A/N: Like always, I don't own either FFVII or FMA:B/manga. I'm only saying this once!

If you haven't read Catalyst Array and Salvation's Hands (to the end of chapter 68) and/or Fates of Worlds (ideally, to the end of chapter 33), do so before you read Fates of Worlds—Dimensions or this story won't make any sense!

Note: Ed will be very different, especially in the early part of the story, because he's had a very rough time of things.

Okay, so this branch of the story actually originated from me going, 'but what if?' about 3 different things at once. Anyone who wants to know can leave a review or PM me about how this branch came to be. Suffice it to say that once a few particular ideas occurred to me (including how Ed isn't TECHNICALLY 'part' of Gaia's system), it seemed a shame not to apply them, and this includes the 'unexpected Amestrian' who will appear. Khait Khepri, you're not allowed to give that person away in a review until they appear! :P And thanks for all your help getting the kinks worked out of this one!

There are quite a few OC's in the Turks, and a few other people may also show up (that's undecided), so there will be a new List of Current Turks once most of the OC's have appeared, but not right now or I'd spoil a lot of my own story. I'd suggest you pay more attention to the small details of this story than in previous ones, or you're going to get blindsided. A lot.

I've developed or semi-developed a basic idea of what happened in most of the dimensions Ed has been in, but you'll have to find that out in bits and pieces as you go. Some of my ideas came from FFVII fanfics I've read—a few of those creeped me out, which was why they were actually ideal to apply to this in general basis. If someone feels I should mention a fic name and author by what data was included (no, nothing anyone specifically wrote), feel free to tell me so, and I'll add them. No one will find a duplicate of another author's fic in my works, only data possibly alluding to one!

I'm still not going to re-describe anyone who appeared in earlier stories beyond a brief note, so my bold note at the top still stands! And remember that everything from the previous story parts (CA/SH/FoW) doesn't apply here at this point, other than to Ed specifically—he's back to square 1 with everyone else.

Also, remember that Ed first appeared on Gaia on July 6th, 0000 (or what we would know as 2000).

Now, on with the story! Posting day is still Tuesday!

Failed Isolation

In the middle of the dense mountains between Corel and Cosmo Canyon, a blond haired teenaged boy sat on a rock near the entrance to the cave he'd used for shelter this time around. For clothing, he wore a baggy, short-sleeved, pale, button-up shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans, his feet covered with simple, flat running shoes in white. His hair was long, falling just past his waist in a high ponytail in the back and with shorter bangs in the front which fell only to about his chin. Golden eyes stared blankly across the landscape. His left hand was covered in brown scars which would easily be taken as burn scars to an untrained eye.

How many times had he done this?

When it had first begun, he remembered having felt a pulling sensation before everything went dark. He had woken in the same place he'd been taken from, but there was no hole in the ceiling, no array, and not even an indication of the facility being inhabited. Left with no other choice, no food, no PHS (he'd searched the facility thoroughly and found nothing, in fact), and no winter gear, he'd had to improvise to even just make it back to Icicle Inn. Then the Turks had come, and things had gone downhill fast. Apparently, no one knew him.

At first, he'd had no idea what was happening...but it hadn't taken long for him to realize he'd been sent back to his moment of arrival on the Planet, just in a different location, the one he'd been at the moment his vision had gone dark. He assumed that was also the moment Omega had left Gaia. It had taken him longer to realize some things had changed, more than just his being sent back in time. By the time he had realized it, things had gone much worse than the first time and he already didn't have any way to look into those changes.

Surely the changes were superficial, he'd thought.

He had never been so wrong in his life.

That time, at his moment of death, he had blacked out and woken later...back at the moment of his arrival on the Planet, but in the place where he'd died. More things had changed, while a few of the original changes had restored themselves to the way he'd first known them. At the moment of his death that time around (he'd had a very short life that time), he had blacked out and woken again to the date of his arrival on the Planet and to more changes. By then, he thought it was prudent to do some research into scientific topics he'd previously not bothered to touch, such as theories of galaxies, universes, dimensions, alternate planes of existence, and other similar things.

Galaxies were the easy part, as they were simply regions within a single universe. While some things differed merely by planet of origin, other things were fairly stable, such as most scientific laws.

