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CHAPTER 1:
A RESPECTIVE RECURRENCE
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There was no horrific agony as the long hands of morphing night of the countless Homunculi grasped Edward, but he braced for it as they pulled him forward into the Gate.
He had no idea how long he'd remain conscious this time, before his entire body was taken from him and his soul and mind were separated from it, but he didn't want it to end, after everything that Al and he had gone through for so long, without him enduring what he knew was about to happen for as long as possible.
However, almost before Edward realized what had happened, all physical sensation was gone, but he was now falling and falling and falling and falling and flying and flying through surging golden, as he remembered doing hours ago when Dante had thrown him into the Gate.
Shock detonated throughout all of his existing being and not present self, as well as horror and terror and self hatred and despair that didn't just separate him from reality and himself, but from separation and the lack of separation, and the gap of that not absent and absent lack, and everything and anything that was joined; at the knowledge that this might mean that Dante had been right, that giving everything he had wasn't enough, and he'd failed to bring Al wholly home at last and finally, and Al might now be a prisoner of the Gate forever because it might no longer be possible to pull any of him out of it after he'd been held as its captive for this long and it had been all for nothing it had always been for nothing since before always had never existed and it would for an ending amount of forever that was unendingly there in every indelible gouging and blinding being and washed wiped incinerated erased blasted clear clean pearl onyx obsidian blinding ebony incandescent ivory anywhere scoured endlessly not there of what was not present of what wasn't present of what wasn't there of what didn't exist of what did not exist unendingly
was cascading through pure ivory with streams of pictures of sights and events occurring somewhere in one cosmos or another, or more than one, soaring past him all about him, and now the familiar throbbing pain did burgeon in his skull and split it open into shards of fragments.
But this clearly wasn't the Truth of the world that Ed had just left, or even the world that he'd traveled to the first time that this had happened, so Edward forced the all unknowing agony and despair and horror and terror and self hatred about how he might have abandoned and betrayed and left and failed and deserted Al in the most horrific way yet as far to the side as he could justify, because, as Dad and Dante had taught him, what you got for giving something might be something unexpected, so it was very possible that he hadn't failed; and if there was more than one world on the other side of the Gate, alchemy might work there, and he might be able to find out one way or the other sooner or later.
Perhaps even before the day was up on the world that he'd just left, although Edward knew better than to hope for that.
A number of seconds later, Ed was flying through two opening stone doors and then hurting through further ivory lacking the pictures or the agony, but then more oily black feelers seized him and pulled him back through these doors.
And then sensation, and the familiar weight of a right automail arm and left automail leg closely matching the automail that Winry had given him before he'd infiltrated Laboratory Five, and not the automail that he'd fixed after Wrath had stolen the hand and part of the lower arm, replaced all sensation in his newly regained limbs; while torture erupted in his chest and left arm in lancing knives that Edward recognized as meaning that one or more ribs or bones were broken in each.
But that was one of the least of his concerns now.
Ed had just possessed a third Edward.
And, whether or not alchemy had been established as a legitimate science on this third world, automail clearly had, and that meant that, among countless other matters, Ed had almost certainly just taken this third Edward away from this world's Winry.
This must be one of the dreams that Ed had just given up on.
As well as this entire third world, and the one that Edward had previously visited.
And then he couldn't move he was being crushed crushed crushed crushed crushed crushed crushed crushed crushed against something gargantuan and thickly skinned with uncountable shifting protrusions moving against his back
And then whatever it was behind him was howling a resounding and reverberating roar too large to come from any animal Ed had met and then he was free to move and he was crashing onto his legs and back on a stone floor with the enormous thing crashing behind him, sticky and warm crimson splashing over him as many of the protrusions, dark green in color, squished on top of, and around, most of him but his left automail leg; his automail leg extending out of it with its knee bent and its lower leg forwards out into the air.
But Edward's guard now rose as far as possible.
Whatever this was; unless matter and energy were somehow so interchangeable in this third world that they weren't even changeable by a loose Equivalent Exchange, which Edward extremely highly doubted, this couldn't be anything natural, or even a Chimera.
And that meant two things.
Alchemy functioned in this third world.
And Edward was now being cushioned by, and smothered by, a Homunculus.
But at least this meant that he had a much better chance of leaving this third Edward's body without it costing this Edward his life.
