A/N: Thanks to the guest who called out that Wreckage wasn't showing the new chapter. FFN has been very glitchy the last week and not displaying new updates correctly. Chapters were viewable on the app but not on desktop or the mobile site. There was nothing I could do to fix it. FFN eventually resolved the issue. As a reminder, I update Wreckage on Tuesdays (okay, late Monday evening), so if you are not able to access the chapter on FFN, you can find it on An Archive Of Our Own (same title, under AngelSelene). I update there first so if FFN is being glitchy, you can get your next chapter. At this time, I'm going to continue crossposting, but should FFN's glitches continue, I may discontinue updating here. If that happens, Wreckage can continue to be found on AO3. Sorry for the PSA. Now onto the chapter.

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Ed's head spins as they drive to the home of Tucker Maes. His heart is sick with the thought of some alternate version of Maes Hughes and Shou Tucker ever being related. If Ed had to make a bet, he'd put money on Tucker killing his parents, but that'll be a discussion for later. There's no way this is not all related.

Almost nine years in this world, and the first sign of real, powerful alchemy comes with ghosts of dead men from Ed's world. There is no way this is a coincidence. He pulls out his phone and tries to send Roy a text, demanding he call Ed ASAP, but the text fails.

"I can't get ahold of Prentiss," JJ says, hanging up her own phone.

"I can't get through to Rossi either," Morgan says.

Crawford shrugs. "It's the mountains. Signals are usually spotty up here. Storms and bad weather make them particularly bad. It's why most people still got landlines out here. They're more reliable."

The sky brightens as lightning flashes across it, followed almost immediately by a crash of thunder loud and immediate enough to make them all startle.

Why here? Why now? Ed wonders. He and Roy had, after much trial and error, uneasily hypothesized that the only way to make alchemy work in this world was to have it powered by human lives, human souls, the way a Philosopher's Stone was. Neither of them were willing to kill someone to get home, and they certainly weren't willing to kill someone just to see if it might be possible. But Ed's automail worked in this world, so there had to be some alchemy. That it was powered on his own soul made a twisted kind of sense.

Roy had not been crazy about Ed continuing to use the automail once they had come to that conclusion, but for Ed, the tradeoff is worth it. Automail's drawbacks aside, it is far superior to the prosthetics this world has. Ed calculated what the drain on his soul might be, and even at the upper range, it's negligible—he'd done far worse healing himself in Amestris. Roy hates that answer, but he can respect Ed's need to be self-sufficient. The prosthetic legs offered here aren't awful , but the phantom pains are far worse without the nerve stimulation the automail provides. There is no comparing his automail hand with the options available.

It's aching like a bitch in this storm though.

Crawford turns down a long driveway, and the rain is pouring down so heavily that she has to be driving the route as much from memory as sight. Before the house or barn come into view, Ed feels the familiar prickle of powerful alchemy building in the air. This is definitely the right place, and they are just barely in time.

JJ must notice his attention sharpening because she asks, "What?"

"It's here," he says. "No matter what, stay away from a circle."

She frowns at him, then trades looks with Morgan.

Crawford puts the car in park outside a small farmhouse. About fifty yards behind the main house is a barn, only visible through the downpour because of its distinctive red color and the lights on in it. JJ and Morgan check their guns.

"That's the bus," Ed points out as another flash of lightning throws enough light to see the white bus parked next to the barn.

"All right," Crawford says, getting out. Morgan follows her lead.

"Ed, can I see your gun for a minute?" JJ asks.

The energy is gathering and Ed is distracted, so he hands it over, eyes focused on the barn. "We need to hurry," he says. "Leave the array to me."

Crawford opens JJ's door first, and before Ed can react, JJ's out of the car. With his gun.

"What the fuck!" Ed demands, banging on the window with his flesh fist. "What the fuck are you doing?" he demands. "Let me out!"

He can barely make out Morgan's sorry expression through the rain sluicing down the car window, but it makes sense. They don't want him near this, not with the secrets he's keeping, not with a gun he can use to shoot his way out. Ed stares at their backs as they move toward the barn, his mind not quite believing what has just happened no matter how rational the decision.