Universes were more complex, being contained spaces themselves which ran alongside one another and normally didn't exchange anything between them, but were often very different from one another. Solar systems may exist in both, or only in one, or the same solar system may exist in a different location, and things like sentient races, vegetation, geographical functions, and even basic laws of science, often varied greatly. Sometimes, the only difference would be in a simple fact, such as Materia just not existing in one while they existed in another—which changed a lot about the world.

Alternate planes of existence were about as complex as universes in a completely different way, because they existed within one universe but sharing the same space as it. One may have physical objects, another might be composed solely of energy, while a third may have spirits in place of physical beings, and all of them bled into one another to some degree. Interaction between them was often the source of legends and myths, and only some people could naturally see into any of those other planes.

Dimensions were the most complex, and generated the greatest number of difficulties. Dimensions were varying paths a single universe could take, originating from the origin of the universe and breaking off at every point where different options became available. For every option, a new dimension formed, and sometimes, dimensions even merged because their respective paths had led them, eventually, to the same result. Taking into account all of a universe and all of its alternate planes of existence, that made for a lot of paths, but humans and other sentient races were the single largest generators of alternate dimensions in existence. There were very few instances where there was only one choice—in fact, there were always at least two unless the situation had entered limbo and no cause for a decision was even formulated until a path had been chosen.

Of course, pretty much all of that was theory and not widely known, as there was no real way to study those things. On the other hand, based on his personal experience, it was all more reality than theory. Dimensional theory especially.

By what he now knew, he had every reason to suspect he'd come from another universe linked to the Planet by the Alchemist's Gate, and now, he had begun jumping from one dimension to another. The shift happened at one of two times: either the world was destroyed or he died. When his reason for being moved to another dimension was because the Planet had been destroyed, he knew that path had no future, but if his reason for being moved was his own death, he had no idea how that affected the Planet, and it was possible they had survived.

It was entirely possible he had entered the dimensional cycle because he had never been part of the Planet's actual design in the first place.

At first, he had stayed with the Turks—his family—or had tried to. That had been an abysmal failure and had resulted in some of the worst torture he'd experienced in his life, all of it at the hands of the people he'd loved like family. Every one of those had also ended in very short order with his death. As he had progressed through some like that, he'd begun to approach them more cautiously, but it had taken him several tries to wake up and realize that as far as they were concerned, he was an enemy if he wore their uniform when they didn't know him.

When he'd finally realized he couldn't be direct—that his family wasn't his family anymore—he had quit trying to go to them first. He had allowed the meetings to be chance, given them time to get to know him, but something had always come up which caused them to find out about something they didn't like. They had reacted poorly in those, but he'd only been physically harmed in two of them—mainly, they felt betrayed and...well, if he'd been a Turk by the time they found out, he'd been killed by them, quickly and cleanly. If he hadn't been one, they had cut all ties with him, refusing to associate with him. About half of those had ended with his death through various reasons, while the other half had ended with the destruction of the Planet.

From there, he'd tried other avenues for first contact—Wutai, AVALANCHE, Cosmo Canyon, Vincent, Genesis (or Sephiroth or Angeal), Aeris, Cloud, and so on. The results of those had ranged from death by experimentation a la Fuhito to being mistaken as a terrorist and being killed by someone in Shinra. Aeris and the people in Cosmo Canyon were usually the most accepting of his presence (Aeris especially), but even their support was—truncated.

Almost every time he had approached Aeris, however, Tseng had been the one to torture and kill him, rather than even asking Aeris to explain the situation to him. He'd gathered Tseng and Aeris weren't nearly so close in some dimensions—sometimes even nearly strangers. In Cosmo Canyon, AVALANCHE would do that honor, usually by turning him over to Fuhito. Vincent had simply gone back to sleep most times, but in a few, he'd thrown him out and locked the doors.

In the process of dimension hopping, he'd somehow lost his prosthetic leg and now had a natural left leg which had wicked scarring just above the knee, scarring which matched the scarring across the right side of his chest and shoulder. He'd also lost every possession he'd ever owned—Libby, Heartseeker, and Storm Warning were the biggest losses; also, they were the first. The single most devastating loss had been Libby, though, as there had never been another of her in any other dimension, and it had taken realizing he'd truly lost her to make him also realize she'd effectively been another person to him, like a sister or something. In fact, the only thing he still had was the Materia he'd collected, and that by re-collecting it, not having kept the originals.

