Chapter 3: New Beginnings
Edward awoke in hospital. His arm and leg still ached a little from the automail. He turned his head and noticed Rose, Winry and Scieszka sitting asleep in a couch by his window.
Edward got up off his bed and walked around the room a little. He was slowly getting used to using the automail again. Ed turned as the door opened again.
"Mustang –? " Ed was cut off by Brigadier General Hawkeye.
"The Fuhrer is here to visit you"
Ed stared at Roy Mustang, eye patch and all, who strolled in after Hawkeye.
"Fuhrer?!"
Mustang didn't comment but eventually sighed.
"Hagane, it is good to see you again."
Ed raised an eyebrow.
"You know as well as I do that I'm not Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, The FullMetal Alchemist, anymore."
The other three on the couch stirred, saw who was in the room and sprang up, Scieszka saluting.
"Fuhrer!"
Edward laughed.
Alphonse roamed the street. He had finally met his brother, and yet, while he was glad his brother was back, he also felt worse.
Al had vowed to bring his brother back before. He was immensely grateful that his brother was back but that he hadn't been able to lift a hand the whole entire time to do anything was what hurt. His brother in the end had had to resort to his own means, instead of with the help of Al.
Al noticed he was still gripping his brother's fake State Alchemist watch. He wondered why he had grabbed it again before. As he stared at the watch, the tears began to fall. He wanted to remember his brother, he wanted to help his brother, and yet, he was powerless.
Lost in his own world, Al didn't notice the steel arm glinting in the bright morning sunlight behind him and the sneer on the wearer's face…
Ed was surprised as Mustang made his announcement.
"What? You're giving me back my title as State Alchemist?"
Mustang nodded.
"Yes…or don't you want it?"
Edward frowned, thinking it over.
"I don't want to be a Gu no inu, a dog of the military, anymore, Fuhrer."
Mustang smiled, the old look returning to his one eye.
"Of course you'll get a promotion. A position closer to mine where 'it wont matter whether you obeyed or not' as I do quote."
Ed gaped at him.
"How will you achieve that? People will want a reason for my return, let alone promotion!"
Mustang put a hand on his hips, raising his eyebrows.
"Didn't you 'eliminate' all the homunculus now, hmm?"
Ed began to grin, but then stopped and remembered two things… or was it three?
"All right Fuhrer, but I've got things to tell you all right now. Fuhrer, can you gather all the people who were with us in the homunculus case?"
Mustang nodded.
"Give me an hour, Hagane, and it's done."
Alphonse twirled around quickly as he heard a soft clang from behind him. It was surely the sound of automail. Did his brother come searching for him? The guilt swirled in his heart again. But his heart leapt all the same when he saw the automail arm, but not when he saw who was behind it.
"Wrath…" Al hissed as he backed away from the homunculus.
"You…" Wrath spat out, his face contorted.
Although Wrath sounded fiercely angry, Al noticed tears dripping from his face. After all that, even if Wrath was a homunculus, he was still just a little boy, not unlike himself. Although he couldn't remember the first time he saw Wrath, he heard from his friends and from his somber sensei and he understood what must have happened. Wrath did not seem to hold a grudge against Ed, but however still attacked them in what looked like a mad frenzy over his lost 'mama'.
Still, that didn't mean he was ready to die. Al stood in a defensive fighting stance.
"Come…"
Edward looked at the people assembled in the room. All his friends, some looked unfamiliar, but he knew most of them. Winry and Rose were there also to provide their support of which he was grateful.
Now, dressed in his clothes of his old "alchemist style" and with the same style of pants and boots, belt and a new State Alchemist silver pocket watch (he had carved into it again, but what he carved is a secret), Edward sat near the Fuhrer, Mustang, on the long table.
"Edward Elric, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, Fullmetal Alchemist, what do you have to report?"
Edward looked over the table. They had all been through a lot together… a lot indeed.
"As you should I know, I have been listed as 'dead' for the last 4 years and in fact I was, or should have been anyway. I went beyond 'the Gate' when I died." Edward began and stopped as he saw the others' confused faces. "When a person dies, they are returned to the Gate from which their tamashii, souls, came from. Beyond the Gate however, is a parallel world. The root of our alchemy, he power which we have in this world is linked to the souls of the dead in the other world." He paused to look around the table again.