"Rrrrrgh..." the same monstrous voice now growled in anguish, and crimson started coursing over the fleshly protrusions above and around and below Ed, and the body behind him, and they started strengthening and becoming firmer.
Edward clenched his teeth as tightly as he was willing to risk with his ribs and arm hurt at the knowledge of what that meant.
Much better.
Whoever knew this Homunculus, be it a double of Dante or Dad, he or she was close to red water, a red stone, or the true Philosopher's Stone.
Ed could think of no other reason for a crimson transmutation to be reconstructing this Homunculus.
It must be healing him or her faster than he or she could regularly repair himself or herself.
Either that, or the red stones within Homunculi did function differently in this third world.
All Edward wanted to do after everything that he'd gone through over the past two days was just lie still and fall asleep and never wake up once more; but whether this world, and the second world, were just dreams, or not, Al needed Ed to ascertain whether or not he'd at last been given back his body, and his mind.
The nightmare of these past two days wasn't over yet.
So Edward spoke with exhausted irritation, "Get off me, Homunculus."
Knowing better than to hope that he wouldn't run into a double of Al or Winry as soon as he was free of this Homunculus; and, if he did, that this Al would be in a human body and not an armor one, Ed started pushing the shifting and blood drowned protrusions out of the way, making note of how they resembled human faces and torsos and arms of various sizes and forms and portions from a lot larger than he was to a good deal smaller than an average sized head. Many of them extended out of the protrusions themselves at various locations, such as from within its mouths, rather than from the much larger, dark green scaled body from which the innermost ones extended.
"You're the one on top of me, little boy," the Homunculus snarled back in pained rage, his condescending cadence unmistakably that of Envy's, though the rage in it didn't sound personally directed at him.
Ed started violently, and all erasing of blinding erasure phantom agony seared out from his front and the center of his insides and his back.
But he wasn't going to make that mistake for the third time.
And after everything that had happened since he'd discovered what Scar had set up in Lior, having his height insulted was one of the very last things he cared about now, at a time like this.
He moved his automail arm as fast as he could, ignoring the screaming inferno searing his chest and arm, to push himself to his feet.
But before he could move much more, he heard something else familiar, and metallic and heavy, land in the liquid somewhere close, and Edward's insides twisted as two of his worst fears were confirmed.
Edward distanced himself further away from the conflagration of anguish and torment and despair and torture and self hatred and guilt now flooding everything around and that was and that wasn't within him and that was him.
The Al who wasn't a dream needed him.
As did, dream or not, this world's Al, and Winry, and Ed.
"Big..."
Vertigo caused Edward's stomach to heave and his insides to warp sickly, as a person who couldn't be anyone else than the Al of this world on this third side of the Gate, grasped Ed's leg by his lower leg about and above his ankle, and Edward was lifted quickly out of the mesh of shifting and firming skin and flesh into a darkened chamber.
"Big brother!"
A partially muted hot throb of agonized horror and terror at the hollow opening in the front of Al's right arm, and of desperate longing, contorted and distorted Edward and caused all of him to ache, but this wasn't the time.
Nor was it the time to become more aware of how, if the Al who was his brother had at last been brought home, Ed was literally a universe and world and dimension and planetary system and galactic supercluster and galaxy and planet and galactic cluster and space time away from the brother and the body who was the true other half of his body in ways that were so much that even saying, or not saying, they were, positively or negatively, with thought or feeling or sound or word or expression or body language or movement or motion or action, couldn't convey or express or describe or define or communicate or comprehend how much Al was truly and genuinely and purely and wholly and completely and totally and utterly and absolutely the body that he'd lost around five years ago.
A double of Gluttony, with long arcing ribs of bone extending out of a roughly oblong black opening extending over most of his torso with a vertical red eye similar to the purple eyes Homunculi possessed without their more human bodies was lying on his back far to Al's right, more sanguine crackling over him as he lay in a spreading pool of red and sanguine drained from the top of his mouth down the left side of his face.
And this Envy's central body was equally dark green; with a left eye filled with a number of large light violet irises with slit pupils; a right eye with a pitch night vitreous membrae and a much larger, single red eye with another slit pupil; a snout similar to a dog's; long black hair draped over his head behind the brow; eight legs with claws at the end as thick as tree trunks; and a darker purple upside down triangle with circles at the points on his brow.