It had taken a lot to bring him to the final realization that he was probably never going to get back the life he'd lost. Rude, Balto, Tseng, Genesis—the ones he'd cared most about were never going to be his family again.

Oh, it wasn't that no good had come from his travels through multiple dimensions while trying to learn ways to protect himself.

He'd gained one of every Materia, he'd made some new ones, he knew every source of raw, liquid Mako, and his skills with alchemy and Materia had improved. Actually, more accurately, he was more full of natural Mako than SOLDIERs were of manufactured Mako, which allowed him to bypass the Reactors' restrictions on his alchemy. It had also resulted in him gaining a nearly God-like control of the arrays and Materia. More, he had gained the Cetra ability to hear the Lifestream babble and meander through his mind (1), and he was now very aware of what made Aeris the way she was—mildness was really the only way to deal with the voices the Lifestream carried.

Well, after probably over a hundred years of repeating the same space of time in different dimensions, his mind had aged, even if his body hadn't.

In fact, his skills were ones which could be explained by the same laws as alchemy, and relied heavily on the fact that he had so much Mako in his body, causing it to act as a general Philosopher's Stone—his blood had been replaced with natural Mako. With his ability to cast freely around Reactors, he didn't even need Materia, making the abilities literally look like a complete command of nature. It had taken a long time to develop those abilities, often having to experience death a hand-full of times before being able to make the links he needed to in order to arrive at a breakthrough.

However, despite all his new-found abilities, power, and strength, he was still human and still had a human body. It was possible to harm, capture, and kill him, and those things caused him as much pain as they ever had. The most recent incident had resulted in him having been tortured by the Turks again, for a longer time than usual. He had truly come to hate Tseng's involvement in his torture because he was the single most vicious and creative torturer in the group, but that time, the Wutain man had led the torture, not just 'participated'.

Over the many decades he'd been jumping from one dimension to another, he'd gone from determined and hopeful to cautious and suspicious to a complete basket case from the torture to outright fear of nearly everything, and even to debilitating depression. Finally, he'd reached acceptance of the fact that nothing was ever going to return to the way it was, or even to a state favorable to him. Compounding that was his awareness of every failed attempt to do anything at all for the Planet.

With his acceptance and the most recent round of torture, he had finally determined that the best and easiest thing for him to do with a world which didn't want him, which he no longer had any place in, was to resort to avoidance.

Even if he already knew doing so would result in the deaths and suffering of a lot of good people.

This time, he was just going to disappear and let them fix things themselves, hide away where they wouldn't know about him and would just leave him alone. There had been more than one time in the past where he'd appeared in a location he could have vanished from because the events which had led to his death hadn't happened yet—nothing was there to stop him from leaving. Before, he'd still been too hopeful he'd be able to change things for the better and get his family back, even if the dynamic would have been different. This time, with his acceptance of reality, it was easy to leave and find a place to hide. He hadn't even bothered to find out what had changed in this dimension.

Which brought him right back to the near-barren mountains where he'd made a home of a sort for himself in a cave not far from where he sat. His saving grace was his ability to use alchemy and Materia, but the river nearby was a point in favor of the location he'd chosen. Between his skills and the water, he could produce the food he needed, and he could still go hunting—he just tended to do so by using magic or alchemy rather than some sort of weapon. After all, staying hidden relied on leaving no evidence of one's presence, so he couldn't start leaving holes all over the mountainsides in the name of acquiring metals for weapons.

It was lonely, but loneliness was far preferable to the suffering he'd experienced in the other dimensions. If he had no choice but to go on living, at least if he could stay alive and the people of the Planet would keep it relatively in one piece, he'd probably be able to stop dimension hopping and—hopefully—just die and pass on in this dimension. 'Pass on' as in, actually being released from the cycle so he could finally truly rest. There was logic to the assumption, but he supposed there was also the chance that when he died of old age, he'd be sent back to his younger age in another dimension, as he had realized he 'wasn't aging' because his body, like the world, was being reset to the origin state of the cycle—his first arrival on it.

With a sigh, he thought about what he could see around him. For all intents and purposes, the world was just the same as always, and he was near enough to Nibelheim that he could probably go destroy Jenova and the labs...he just wouldn't wake Vincent up. He'd even be able to get in and out without anyone knowing he'd been there, though he'd end up trapping Vincent in the coffin room. Then again, the man was known to have no desire to move forward in most dimensions, so he could only assume it would suit him to stay locked in there forever.

