Chapter Four: A Start

Al couldn't figure something out. Last night, he thought about how Edward seemed to be from a dimension where their mother was still alive, and therefore never had automail. "Ed, how did you know how to re-attach your arm?"

"I help Winry and old lady Pinako in the shop sometimes," he replied as he put on his boots.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'd rather do other things, but Mom thinks I should help out when they need an extra hand. Winry would rather I stay out of the way, though," Edward said and stood. "Well, I guess we should head out."

"Where are we going?" Al asked him.

"We should start at the Central Library... That's where we got our first lead in my dimension. There wasn't much information on dimensional travel, but it turned out that the other Ed knew the author of the only manuscript on it."

"Oh? Who was it?" Al asked.

"A guy named Shou Tucker."

"Tucker?" Al asked in surprise.

"Yeah. We went to his house to ask him about his findings. There wasn't much, but I seem to remember him mentioning the name Tringum... And we later found out about Jonston and his partner working with Tucker."

"Tringum?! Russell and Fletcher Tringum? How did they met up with Tucker?! Nevermind... Who was Jonston's partner?"

"Your brother called him Scar. I guess it was because of the scar on his face... He wanted to use Tucker's formula to kill the State Alchemists in every dimension, but he ended up changing his mind and killing Tucker and Jonston."

"Ed... I have a feeling we won't find anything," Al said. He was almost sure that Tucker never did anything with alternate dimensions, and was even surer that the Tringums never met the man. And they knew from yesterday that Jonston was never heard of. And... "The first branch of the library had burnt down the night before brother disappeared."

"Wha?! But we were there after that! We-" Edward stopped when remembering this was another dimension. He sighed.

"I doubt they had anything about alternate dimensions, anyhow. You said that Tucker was the only one that had written anything, and he never researched that in this dimension."

"But... Even if the library didn't have anything on dimensional travel, they might have had something on red water..."

"Red water?" Al asked.

"How I understand it, that's the main substance used in the formula."

'Of course... The Tringums were doing things with red water. If the dimensional portal has something to do with that, they might know something about it,' Al thought. "Hey, I might have an idea."


"You're right... There's none left," Ed commented in monotone as he picked up a piece of broken glass.

"So... What now?" Alphonse asked.

"I don't know. Everyone who knew anything about the formula is dead now. Well... Except for Scar, but I doubt Tucker or Jonston told him much about it."

"Well... If the formula went into your body, do you think there's still some left, or was it all used up?" Alphonse asked.

"I'm not sure..." Ed said. He remembered what Jonston had told him.

"I only have so much of that formula in my veins. Some gets used up every time I make a portal."

"Besides... I'm not sure if it was the same formula Jonston had been using. He said that Tucker was trying to modify it so Scar could go through the portals with him. As far as I know, it was never tested, so the side effects could have been from the changes in the formula."

"If there's still some left in you, maybe you'll switch back when the portal is activated."

Ed shook his head. "It's too risky. We were right beside each other when it happened, and now we're not even in the same world. Not to mention that the formula may not have been finished when we tried using it... And judging from the amount of glass on the floor, there must have been several containers sitting on the table - and all of the contents were mixed up when Scar broke them. Some of them may not have even held ingredients for the formula."

"It's too bad that Tucker's dead, now... He might have known how to fix things. And if not, he could at least have told us what he was working on, what was in those containers, and what phase the formula was in," Alphonse commented.

"Wait... Maybe he can..." Ed said, a smirk coming to his face.

"Huh? But how?"

"Just follow me, Al," Ed said. He took the younger boy's hand and ran into the hallway.

--End Chapter--

Yay! Another chapter done! And now there's starting to be a little plot in it, too. Anyone know what the two pairs are up to? Well... I guess that Ed's idea may be a little harder to figure out.

Hmm... Should I start mentioning who's dimension it is at the beginning of a scene change? I'm thinking that it could get a little confusing.

Still thinking about titles, here. What about... uh... "Only A Mirror Image Of Myself" or "Living In The Mirror" It's not really a mirror, but I thought it made more sense than using the word 'shadow' as a comparison, since that usually implies darkness. The first one, I originally thought of "Only a Mirror Image of My Formal Self" but that was way too long, and it's still kind'a long. But the "Living In The Mirror" one is kind'a appealing. And it kind'a goes into something I should have been doing in the story... I mean, if you awoke one day to find that you were someone else, wouldn't you be more fascinated by your new body? (The arm and leg or lack thereof should be fun to play with) So, I think I'll try to put something about that in a later chapter.