Edward had no idea what differences this Envy and Gluttony possessed in their malleability from the Envy and Gluttony who Ed had already met, if one or both of the ones who he knew weren't capable of assuming these forms and they just hadn't seen a reason to do so.
Nor did he care.
They were both recovering, so Ed could leave them be for now.
He gave this Al a sad, but heartfelt, smile.
His heart and insides warped and ached further, but it was better not to mince words.
"Not precisely," he spoke with empathetic and sympathetic apology.
"This is his body, but there are different worlds similar to this one beyond the Gate, and I'm the soul of a double of his who the Gate threw into his body, without hurting your Ed's soul and just trapping it inside his body, as an unanticipated price for me giving the Al who I know his own human body and mind back."
Al gasped harshly and deeply in a multitude of emotions, among them horror and terror and shock and suppressed hope.
But then he turned Edward and placed him carefully on the floor, and he began shaking and trembling and shuddering violently.
Several seconds passed, and then Al said, voice cracked and broken and shaking and trembling, "It's good to know that he's alive, and thanks a lot for telling me that we might be able to regain our own bodies through a similar method, if we can avoid ending up taking over another big brother or me ourselves.
"But do you know if it's safe for us to get you out, so big brother can regain control of his body; or do you know for sure that doing so will imprison you in the Portal of Truth, or at least your own body?"
Can you please tell him I'm sorry? Ed heard a voice that echoed his own talking in a strained tone from inside his mind, sending more painful lancing aches through his head, and Ed knew that the Edward of this world was spending what little time that he had left before he couldn't even send thoughts to Ed, if stay awake, to ask or request Ed to tell this Al something.
If you've been through what we have, you must know, yourself.
About the despair and terror that you go through when you lose your entire family, and you're left all alone. I just put my own brother through something similar, though not due to a human transmutation, and it must have been very frightening, and very painful, for my own brother to go through what I did.
Can you please tell him that I'm sorry?
Winry, too, if you see her before I do, for similar reasons?
Ed suppressed more warping aches in his insides and heart.
And that I just confirmed that his original body and mind are still alive in the Portal of Truth?
Edward suppressed the urge to correct this Edward about that name.
This was one of the last times to talk about that.
And can you please not blame yourself for what just happened to us?
But Ed knew that the other Edward knew as well as he did that he couldn't do that.
You were just trying to accomplish what we are.
I hope that I'll have the chance to say goodbye to you when you're ready to leave.
Until your soul lets me wake up, then.
And then the pain in Ed's head was gone, and Edward knew that the version of him who he'd newly met was now in a coma.
But if Ed couldn't figure out a way to leave this body soon, he was determined to at least find a way to enable the other Ed to remain conscious in it.
"Your big brother wants you to know that he's sorry for putting you through the pain and fear that you just went through," Edward spoke with even more sadness.
Al jolted violently in hope, but Ed sighed heavily once more.
"But he's asleep now."
Alphonse shifted in an approximation of a cringe.
"I'm further sorry to tell you that I have no idea of a safe way for me to leave this body without, yes, becoming a prisoner of the Gate."
Al started shuddering and shaking and trembling much more violently, and Ed's insides squeezed all of his blood and aching and heartbeats and insides and breath and emotions and thoughts and self out of him.
He suppressed the urge to put his hand on Al's shoulder, unsure how this Al would take someone who wasn't his brother touching him in his body, particularly so soon after they'd undergone a terror and torture flooded separation for an unknown amount of time.
"But there's good news.
"We might be able to at least find a way to wake him up, so he can communicate with you, and the Winry of this world, through me.
"Additionally, I don't know how it happened, but he just saw what you call the Portal of Truth, and he confirmed that your human body and mind are both intact there."
Alphonse inhaled in further harsh, deep shock, but the hope in them was still suppressed.
This Al almost certainly now felt as disheartened, and drained, and fatigued, and tired, and exhausted, as Ed did, if not incomprehensibly incomparably more, because, unlike Ed, he did know that his brother was still alive outside of the Gate, and he was right in front of Al and Al still couldn't truly spend any time with him.
Why couldn't Ed stop sacrificing people, particularly members of his family from one world, or another?
Edward really didn't want to know if a Sloth was still alive in this world, and nearby.
"If you're willing to trust me with the knowledge, is it safe for you to tell me what just happened to your brother, and what's going on?" Edward questioned.