"I have been to that world and I have become acquainted to most things which appear in that world. As much as the otherworld is much the same as this world, our world, they do not have some key elements of this world, firstly being rekinjutsu, alchemy, and another obvious difference is they don't have automail."
Mustang brooded over this new information. "So this new world does not have a focus on alchemy, but its real focus is?"
Ed pulled a face and then looked somber, "Around three-quarters of the population is deeply rooted in religion and most of the population is 'focused' on 'science'."
There was a silence in the room.
"Was that all the news, Edward-san?" Hawkeye asked briskly.
Ed hesitated and then pulled the blood red stone out of his pocket where he had stashed it. He set it on the table. Mustang rose to have a better look, picking it up in his hands, frowning a little.
"This is… the Philosopher's Stone?"
Ed nodded.
"How did you come to get this?"
Ed's mouth twitched for a second. "Philosopher's Stones are much easier to make in the other world." He said dryly. "It only requires basic elements, some blood, and some complex chemical reactions ("not alchemic reactions!!" Ed added) and also no human lives are necessary." He looked at it for a second more though. "It was what allowed me to be able to get back."
Mustang nodded and handed the Stone back. "Meeting adjourned. Hagane, follow me."
Ed shot Winry and Scieszka a puzzled look before following the Fuhrer. Scieszka, after a hesitation followed him but Winry and Rose preferred to wait outside.
"Edward-sama!"
Ed turned to see Lieutenants Ross and Brosh. He smiled thinly at them and turned around again to look for the Fuhrer.
"This way, Edward-san." Hawkeye's level voice came out of the rather dark corridor.
Edward entered the Fuhrer's quarters. Mustang was already seated on the couch and he gestured for Ed to take a seat on the opposite one. The Lieutenants and Scieszka took up posts outside the door (they could still hear but could not contribute to the conversation) while Hawkeye remained standing next to Mustang.
"You seemed to have quite an extended holiday for the past 4 years."
"Not that I could help it, Fuhrer!"
"Hmm." Mustang smiled over the hands he had clasped in front of his face. "Well, care to tell me about it?"
"Are you implying that I didn't tell you everything already?"
"Is that the way you talk to the Fuhrer?" Mustang said sarcastically.
"Well I've already told you everything, haven't I? Basically, my father and I looked for ways to return and then I found how to create the Philosopher's stone and I came back."
Ed rolled his eyes at Mustang, though somehow he had a feeling he had forgotten something…
Wrath tried to punch the side of Al's face. Al dodge it easily and stepped back as Wrath also tried to throw a punch at his stomach.
"Hah!"
Al grinned, placing his gloved hands on the ground. A cage sprang up to trap the angry Wrath inside. Wrath snarled at Al.
"What is your problem?" Al sounded annoyed.
"What do you mean, 'What is my problem'? You are the problem!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Heh." Wrath grinned maniacly. "Your brother did kill your mother again, you know…"
"Wha-?"
A hand connected with wrath's face. Izumi Curtis withdrew her hand after the painful, stinging smack and stepped back.
"What were you just saying?"
Wrath glared at his 'mother', whom he did not awknowledge.
"It doesn't concern you."
Izumi's face was expressionless, but she stared at Wrath with a sort of angry sadness.
"Well, then what you're doing here doesn't concern me either…."
Wrath grinned in triumph.
"… and that means I shall take no liberties to go out of my way."
Izumi picked Wrath up easily and threw him, though she didn't look too happy about doing it…
"C'mon, Al." She looked back over her shoulder as she began to walk away. "Something the matter?"
Al looked at his sensei for a while. He wanted to tell someone, yet didn't at the same time. "Ahh… it's nothing…"
"Izumi nodded and continued walking but still peered cautiously over her shoulder at his when he began to follow her, head down.
Izumi returned her eyes to the front. She had heard a little while ago, that a boy, thought to be dead, had returned. Ed, might that be you?
Izumi sighed. That's what she would have to find out.
[ANCIENT Author's Notes: gomen but I haven't seen the episodes so I don't know, all I have seen is the movie, where the military still seems to be intact (it still doesn't seem like a government to me).
And this 'unexpressable guilt' that Al is feeling, well, that all has a part in the story, at least I thought it did! Anyway, Happy Reading.
New Author's Notes: Nothing to say.