" Fuck! " Ed turns to try to pull out the grating between the front and back seats of the car, but the holes are too small for him to get his automail fingers through. He punches it a few times, but though it warps, it doesn't give. He shifts, giving it a kick with an automail foot, the sense of alchemy growing ever thicker in the air, but while he dislodges it, he's going to tear himself to pieces trying to climb through those jagged edges. With a curse, he decides to stop fucking around, pulls the glove off his automail hand, and punches it through the window. He tries the handle from the outside, but Crawford had locked it. With another curse, he pulls his hand back, fragments of safety glass everywhere, then leans back on the seat. The space is so fucking confined, he just can't fucking get the leverage he needs. He kicks at the remains of the window with the full force of his automail leg and pretty much knocks the whole window out of the frame.

It's enough. He puts his automail hand down so he doesn't cut his hand, and climbs out, taking off at a run toward the barn. It probably only took him a minute, maybe two , at the maximum, to follow them, but he's seen the door to the barn opening, seen the light spilling out of it—the blue-hot light of an alchemical reaction—and there is no time .

He bursts in, completely disregarding his safety. Tucker isn't going to be shooting anyone—his hands will be beyond full with just trying to control the reaction. Sure enough, as he makes it inside, the reaction changes from lightning-blue to the unique ruby of soul alchemy.

Ed barely has a moment to take in the victims who are scattered around the circle, to see that Morgan and JJ had both stupidly run forward to try and pull the victims away, to see a young man who is undoubtedly some other incarnation of Shou Tucker staring at him from across the circle. He claps his hands together, the motion still ingrained in him after all these years, and runs to the edge of the array, slamming his hands down outside the circle, even as a form is coming together in the tray.

"It's working!" he hears Tucker call in relief and joy. "It's working!"

"Tucker! Step away from the circle!" Crawford, admirably, yells at him.

Ed can't listen. This circle—it's right . It's terrible and it's a human transmutation array, and Ed has to wrest control of it from Tucker before it kills all these people.

"You can't bring back the dead!" Ed snarls, trying to disrupt the transmutation, but it's too far along, is too well crafted.

The eye opens under the circle, and Tucker's exultant expression turns to one of horror.

There's only one thing that feels like this. The world goes white, and Ed feels himself disintegrate, feels the pieces of himself be pulled apart one molecule at a time.

Ed screams.

He doesn't remember closing his eyes, but he isn't surprised when he opens them, he finds himself standing in the doorway, one door on either side of him. JJ and Morgan are unconscious on the side, and Tucker is gaining his senses.

Truth sits before him, Ed's arm and leg the only solid features in its human-shaped outline, but he sees the shadow of its rictus grin.

"Hello again, Alchemist," Truth says in its terrible voice that sounds like a thousand people speaking at once.

"Wha? Where? Where am I? Did I get my brother back?" Tucker asks, looking around, confused and desperate.

Truth turns its attention to Tucker. "That was ambitious of you, young alchemist," it says.

"I did it!" Tucker says. "Alchemy is real! I did it right! Give me my brother back!"

Truth hums as a human body forms in front of it. Whole and untwisted, Maes Hughes's body hangs in the air, naked, but certainly Ed's Hughes, not Tucker's. He's older than even Tucker's Hugh would be, has the scars that Ed's Hughes probably had.

"My brother!" Tucker yells. " Hugh !"

"This was clever," Truth says. "Using the bones to get the right one back. I'm surprised you didn't think of that, Alchemist," it adds, shifting its attention to Ed again.

"I wouldn't have robbed my mother's grave," Ed sneers, though looking at the body that Truth has built, he wonders if it would have made a difference. No , he tells himself. You can't bring back the dead .

Well, humans couldn't bring back the dead. But could Truth ?

"Hugh," Tucker says, crying. He may have Tucker's face, but Ed never saw such raw emotion on Shou Tucker. "Give me my brother."

Truth turns its attention back to Tucker. "There is a toll that must be paid," it says.

"Toll?"