"We're trying to figure that out ourselves," an unfamiliar voice with a Xingese accent put in, his voice guarded but friendly.
Ed turned carefully to see an unfamiliar teenager with black hair in a Xingese ponytail and a Xingese style black shirt and leggings sitting in the still repairing extensions emerging from Envy.
"If Al is willing to trust you enough to talk about what this Edward, and he, went through, I myself feel that it's safe to tell you that these Homunculi are researching a legendary alchemic catalyst known as the Philosopher's Stone."
Edward suppressed a surge of exhausting despair and anguish at this confirmation.
What had been the point of destroying all of Dante's research into it when other Homunculi, very likely serving this world's version of Dante, were still studying it in another Amestris?
And who knew how many others.
"Maybe what Dante said was right. Maybe you can give up all you've got, and get nothing back. But still, even if I can't prove it true, I have to try. For your sake, Al."
"It doesn't matter who you are. If you work hard, it pays off. I know Equivalent Exchange is true. And I don't care if it's childish to believe in its precepts. I'd rather be considered a child than live in a world of cynicism, chaos, or apathy. I'm sorry. I thought I didn't care about it, but I did need to believe in something… all this time."
What Edward had just learned changed nothing.
Whether or not he could prove it, whether or not it was childish, if he didn't believe in the precepts of Equivalent Exchange and the truth, the people who needed him to for his or her sake would die or be tormented.
Whether or not this world, and the other parallel world, were just dreams, Edward still couldn't close his eyes to the people in them who needed him.
He'd protected Rose, and her baby, and Lior, indefinitely, at last.
He wasn't closing his eyes to the world outside of himself just after he'd done that.
Ed's heart and insides distorted and ached further at the knowledge of how Rose would react when she returned to the laboratory he'd destroyed with the circle that he'd hopefully brought Al home with, and, whether or not Al had returned to her in his human body and mind, she discovered that he'd abandoned her for the fourth time.
If she hadn't already discovered this, in one way or another.
Now even more exhausted, Ed closed his eyes briefly to let the fatigue flow through him, and then he reopened them.
"I gathered as much," Edward responded.
Al started violently.
The Xingese teenager pressed his lips together.
"But I've never met a double of you before," Ed went on.
"Who are you, and what clan of Xing do you hail from?"
Before the Xing male could reply, another familiar voice interjected, but in removed and greatly disinterested tones almost entirely devoid of emotion.
"I have no interest in knowing the name of these Xingese person, but I'm very interested in knowing what parts of the Truth you have seen from your side of the Portal."
Edward started violently, and his guard raised further as he clenched his teeth at the knowledge of what the different attitude of this version of Dad might mean in regards to the research into the Philosopher's Stone and the Homunculi.
He pushed away different aches that he just now registered that he had everywhere inside him and outside him, and he turned to face this newest double.
This double was wearing white robes, plain brown sandals, and no glasses, and his face was calmly detached as he walked in their direction from a balcony at one end of the dark chamber with two staircases rising up on both sides of the center and a door leading to an unknown other room or hall at its center.
Now that he was paying attention to the features of this chamber, Ed could tell that it was very clearly an alchemy experimentation ward in a laboratory.
Too many gears to count had been placed inside the walls, chains extended at angles into pillars interspersed throughout it, a table with alchemic equipment sat on a raised circular pedestal in the center of the room with a chair that had clearly been transmuted nearby, roughly at the center of the dais, and tubes and pipes led across the floor to the chair and into it, and others extended down from the ceiling above it and the table.
"I'm interested in knowing your association with the Stone, and Dante, and these Homunculi," Edward replied, making no effort to hide his wariness.
Al, already standing as though extremely surprised to see this version of Dad here, jolted violently himself at that name.
"Who is Dante?" he questioned, sounding incredibly shocked, and incredibly surprised.
That answered that question.
But Ed felt slightly lighter to know that this Envy, at least, hadn't been abandoned by this version of Dad in the same ways.
Although the ways in which this version of Dad were abandoning him weren't any better.
"These Homunculi call Dad Father themselves, although I had no idea that he was actually mine, too," Al went on, his voice a coagulation of horrified shock and terrified surprise and new agony and despair.
Dad's eyebrows raised slightly.
"I beg your pardon?" he questioned.
