Prompt: AU
Word Count: 3376, although Word likes to play games with me on such things.
Characters: Ed, Greed, Envy, Ling, Al, Gluttony, Father, and Lust decided to barge in too
Series: Manga, (although Lust's character is more anime-related in the fact that she is insubordinate to the master of the sins… still evil like in the manga though.)
Rating: Mature
Disclaimer: Still not Hiromu.
Setting: Underneath Central; Spoilers for up to 54 and 55.
Warnings: The first part is the most AU of it all, if that makes any sense.
Summary: An experiment traps Ed inside his own mind, sending him careening through nightmares.
A/N: I was seriously writing a crackfic about a love triangle with Barry the Chopper until this popped up and consumed me. I wrote this while listening to "Truth is a Whisper" by the Goo Goo Dolls, "Little House" by the Fray, "Decode" by Paramore, (particularly the last minute of it, (and no I'm not a Twilight fan, (whoa, triple parenthesis!))), along with several angry Skillet and Evanescence songs. Not sure if my latin is correct in the title, but hopefully you get the idea. This is extremely disjointed, I warn you.
Epilepsy: Neurological disorders characterized by sudden attacks of motor, sensory, or psychic malfunction with or without loss of consciousness or convulsive seizures, occurring during abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
[from Latin epil psia, to lay hold of, ] Timor: Fear
EPILEPSIA TIMOR
Amor Vincit Omnia
"What the Hell are you doing to him?!" Ling shouted at the thing in white robes - the thing masquerading as a man. Gluttony pushed him farther into the dirt, grinding Ling's face down under all his weight. He hoped this would be over soon. He was hungry.
"BROTHER!" Al called out, trying uselessly to use alchemy on something, anything, to manipulate matter into a more tangible splinter of his now fragmented reality. He would be crying, if he could.
"Shut up, maggot." The man said to Ling, without a second glance. There were more pertinent matters at hand. "Lust, you deceitful little ingrate. What have you done?"
"I acted without your permission." She smiled, in a sickeningly sweet way, at her creator. "It is for the good of your experimentation." He had made a mistake in trusting her to administer the stone, for she had taken it and walked to Edward instead of Ling. She had wanted to slash him with her bare hands. She had wanted to see why he was the sacrifice, why he was forbidden for her to annihilate, assassinate… why she couldn't spill his blood on the cold hard ground. She had wanted to watch him bleed. She was thirsty.
She had suggested previously that they make the alchemists into homunculi, for Father would never tell her why he dared not do so. Envy seemed to know, but he was far from telling her either. So when Father said he had an empty seat for Greed and given her the opportunity she had been craving, she had gone to the alchemist, swiped a claw across his face, and dropped the stone inside.
"What is wrong with you?" Envy spat at her, now only holding the suit of armour under his arm. She was ungracious to their master. She was a liar and a cheat. She was stupid.
"This was not a discussion." Father said. His anger grew. "Not even the human-to-homunculus transformation was completed. You seem to forget that you are expendable. The alchemists are to be used for other purposes!"
Lust said nothing in response. She was aware of the consequences of her actions, but feared them not, for the Father was now in a terrible position of being forced to recognise his own ignorance. He didn't entirely know how this would play out, and he wasn't nearly as omnipotent as he thought he was.
Ed yelled and kicked and shook, his eyes rolling back into his head. "What's going on?" Ling asked, far beyond frightened.
"He is lost inside his own mind." Father replied. "There's no way out, from there."