Ed opens his mouth to protest because no matter what this Tucker has done, he wouldn't wish Truth's tolls on anyone , but he's too late. The door opens, and Tucker is pulled screaming into it by black hands and faceless eyes.

"No!" Ed races to him, arm outstretched, but he only collides with the door as it slams on Tucker.

"So much arrogance," Truth says, and Ed doesn't know if it's talking about him or Tucker.

"Give him back!" Ed demands, banging on the door.

"At what price?" Truth asks, and somehow Ed knows it is looking at JJ and Morgan.

"No," Ed says, faintly at first, then more firmly. " No . You can't have them."

"Can't I? They were in the array."

"They weren't part of it," Ed insists. "And you know it."

"Maybe," Truth concedes. Its head tilts as if looking curiously at Ed, although it has no face or features except for that vague impression of a mouth. "You continue to break the rules though. First you sacrifice your Gate, then you come back through, reopening it. I put you in a world where barely any alchemy exists, and yet you still find your way here to me."

"Let them go," Ed says. "They have nothing to do with this."

"They didn't have anything to do with this," Truth corrects. "Now they're here. Now they are pieces on the board, Alchemist."

"They're people ," Ed snaps. "Good people who have dedicated their lives to helping people—"

"Hunting people," Truth says. "They are predators, Alchemist."

Ed isn't arguing semantics with Truth. It will twist his words and meaning however it wishes. "Let them go. Send them back."

Truth is silent for a time in this place where there is no time, no meaning, before it answers. "Twelve lives, however old, is quite the toll. Surely that's equivalent to something."

Fists clenched, Ed grinds out, "I'm not making any deals with you. Send them back." He hasn't let himself think about it yet, but he'd been pretty sure just the fact of being here meant that Tucker had successfully completed his exchange. It doesn't make it any easier to hear the confirmation. He ignores Hughes's body. Hughes is dead, has been dead for a decade. He's beyond Ed's help.

"And you? Alchemist? What should I do with you?"

There is no good way to answer that question. If he insists on being given the same fate as JJ and Morgan, Truth might use it as an excuse to kill or maim them.

He decides to go on the offensive. "Do you really want to go toe-to-toe with me again? Isn't that why you accepted my alchemy for Al in the first place? To make sure I could never come back?"

He gets the impression that Truth is frowning.

"I didn't make this array. I didn't help this guy. He figured this out all on his own in a world where barely any alchemy exists," Ed points out. "How did he do that if he didn't have help from someone? Someone who has touched you? Have you sent anyone else from Amestris through to his world?" Truth is quiet for long enough that Ed feels like he's on the right track. There had to have been someone who knew something. Someone else torn between worlds. Ed had tracked down damn near every old alchemic text he could find, and it all amounted to almost nothing. He should have seen that there had to be another person somewhere. Maybe a homunculus?

Truth sighs. Since Ed is sure it doesn't need to breathe, it must be an affectation. "Regardless, that big of a sacrifice must be used for something," it says.

Ed's heart sinks as the Hughes-shaped doll suddenly comes to life, chest expanding, shoulders rising and falling with breaths. Familiar green eyes open and blink, then squint as a familiar voice asks, "Edward?"

"What are you—?" Ed gasps out, not sure if it's in horror or shock.

"You and the Flame have been having problems, haven't you. I'm sure he'll like this one better in your place," Truth says. "And I suppose I can take the tolls from the one who committed the taboo."

Eyes, ears, and defined mouth appear on Truth's face—Tucker's—followed by his left arm and right leg. Ed doesn't know if the scream he thinks he hears behind the door is real or only in his mind.

Both doors open—black arms and faceless eyes reaching out. Ed freezes, incapable of deciding to protect Hughes or JJ and Morgan. In the end, it doesn't matter. The hands from the same door that pulled Tucker through grab Hughes, while hands from the other door grab Ed, JJ, and Morgan.

"No!" Ed yells, struggling against the arms, even knowing it's futile.

"Goodbye, Alchemist," Truth says, waving Ed's arm at him as the door slams shut.