"My sole children are my Homunc–"
Then his own eyes flew wide, and he smiled with wide and eagerly excited joy.
"Are you Van Hohenheim's children?"
Edward clenched his teeth extremely tightly at the knowledge of the sole thing that that could mean.
"Then you're not a double of my father," Edward responded.
"You're a Homunculus of his double."
The Homunculus' face became a mask right away, but that told Edward all that he needed to know.
Al's legs shuddered and trembled and shook as though they were about to give out at this newest reason for becoming flooded by all outside reality and inside existence engulfing and swallowing relief.
Envy jolted violently himself.
"Van Hohenheim is your father!" he cried in his bestial roar.
"You have got to be kidding me!"
The Xingese boy rose to his feet unsteadily and carefully, and, a mixture of terror and uncertainty and anger of his own on his face, he drew a wide scimitar that Ed hadn't seen before from behind his back and aimed it at the Homunculus of Dad.
"That explains why you have the same look in your eyes that the other Homunculi do," he spoke. "The other Homunculi mock us humans, and they call us 'fools.'"
Ed started violently once more.
Why would Homunculi call humans fools?
Did these Homunculi have no interest in becoming human?
And, if so, was that a good thing or a bad thing, or both?
"You have the same look in your eyes that they do when they look at us," the Xingese teenager went on.
"I can tell that you actually are human, in a sense, unlike the other ones, but that doesn't change that you have no justification to look down on any of us."
Did how the Homunculus of this world's double of Dad mean that he was like Wrath?
And that he could perform alchemy?
But the Homunculus of Dad didn't look offended by what the Xingese male had said.
"'Fools?'" he asked in return.
"I would never call you by the name 'fools.' Do you look at the insects that crawl on the ground and consider them fools?" Envy, now apparently able to move much better, and with less crimson cascading around him, lifted his neck off of the floor and lifted and tilted his chin in dismissive arrogance. "No matter how hard an insect struggles, they're so beneath you that you're incapable of caring about them one way or the other, am I wrong?
"That's exactly the way in which I feel about you humans."
The Xingese adolescent stiffened violently.
But whether these Homunculi thought more badly of humans than they should, or more highly of humans than they should, meant nothing to Ed.
After everything that Ed had learned about the Homunculi since he'd confronted the one based on Scar's brother's former love once more yesterday, it actually lightened Ed a little amount more with relief to hear a Homunculus, particularly one of Dad, even if it was another version of Dad, sound confident in his identity.
Even though he was far too confident in it.
And Ed owed her, and Wrath, and the Envy from his Amestris, and the other Homunculi who he'd known, incomprehensibly immeasurably too much for all that he'd done to them, and abandoned them to, to not try to break up the argument that was ensuing.
He lifted up his automail hand between the Xingese natural human and the artificial one of Dad.
"I believe that you're going too far in the opposite direction, but it's actually good to know that you, and hopefully the other Homunculi, are okay that you weren't born naturally."
Envy stiffened so violently that he emitted a cry of pain from how much that jostled him.
But the unknown Homunculus just blinked, and Ed couldn't even tell if he was surprised.
A small remaining traces of crimson cascaded over Gluttony, and then the opening in his trunk closed, and he brought his arms to his sides to push himself up; but he just appeared as partially uncertain what they were discussing as the Gluttony of Edward's Amestris often had.
"The Homunculi who I'm familiar with have no confidence at all in who and what they are," he continued.
Envy's jaw dropped slack, and now he struggled to force himself to his feet.
For the first time, the Homunculus of Dad frowned, but just in slight anger.
"They hate that they were created and what their lives as Homunculi put them through, and they see how much more malleable they are than naturally born humans; and their long lives and ability to recover from almost any injury, fatal or otherwise; and to fight off any disease; as nothing but chains bending their necks on an executioner's block that is further evidence of how aberrant they are to nature and natural humans.
"They didn't call humans fools or insects, they wanted to become natural humans by researching the Philosopher's Stone."
Envy jolted violently once more, and he needed to scrabble for purchase to rise the rest of the way up.
The Homunculus of Dad frowned a small amount deeper.
Gluttony blinked.
"And they were serving a human named Dante, who was treating them as slaves in every way but the name, because she kept lying to them that she'd transmute them into humans if they enabled her to transmute a Philosopher's Stone."
Envy clenched all eight of his claws so tightly that they tore up much of the floor beneath him.