"Al! AL! ALPHONSE!" Edward screamed to the emptiness. "Al…" he cried, no longer able to see the suit of armour that sat near to him. He was alone and he was sinking, descending, falling away into darkness… Winds rushed past him as he tumbled; echoes of maniacal laughter attacked his ears, rendering his thoughts incoherent and tearing his insides asunder. He crossed his arms around his chest, trying to keep himself from shattering. "Hah… Hah… Well, what have we here?" The voice ate his conscience away and reverberated tortuously under his heart. He shut his eyes in anguish. "What's a kid doing here?" it mocked, and Ed choked on the words. "And a tiny one, at that…" it said. The piercing blows from the wind and subsequent convulsions prevented Ed from any objection to the insult on his size, although he vowed to be angry about it later. "NOT A TALKTATIVE ONE, ARE YOU?" It yelled. "Shut up! SHUT UP! Stop…" Ed begged. He moved his hands over his ears to shut the voice out, to no avail. "I AM THE GREAT AND UNCONQUERABLE GREED-SAMA! THERE IS NO STOPPING FOR ME!" It laughed. "YOU SEEM LIKE ONE WHO WONT BE ABLE TO ENDURE THIS. MOST DON'T, SO I CAN'T SAY I'M SURPRISED. NOT MANY CAN HANDLE MY GREATNESS." Every word seemed to grow louder than the last, and Edward opened his eyes to address the creature that uttered them. He saw only the markings of a face, some indication of fiery eyes and a place for a mouth with a malicious grin. It hurt almost as much to look at as it did to hear. "I SUPPOSE THIS MEANS YOU DO NOT ACCEPT ME?!" It said, making every bone in Ed's body ache. "…Never." Ed managed to swear through gritted teeth. The creature cackled uproariously at this, shaking the world with its mirth at Edward's assertion. "SO. IT IS DECIDED." "LET IT BEGIN." "EDWARD!" Al tried to reach the body of his brother, but Envy shifted more weight onto him until he saw his metal shell bend and warp under the pressure. The veins on Ed's body and grown and broken up the pale of his skin with their protrusions and he contorted into strange positions while muttering incomprehensible nothings to no one. "It's no use! He can't hear you." Envy snarled. If Al thought he detected some sort of fear in his voice, his own shock and discord prevented him from saying so. "What's happening to him?!" the younger Elric cried as he and Ling watched in horror. "We shall see." the man who looked like his father replied, with no further explanations. He didn't have any. SMASH. Edward slammed into the floor (there was a floor?) with full force, knocking the breath right out of him. He gasped for air. Rock and dirt and gravel derided the skin on his hands with unforgiving sharp edges as he lifted himself on one knee and elbow, trying hopelessly to stand. "I'M GOING TO WARN YOU, SMALL ONE. I ALWAYS WIN THIS FIGHT." Greed's words manifested themselves into a spotlight now shining on Edward, and he looked up, seeing nothing but himself and the black. Suddenly he found himself strapped to a chair that had appeared from nowhere. The world tilted and teetered and tottered until coming to rest with a deafening click. The bindings from the chair cut into his hands and legs as they stretched ever tighter, and Ed felt the air dissipate as it was stolen from him once again, the strap on his chest constricting what little breath he had regained from the crash moments before. "THIS PART IS THE ONE THAT HURTS THE MOST. THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU FAIL." Ed scanned the darkness, looking for the face he had seen before, but it didn't show itself. The words surrounded him, biting into his body and mind. "MOST HUMANS FEAR ME FROM THE BEGINNING, BUT REALLY, I AM NOTHING TO FEAR." Edward's eyes watered. This thing spoke to him in more than words, it spoke in the agony and suffering that now assaulted every fiber of his being. The floor began to rotate slowly, a loud grinding noise emitting from somewhere under him. It grated against his ears just as Greed's voice did. "YOU SHALL SEE, WHEN YOU SUCCUMB, THAT THE DISPAIR YOU HAVE ALREADY SELFISHLY AFFLICTED YOURSELF WITH IS WHAT YOU SHOULD FEAR. NOW THE REAL QUESTION IS – CAN YOU SURVIVE YOURSELF?" Ed's head beat and throbbed, taking place of his heart which now stood still. This could get worse? "YES." Greed said, reading his thoughts. "Oh, God…" Ed thought, knowing there was no such being to hear his plea. Then it began. The pain was excruciating. "Mum, where's Dad?" the small boy with the blond hair had asked, rubbing his sleepy amber eyes. He had thought it was to be another day of questions and learning and playing, another day of alchemic circles drawn with chalk on the sidewalk underneath the sun. It wasn't sunny today. It had started to rain as she spoke, concealing her breaking voice with the coinciding rumbles of thunderclouds. "He'll be back," she had said. Luckily, Al was too young to hear her tears when she told him the same thing later that day. "AW, DADDY LEFT YOUR FAMILY? HOW SAD." The voice chortled. Ed braced himself for the coming barrage of memories. "What's with the car by Winry's house?" Ed had asked, excited. It had looked official and important - It had looked like it was full of buttons and gauges and several other things to explore and transmute. "…I need you both to sit down." Mother had said, but grabbed them in a crushing hug before letting them reach the couch. "What's wrong, Mum?" Al had asked. "You two are going to go over there the second that car leaves. Your friend needs you right now." "Why?" Edward had questioned, forgetting the fact that he would never be friends with a girl, much less worry about