Suddenly, two people entered the range of his senses, causing him to look up slowly in the direction they were approaching from. At first, he didn't see anything with his eyes—until two men in black suits approached from around an outcropping further down from where he sat, then stopped to stare at him for a moment. One of them he knew immediately as Tseng, black hair in a high ponytail, the stone on his forehead and all, but the other was a blond he didn't know, who looked to be around twenty-eight years old and whose weapon was currently hidden. The older Turk had paler skin and medium brown eyes, and the Wutain seemed to defer to the blond. (2)

He sighed as he saw them approach him in steady, determined strides. Even when he tried deliberate avoidance, it seemed he was fated (or required) to participate somewhat in the world's development regardless. But did it really have to be the Turks...Tseng...? Instinctively, he tensed, ready to bolt if they made a threatening motion.

When they stopped a respectable distance from him, the blond asked, "Who are you and why are you in this area?"

Shrugging, the sixteen-year-old blond answered, "I'm no one, and I'm here to avoid people. Normally, nobody ventures into this area, not even the people from Cosmo Canyon, so I thought it would be—not so busy."

"How many have you seen here?" Tseng asked with a small frown, stance tense.

"Just you two since I got here a few weeks ago," the younger blond answered.

"Two is 'busy'?" the nineteen-year-old Wutain blinked, gaze confused.

"Two is two too many. Could you hurry up and do what you came to do so you can leave me in peace and forget about me?"

The Turks traded looks, then the older one looked back to meet his golden eyes and said, "Maybe you can help speed the process along by answering a few questions and directing us to a place which may resemble what we're looking for. If you truly want us gone so quickly—that would be the best way to achieve the result, otherwise we're just wandering around blindly hoping we find something."

At the words, the younger blond's brow rose and he had to ask, "A Turk admitting they don't know something? Really?"

After the Turks traded looks again, the blond answered, "Yes, in this case we had very little information, but we still had to come with what little we had."

Sighing, the younger man said, "Fine, I'll do what I can to help. Ask away."

"Thank you," the older blond man said. "First, I'm Verde, and this is Tseng. You said you arrived here a few weeks ago. Did you see any signs of others having been here before you came?"

"No. That's why I picked this place. There were traces of people having been in the area probably decades ago, though," he answered, secretly pleased to know what the man's name was. He must have been one of the 'old hands' who had died before he'd joined in the first dimension—and in every other one after it.

Why was one of the old hands who had never been alive at this point in time suddenly alive in this dimension?

"Could you tell if they were campers or travelers, or if they had another purpose here?" Verde questioned with a puzzled frown.

"Probably another purpose, because some of the traces left indents of large storage containers."

"Energy storage or another substance?"

"Probably liquid."

Verde fell silent for a minute as he thought about the data, but Tseng chose the moment to ask, "Is there some hidden trick to getting food here that we don't know to have made it feasible for anyone to have stayed here for any length of time?"

"Not really. For someone who knows what they're doing, they can grow enough food for one virtually anywhere as long as they have water and there's no Reactor nearby. It's hard in this kind of environment, though, so most people never bother, even when they're used to growing and farming their food. It's for exactly that reason that I figured I'd be left alone out here. Instead—well..." the sixteen-year-old replied with a little shrug.

Tseng was about to respond when Verde asked, "Did you happen to find any unique features in the area—Mako springs, a small science facility, Materia caves?"

That produced a long, heavy sigh. "There's a cave with stagnant Mako not far from the marks in the ground."

"Could you show us where?" the older Turk asked, his expression satisfied like the cat that got the canary.

Nodding, the sixteen-year-old rose and led the way along the paths past his chosen residence to the cave near the top of the mountain where the stagnant Mako cave was. On the way, Tseng asked, "How do you know it's stagnant Mako?"

"Natural Mako resembles water with a bit of a glow. The stuff here looks like stagnant water with a bit of a dark glow, but the consistency was in accordance with Mako, just thicker. If it had been healthy water, that would have been ideal, but it's not, so I didn't stay and found another place closer to the river," the younger blond replied.

"You seem to know a lot about the topic for someone only about thirteen," Verde commented. "Where are you from?"

"Nowhere," the younger man snorted. If only his age reset didn't keep resetting him to the appearance of a 'buff' child...

