missed the life he had before his mother died, before he set out on this journey by his lonesome.
He made arrays on his arms, forehead, and heart. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and stepped into the center ring of the circle. And then he clapped and touched his hands to his chest.
An eye for an eye. A body for a body. A soul for a soul. He knew that what he was doing had to be right, despite what happened to him.
He saw Al's form in The Gate: whole, mindsoulbodyhearteverything, and he smiled before The Gate yanked him inside.
He flew down, down, down… until he landed in the body of someone wearing his face.
He was in another world, one opposite his own. His father explained it all to him, because this had been where the old man had also ended up.
Ed knew that this wasn't the end. He took a train to Germany where rockets were supposedly being built, and he took it as a chance to perhaps find his way back to his brother, to Alphonse, because he knew that being alive must mean something. Perhaps Fate wasn't so cruel.
And he stretched out his hand to the sun, and he could feel hope rising up in his chest. When he went back through The Gate, he had lost the limbs his father had restored for him, but that was all right, because Edward liked his automail and it allowed him to nearly touch the sky without getting burned by the sun.
From the ashes, Edward Elric shaped his life. And he was going to continue living it, despite the turmoil behind him.