one. Even one as pretty as… her. "Winry's parents are gone, darling. We found out before you all came home from school." "Well yeah, but they're coming back when the war is over, right?" Al had responded. "…Not that kind of gone." The silence had dropped on them like a dense fog, suffocating them in its weight. "You mean… the forever kind of gone?" Al had asked. Somehow Ed had known his little brother was right. "YOU HUMANS ALWAYS DO COME TO REGRET THE WARS YOU FIGHT, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE FUELED BY YOUR OWN SINS. THE IRONY IS SO BEAUTIFULLY SAD." The basket had thrown itself upon the ground, spilling its contents onto the floor below. Mother had lain there without movement, even when they had called out her name upon opening the door. "Mum?" Al had offered again, though she couldn't hear him. Edward felt the world grow heavy on his shoulders. "Mum?" Edward had ventured, trying not to shake and sob. She'd said it was only a cough, a cold… they had made her medicine with alchemy and she had said it was working and it made her feel better. She'd told them it was working. "MUM!" They had screamed, and ran to her. "LOST THE MOTHER AS WELL? TOO BAD FOR YOU, KID." Blood. It had been everywhere. His leg… gone. His brother… his brother? Al? ALPHONSE? He was gone too. "He's gone! No!" Ed had reiterated to the night that now laughed at his loneliness and confusion. "I won't let this happen…" Ed had vowed to himself and his absent sibling. His hands had worked without command from his mind forging what was to be the rest of his and his brother's struggle. "AND THE BROTHER? OH WOW THIS IS JUST TOO GOOD. YOU ARE YOUR VERY OWN TRAGEDY. WHAT AN UNFORTUNATE SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES -" Abruptly Greed had stopped talking as light had shown from Edward's hands in his memory. "WHAT… WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?" He said. The memory began to fade and pieces of it fell away to blackness, like an old photograph forgotten and ravaged by time. This had never happened before. The light from the transmutation burst through the scene Ed had been reliving, revealing the etches and outlines of the gate and a strange being that guarded it. Then everything changed. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? WHAT THE HELL?!" Greed screamed, making Ed's ears bleed. He didn't know where he was anymore; the memory had taken hold of him and the gate loomed closer. Greed's words reverberated over and over again and the light flickered on and off sporadically, blinding them both. The circulating floor was all that was left of Greed's torture chamber, and it spun faster and faster under Edward, making his head spin with it. "YOU ARE… YOU ARE… YOU ARE AN ALCHEMIST? YOU ARE AN ALCHEMIST? YOU ARE AN ALCHEMIST! YOU ARE AN ALCHEMIST! ALCHEMIST!" Everything was falling apart. The chair was slipping away from him, fragmenting, dissecting itself into nothing… The demon guarding the gate never fully appeared, but instead his outline melted and expanded towards Ed, reaching out for him like he had reached for his brother. Brother… "I can't come with you." The body had said. But it had been there. "ALCHEMIST! YOU ARE THE SACRIFICE!" "The Fullmetal alchemist…" Mustang's voice floated by with his title, sending Ed's thoughts into a spiral, a whirlpool that drew him down, down, down... So dizzy… "NEVER! THIS IS NOT OVER, ALCHEMIST! I SHALL TAKE YOU ANYWAY! I SHALL TAKE YOU!" "Why isn't our alchemy working??" He had cried, just seconds ago. He clapped, and nothing. Nothing. "IF YOUR MEMORIES ARE NOT WHAT HAUNTS ENOUGH TO DESTROY YOU I SHALL FIND WHAT DOES!" "Did you hear? It was the plague that took her. How sad." They had said. Those people. They hadn't known her at all. They didn't know what sad was. They didn't understand sorrow. "FIND IT! FIND IT! I SHALL FIND IT IN YOUR NIGHTMARES!" Burning, burning… their house was burning. When they were younger they had linked hands and sung together. "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" they had chimed exuberantly. Once it was fun, but now it was time to search. He took one last look around – right held the tree they had played under. Ahead held the house they had played in. Left held the girl they had played with. She was crying. She was crying? "AHH HA HA HA HA! YOU CANNOT HIDE! YOUR SHALLOW DEFENCES SHALL CRUMBLE AND BREAK INTO PIECES BEFORE ME!" Burning – this wasn't their house that was burning. It was hers. The yellow Rockbell house was engulfed in red, furious flames and trespassing smoke violated its picturesque image, leaving graffiti in the form of dark, billowing clouds. The fire ate away at his oxygen, his air, his soul. "IT IS AT YOUR CORE!" The image slashed apart and fell to the sounds of scraping metal – metal – she was fixing his arm but she wasn't fixing it because she wasn't there, she was gone too and everything was wrong, he shook and shivered and screamed and there was nothing left but… Pain. She was in front of him now, crying, again, her parents were dead and she was alone but how could she be alone when they were there with her? Fear. She was holding a gun and threatening to shoot but she couldn't shoot, this wasn't her, she was so much more than that, she was a better person than that. Her hands were hands that made people live… Love. She looked up at him, tired, smiling through her exhaustion. She'd just helped birth a baby! A life had just come with the grace of her hands! Life, something he could never create on his own, even with alchemy. A life created always took two, the love of two people like the ones in Rush