Gluttony at last frowned in agony and sadness.
The Homunculus of Dad did show emotion, now, and an unexpected amount of undiluted hatred and fury passed over his face and through his eyes, before it resumed its previous mostly emotionless expression.
"Then that's all the more reason that you need to tell me what you know about the Truth on your side of the Portal," the Homunculus of Dad spoke, his tone now filled with suppressed and contained rage. "Any human who has successfully trapped Homunculi in a flask of enslavement isn't even an insect, or even a living being, and she is no more than a virus.
"I need to open the Portal to your Truth and teach her her place, and teach the other Homunculi there what it is to live outside of a flask of nothing but enforced service to others, and to the world."
"Even if that's possible, unless you can convince me that you're not close to the Stone yourself for different unscrupulous reasons, I'm unwilling to do that."
"The Van Hohenheim of this world was a slave himself, until I enabled him to free himself, and he thus freed me from my own slavery in a flask before a human by doing so," the Homunculus of Dad responded, his voice slightly angrier, although it was still contained.
Edward started.
Did he mean that literally?
Was this world's Hohenheim still alive?
"Unless you care nothing for humans yourself, you will enable me to rescue them from her clutches, and show her what it means for a Homunculus to have pride in living freely."
"My own brother and I just defeated Dante, partially to free them from her," Edward responded.
Envy scowled blackly.
Gluttony sagged in relief.
The visage of the Homunculus of Dad became a mask once more.
"No more than three of her Homunculi are still alive, two of whom are actually the Envy and Gluttony from my world. But the last time I saw them, that Envy was more or less okay, and while I can't be certain, I'm pretty sure that, though he might have died for good by doing it, that Gluttony had at least gotten tired of what Dante was putting them through and he turned on her at last, and he was the one who actually finished her off."
The Gluttony here started violently, and then, knowing how it had almost certainly happened if it had, he grinned contentedly and started rubbing his stomach.
Envy smirked in vicious and savage arrogantly smug triumph.
The Homunculus of Dad smiled briefly and sincerely in calmer, arrogant approval.
Ed's heart twisted in another hot ache as he wished that the Envy who he knew could have made it to this world himself, but he knew that it was extremely unlikely that he had.
"You'll probably take this the wrong way, but the third Homunculus actually allied himself with us, and a friend of mine should be seeing to lasting injuries he sustained during our final confrontations with Dante."
Gluttony started, and then he looked uncertain once more.
Envy sneered in derisive and condescending dismissal as the last tongues of crimson stopped dancing around his own body, and he rose to a steady position; even though the shifting protrusions on his body kept morphing, now appearing to writhe in what Ed was almost certain was genuine suffering.
The Homunculus of Dad frowned slightly.
The just recently barely suppressed self hatred and guilt for everything that the Homunculus of the late older half brother who he'd never known that he had surged further, and distorted Ed's chest and stomach and heart, even more.
But Ed had no certainty that the robed Homunculus was responsible for Envy's torment, or whether he was trying to end it.
"If you want to show me your gratitude, tell me precisely why you're researching the Philosopher's Stone, and if you can convince me that you're not killing or hurting anyone by doing it, I'll try to figure out if I can take you to them, or them to you."
"You can't trust them," Al put in.
"How much do you know about how the Philosopher's Stone is transmuted?"
"I know that complete Stones require human souls; and unfinished ones the souls of any living being, and the more human souls involved, the easier they are to transmute, and the more pure they are.
"Are these Homunculi willing to transmute human souls to create a true Stone?"
"That's correct," Alphonse responded.
The aches everywhere within and upon Edward returned to his perception, as did what fatigue he'd forgotten about.
"I don't know whether they're incomplete or fully fashioned, but, even though we haven't found out why, they've already transmuted a lot of Philosopher's Stones from thousands of prisoners sentenced to death over the years."
Another similarity in personality that this world could have done without.
And, because energy ran differently depending upon what side of the Gate a world was on, Edward knew that all of those Stones truly could be genuine, and that it could be easier to transmute true Stones from small numbers of humans.
He did not want to know how much torment and death Homunculi could cause with not just one, but hundreds, of true Stones.
Or why they wanted hundreds, and not just one.
Particularly if the Homunculi on this side of the Gate had as much influence in the Amestrian government as the Mustang on his side might have just shut out.
