Now here we go with chapter three.

I'm very sorry the last couple of chapters have been so short, I'll work on that.

IN OTHER NEWS, Fullmetal Alchemist will never be mine.

Chapter Three: Enter the boy who fell from the Wormhole

If one looked closely, he could see the small ivory box at the center of the circle rattle violently; almost as if it was anticipating something very important. The graceful, swooping letters began to crackle with electricity and the geometric patterns of the circle sparked vividly. A sharp wind whipped about the room and tugged angrily at the cloaks of the Thule Society's members.

Alfonse could only watch as a large eye opened up under the little box. The eye gazed up at it and far past it at the same time. Small black hands with long snakelike arms slithered lazily up towards the ceiling. Some of them even reached out to tug lightly on random objects as if they were looking to discover new items to play with. The hands closest to the box reached down and began to tear into it; the places where they dragged their small black fingers on the box began to dissolve until there was nothing left but a glowing red light. Soon that too faded away.

At first Alfonse thought that it was a trick of the light, but he could have sworn that he was now seeing two circles instead of one. A perfect mirror image of the circle painstakingly painted onto the floor was slowly rising up towards the ceiling. Even the eye and hands mirrored the first perfectly. The image seemed to pulse like it had a heartbeat, and a small black hole opened up at its center.

Eckhart laughed triumphantly and was about to start shouting orders again when one of the men shouted and pointed up to the hole.

Alfonse watched the hole carefully. He could just make out what looked like a human body hovering just behind the opening. And almost as suddenly as the circle had lit up, the body fell through the hole and the hands had caught it. It was limp in their grasp, a head of long gold hair drooped lifelessly from their black mass. But the body was too high up; Alfonse couldn't see the face.

He was almost sure that whoever had been pulled through was dead. He almost hoped that they were; Lady Eckhart looked like she would personally kill whoever it was hanging from the circle. The little hands caressed the body gingerly and tugged lightly at its clothing. (A white button-up dress shirt and some black pants.) Had the body been living, it surely would have been reacting to the hands exploring it; which only convinced Alfonse further that there was no human life up there.

The body thrashed abruptly, causing anyone who doubted that it was alive to change their minds (Alfonse included). When it began to struggle, the now definitely alive body was dropped mercilessly to the floor by the hands, who seemed to have lost interest. Luckily it wasn't too far of a drop; only about twenty feet. The body tumbled down but at the last second it flipped and landed on its feet.

Eduard gasped next to Alfonse. He could barely land on his feet from jumping over a fence and yet whoever this person was had just landed neatly on their feet from practically a two story drop. They tried to stand upright but stumbled and plopped down heavily. (Eduard was suddenly much less impressed.) The person was definitely a male, even though his long hair would have easily suggested female, and has he looked up, Eduard almost swore his heart had stopped for a millisecond.

He stared nervously at the face of the boy who fell from the wormhole. And a set of sharp golden eyes stared unnervingly back. Eduard was gazing at a boy who was (aside from the very obvious differences) perfectly identical to him.

Ed wasn't really sure what had happened. One minute he had been fighting for his life, the next he had been turned into a sacrifice for the Gates and was undoubtedly going to meet his end.

He could feel the Gate's presence. The extensive knowledge that the Truth held was spiraling about him like a storybook. He could see the world and feel the irreversible flow of energy and life. His body tingled under the pressure. It felt as if pins and needles were picking at his flesh while his fingertips went numb. The ports for his automail stung relentlessly. The deep void that was the Gate of Truth was swallowing him.

And for the first time in his life, Edward Elric let it. He was just too damn tired to care. Edward gazed at his own body through his mind and everything slowed down. He let the world flow through him in slow motion, taking it all in. Snippets of his life flashed before him, and faded away. The Truth wanted more than just his entire being, didn't it? Edward supposed he needed to fight back; to turn the tables on fate, just as he always did. Though by the time his mind finally caught up to his body, the opening to elsewhere emerged and the small black hands and choked the air right out of him. There would be no fighting back this time.

So the World and Truth faded to black.

Maes Hughes watched an odd scene unfold. He was certain that Eduard was an only child; he had known the boy practically since birth. (He was trouble, even at a young age.) But here was another young man golden hair and eyes that he had thought only ran in the Ehrlich(1) family. His hair was certainly longer, and he had a more rugged look to him than Eduard, but aside from that the boys could have been identical twins.

Eduard's look alike was currently gazing around the room. He didn't seem to notice Eduard. Hughes was positive that wouldn't be the case soon; the boy didn't seem to miss a thing. He held his breath as the young man's eyes fell upon him. Hughes looked him in the eye, trying to relay some unspoken message, don't fight, we mean you know harm. He hoped that the boy caught the urgent look Hughes gave him, but the boy held an expression that suggested that he was in something like utter shock.

His was a gaze filled with shock, guilt, and a fire to rival the sun.

The boy's expression switched, like he caught himself staring. His face went stony and he quickly looked away. Hughes watched the boy's reaction to Alfonse and Eduard, and then watched Lady Eckhart's reaction to the boy.

So far, his future did not look pretty.

Lady Eckhart was so furious, she was finding it hard to speak. There were very few times in her life when she didn't have any words to say. She was a woman of many words; one good at public speaking. The only words that managed to form on her lips right at that very moment though, where not ones that the young man sitting on her precious inter-dimensional transmutation circle would want to hear.

"Get that boy." she hissed.

(1) Ehrlich: German for honest; A German last name that sounds really fucking similar to Elric. I'm so sneaky~

Poor Edward's unconscious body-GATE-BABY RAPE!

And then there was much disappointment amongst the readers; as the cliffhanger was even worse than the last chapter, and the word count was still so utterly close to unchanging.

By the way, please do not expect updates to be this regular. I am unsure as to what should happen next, so it may be a while.

Many thankies!

~Maddy