Valley, like… Anguish. He no longer had those two people, his parents were gone and they were forsaken as they were back at the graveyard and she was wringing her dress until the seams had torn and her ensemble was drenched with falling tears… Dark. It slivered into his thoughts and shred his dreams to nightmares, interspersing them with painful memories. His body echoed the aching in his heart with sweat and blood and contractions of muscle, breaking of bones. "Make sure to always protect your brother, he needs you…" Mother had said. "MUM! Wake up! WAKE UP!!" They had tried to bring her back and when she came back she was a monster that attacked him, she was something grotesque and repulsive so they had destroyed her again. "I'm sorry! I'M SORRY!" he yelled, for he was guilty… She had died twice, she had died, she was dead – dead. Death. "DIE, NOW!" He was being destroyed. His world was being destroyed. Destroyed… "…Don't die." A timid face with blue, blue eyes that held a strange mixture of strength and apprehension at their depths implored him: Don't die. Don't die. Something in that image, that sentence, those words brought him back from the brink. Time slowed. The sick cycle carousel in his mind gradually ceased its movement and he realised that it had been a giant ouroboros, turning beneath him as he was tormented by Greed. When it came to a full stop, he was left standing there, a boy with a metal arm, metal leg, and human soul. That soul was still filled with memories to taunt him, hurt to hinder him, mistakes to make, and burdens to bear, but it also held something else. For him it held his ability to stand up and walk forward, and affection for the people that would help him do so. One was his brother, who was bound to him in ways he couldn't understand or describe to anyone, for it was something they and they alone shared. Another person was a girl he had known almost as long as his brother. She was the one who would make him whole, even after he had finished and his limbs were regained. It was then that Edward saw all the scraps of his life come together before him, not just the ones that brought him heartache and despair, but also the ones that brought him laughter and joy. He absorbed them all and watched them lead to his current moment, and then beyond. He saw stars, smiles, and sunlit skies. He heard himself berating someone for calling him short and listened to dogs barking and the songs children sung in the wintertime in Amestris. He felt himself sparring with a brother made up of flesh and bone, and felt the summer grass underneath both his feet as the girl leaned against chest, his arms around her. His head was buried in her hair. He noticed that he was taller than her. This feeling of contentment washed over him, calming his nerves and silencing his anxieties. When the soft wind that blew in his vision changed from a breeze to the damaging blasts that had plagued him when he had first been trapped inside his own psyche, he accepted it, knowing now what he had to do: protect this image, his ambitions, the dreams which weren't nightmares, at all costs. The Fullmetal Alchemist wasn't one to be defeated so easily, least of all by his own fears. When the world began to quake again, he was ready. "No!" Ed shouted. He clenched his fists and fought the ringing in his ears. "NO!" "WHY?! WHY?" Greed wailed into the abyss. Ed saw his face again, the eyes now twisted and awkward, the mouth now set in a firm frown. It was slowly wasting away with the onslaught of darkness. "BECAUSE I STILL CARRY THE LIFE OF MY BROTHER." Ed screamed back. "BECAUSE I MADE A PROMISE TO SOMEONE WHO WAS WAITING FOR ME." Greed gurgled and convulsed as his figure began to dim and vanish, eclipsed by the black of Ed's seized mind. The only thing Ed could think to do was bring his hands together, not in a symbol for prayer, but rather one of his determination, of his preservation, of his insubordination to the evil which had tried to claim him. He clapped and alchemic electricity extended from him; he outstretched his hands until he found something to grab hold of. Something real. He reached… When Ed had finally stopped moving, Al was too hurt and scared to say anything. Envy was too focused on Edward to realise he had loosened his hold on Alphonse. Lust, having not seen what went on in Ed's mind, was far from satisfied. She had expected more pain then what she had seen, but then, no pain was ever enough for her. Ling was still trying to figure out what the Hell was going on, and Gluttony was still hungry. Father held strong in his stance, waiting with the rest of them for what would happen next. After a few seconds Edward opened his eyes, propping himself up enough to cough up blood, along with the tiny remnants of the philosopher's stone. Father watched in wonder as the golden-haired alchemist looked up at him. His body trembled, but his eyes held his gaze steady. "Nice… try." He said, and collapsed. For the first time, Father was afraid. Dear Edo-kun, A/N: I still don't know what this is. Sigh. Looks like I forgot a song though haha. If you caught the Lifehouse reference in this, I will give you a great big bear hug. And thank you again to the mods for the extension, without which I wouldn't have gotten to do this at all.
end
Amor Vincit Omnia
I am very sorry to continuously do mean things to you in my fics. (I just wanted to see what would happen if they tried to make you a sin! I'm sorry!!) If you would like to hunt one of my plot bunnies and eat it for dinner or something, you are more than welcome to. I am sure they would taste better than your boot.
Signed,
TsukinoSora