Faintness caused reality to swim with dizzying darkness, and he wished that he could sit down.
His broken ribs, and his broken left arm, ached with new pulsating torment now, but he couldn't trust the answer as to whether any Homunculi had any imperfect Stones that hadn't involved transmuting human souls to be forged, so he couldn't search for one to mend these injuries.
Even if all the red stones were true Stones, energy must ebb and flow differently enough in this third world that true Stones weren't able to break the Law of Equivalent Exchange as efficiently as they could in his world, or the alchemists transmuting them would have no need to rely on obtaining souls from prisoners sentenced to death.
They'd just use their full Stones to publically inscribe large scale transmutation circles in whatever large residential centers they wanted to and transmute further ones from them, and mow down anyone who tried to stop them from doing so; so they wouldn't need to go to the trouble of secretively transmuting them from prisoners sentenced to capital punishment over time, and, depending on the specifics of how the tides of energy shifted, remove the necessity to create them out of tens of souls rather than tens of thousands by supplementing them with souls from other organic beings.
"They also call alchemists who have seen the Portal of Truth and returned in partially decent shape 'human sacrifices.'"
Edward started violently.
That was a new form of Equivalent Exchange that didn't bode well.
"And, believe it or not, they've actually gained a lot of influence in the national government. We were investigating this when I was separated from big brother, and you were stuck inside him.
"The Führer-President King of this Amestris, Bradley, is himself a Homunculus."
"As, in addition to him, was his secretary in my world," Ed responded, feeling so drained now that he could have used some of Gluttony's appetite to inspire him to try to regain his energy.
Envy scowled with acute blackness as though incomprehensibly offended, and a mixture of too many emotions to identify tumbled inside Edward.
Envy must be affronted at how Homunculi who weren't proud of their identities had accomplished something that they hadn't; and that meant, if the Sloth of this Amestris was alive or dead, she apparently hadn't been given that position in this Amestris.
Edward didn't know if it was better if the Sloth of this Amestris was alive or dead, given that, if she was alive, she was very likely so overconfident in her own Homunculus nature that her fake memories didn't bother her, so she most likely wasn't suffering as much.
But the negative side to that might mean that she had accepted them enough that she'd come to see this Al and Edward as children as expendable as Dante had seen the Envy who was based on Ed's true half brother.
However this Sloth saw herself and her memories; Ed knew, however, that it risked Sloth doing to this Alphonse what she'd done to Edward in Lior if Al didn't already know, if Ed didn't tell him right away who she'd been transmuted from.
But, unless he saw water move into this room, or heard the footsteps of a Homunculus of a woman whose stride he knew by heart, after what had just happened to this Alphonse's big brother, he'd save that for later.
"We don't have research into human sacrifices in common, however.
"I don't have a clue what that involves."
"And they turned the souls of the whole populace of the Renaissance period civilization of Cselkcess into resources for the Stone," the Xingese adolescent reentered the conversation.
Al's trembling and shaking and shuddering had stopped by now, but it now resumed.
Unless the Homunculi could convince them otherwise, Ed would also wait for later to inform this Al that his own father might have been the one to transmute that Stone.
Edward clenched his teeth tightly.
But, as Ed recognized Cselkcess as an alternate possible Amestrian translation for what his Amestris had settled on as Xerxes; at least that meant that the city beneath Central might have survived; and that less wars had been started, during the attempts to transmute a Stone out of tens of thousands of human souls.
Was this why this world's Dante wasn't involved in the current research into the Stone?
Or was it due to the reason that this Amestris' Dad had a Homunculus, whether or not he'd lived through the events leading up to his transmutation?
"We don't know the details, or how many people will be involved as byproducts and components, but we're pretty sure that they want to create a second such Stone from the souls of at least a similar amount of people in Amestris."
Al's shaking and trembling and shuddering became as violent as it had before at its worst.
Ed watched the three Homunculi carefully as he said this.
"For what it's worth, unless a method has been developed in Xing, or another country, that hasn't developed on my world that involves transmuting a Stone from more than between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand human souls, it shouldn't," Ed reassured them.
Envy's visage, and the expression of the Homunculus of Dad, betrayed nothing.
Gluttony merely continued to look uncertain.
Edward sighed heavily.
The Xingese adolescent, however, pressed his lips together in sympathy and understanding, his face set in a way that told Edward that he did know of such a method.