"So you're no one from nowhere, but you somehow know advanced tracking skills and more about Mako than the average person knows, nor are, or were, you isolated from society to know about the Turks and the Reactors?" Tseng clarified, gaze and tone suspicious. "Try again, 'No One'."

"I'm serious—you can try to find me in any or all of your databases in every town or village on the Planet, and there won't be a record of me," the young blond answered.

The Turks traded looks again, that time very puzzled, before Verde asked, "Are you actually challenging us to try?"

"I guess that depends on you guys and how badly you want to know, because on my side, from where I'm standing, using that much of your resources on me is a waste you could better put to use elsewhere—like actually stopping terrorists and things."

Tseng looked taken aback as Verde gave him a look and said, "Fine, for the moment, if you aren't willing to give us your name, we'll just call you 'No One'. How far is the cave from here, No One?"

The newly-dubbed No One gave a snort and said, "Up the path near the top of the mountain and behind the waterfall. We're almost there now."

"Verde, should I call in to Bloody Valentine yet?" Tseng asked after a pause.

"No, we'll wait until we've looked around at the cave," Verde answered. "There's no point in disrupting him with nothing after Verdot's last move in that bloody power play. He's still picking up the pieces."

"Bloody Valentine?" No One asked curiously, as it was another name—code name?—he didn't recognize. Also, who besides Tseng would be in a power play with Verdot—with Veld? Why was he being called Verdot instead of by his code name? And couldn't he just keep his nose out of things?

"The Turks are divided into two factions, ours led by Turk Director Vincent Valentine and the other one led by Turk Second Verdot Pereld. In an emergency where there's no option but to act, both factions will take orders from either leader, but outside something like an invasion or terrorist attack, those of us sworn to Vincent—or as we jokingly call him, Bloody Valentine—will only take mission orders from him, and the same is true of Verdot's. Within the department, our faction is called the Lady's Guards and Verdot's is called the Master's Hounds. I don't think the common civilian realizes there's a difference," Verde explained.

The new data left No One's mind reeling as he tried to assimilate just how different this dimension was compared to the previous ones he'd been in, and he had to ask what it all meant. Had Hojo not killed Vincent this time? Who was the Lady they meant? Why were there two factions in the Turks when they were supposed to live by the code that 'Turks are family' and they were to be loyal to one another before to Shinra?

"Is that really something we should be sharing with a complete unknown?" Tseng asked with a glare.

"I thought the Turks lived by the motto that 'Turks are family', so why are there two factions?" No One thought he could risk asking before Verde was able to answer Tseng.

His question made both stop dead and stare at him with wide eyes for a minute. He stopped and turned back to face them, gaze worried now because he was sure he'd said something to earn himself torture or death, but then Verde sighed and kept walking, passing No One and following the trail up the path they had been on. No One turned to keep him in his gaze, only for a hand to rest firmly on his shoulder—he jumped and turned to look tensely at Tseng instead as he felt the weight.

"The Guards are a family and the Hounds are a family. When push comes to shove, we all watch one another's backs, but...Ever since the day the President tried to have his wife murdered—and Verdot made every attempt to carry out the order—we've been broken. We protect Lady Shinra because she's the one who gave misfits like us a home, but the President just wants obedience," Tseng said quietly. "I've never known anything but the split factions." His hand dropped and he began walking up the path behind Verde.

"I see..." No One murmured, quickly catching up to the two to take the lead again.

Notes:

Don't forget that every one of Ed's reactions are based in histories which most of the readers don't currently know, so there will be quite a bit of introspection at some points. I'll try not to post a chapter which is largely introspection alone, though!

(1) Think of the Lifestream as 'background noise' which is always technically present in Ed's mind, but which only interjects something when it (or she, as Minerva) needs to. If Ed focuses on it or asks it something, that will result in a 'discussion'—a very literal one if it's with Minerva, and something more like sensation, emotion, and general ideas if it's with the Lifestream in general. Most of what Ed just 'gets' from the Lifestream/Minerva will be fairly formless and more emotionally-based without his direct attempt at communication. No, I'm not going to interject things from the Lifestream/Minerva unless they're actually RELEVANT to the situation, so assume he always has irrelevant background noise in his head, and no peace and quiet anymore.

(2) This is one of the OC Turks I mentioned. I won't provide further details here.