So much aching agony seared and shrieked and screamed through everything that was Ed at what that implied that he doubled over partially, and he reflexively brought one hand up to his ribs to clutch them while struggling to remain on his feet.
Something sick and frozen and absolute zero frigid contorted and warped through everything that he wasn't and that was outside him, and that wasn't reality and that was his self.
He'd ended all of the Amestrian research into the Stone, while the Xingese actually knew of an even more horrifically costly way to transmute one?
Edward couldn't take the chance of believing that the Xingese had just discovered it on this side of the Gate.
The Homunculus of Dad blinked.
"As I assumed, your ribs and left arm are broken.
"Allow me."
Ed knew many of the possibilities of what that meant, and he attempted to walk backwards, but his right leg buckled.
Then the Homunculus of this world's Dad walked up to him and caught Ed's left arm in one hand and placed the other on his chest.
So he could perform alchemy, whether he was the same as Wrath or not.
As this was the other side of the Gate, could any Homunculus on this planet do so?
Edward couldn't feel a single red stone, or red water, touching his left arm and ribs through the new shrieking torture ripping silvery curled claws through his body, and he hadn't seen any in the Homunculus' hand.
But crimson nevertheless coruscated over his chest, and the pain vanished and Edward could breathe regularly once more, and then it cascaded over his left arm, and the pain there disappeared, too.
Not just that, he felt even more energized than he could recall being after the best meals that he could remember having eaten in his life.
Al jolted violently in shock, and the robed Homunculus walked up to him and curled his left hand around his empty stump, and more crimson crackled and a new arm and gloved hand extended out to replace the lost one.
The robed Homunculus then took a number of steps back.
"I don't know if you've run into anyone named Scar, but this guy has an imperfect or full Stone inside his own body," Edward informed them.
"We know a Scar, but all Homunculi are one with Stones on this planet," the Xingese male commented.
Edward suppressed the urge to sigh, as small ripples of pain were still cutting through him.
"The Stones function as their hearts, and enable their bodies to stay together."
"With one exception, a Homunculus who doesn't need even one, Homunculi need a large number of red stones inside their bodies to keep them functioning in the State that I live in."
And that he needed to return to, as soon as possible.
The Xingese teenager's face showed surprising eagerness, and Edward wondered if the Xingese young male was a true friend to this Amestris' Al and Edward, or a friend to them at all, after all.
"Now I'm interested in seeing your side of the Portal myself," he said.
Edward's guard rose even more.
When the Xingese adolescent spoke once more, however, there was a heavy, tired sympathy and understanding in it now.
"But before I get to why, you should know that my name is Lin Yao, the Prince of the Yao Clan of Xing, a clan with a populace of about five hundred thousand.
"We don't have any knowledge of how to transmute even an imperfect Stone in Xing, but our archives store centuries of censuses from Cselkcess throughout much of the time it prospered, and its population when the costly Stone you're discussing was transmuted was between one million one hundred thousand, and one million two hundred thousand."
Al crashed to his legs and knees, and he shook and trembled and shuddered so hard now it appeared as though his armor would literally fall into shards.
"Why didn't you bring me back to life?"
"What's wrong? I thought you wanted to see him."
But if Ed hadn't already been so bone weary, so deep he couldn't tell how profoundly it plummeted, or if it even had a foundation, or a lack thereof; he wasn't sure that even his memories of what Sloth and Wrath had almost done to him, and how Rose had almost died as a result; and what Envy had done to him, and what it had done to Al, would have prevented him from losing all sense of his existence and the rest of reality being there or not there, or even the memory of the certainty of whether or not any if it was present, had been present, would continue to be present, or might be present, or what it being there and not there even were and weren't and could be and had been and might not be and hadn't been and hadn't been and had been and wouldn't be and might not be and were and weren't not comprised of and composed of.
As it was, his insides distorted and warped and twisted and contorted so sickeningly that Edward could barely believe that what he'd learned in Lior was enough to keep him from throwing up violently until he dry retched violently enough that he fell into a coma.
Edward sighed with tired heaviness now incomprehensibly and potentially indescribably and possibly comprehensibly and not possibly communicably more profound than self deep or existence deep or reality deep or being deep or awareness deep or registering deep or perception deep or soul deep or heart deep or brain deep or mind deep or blood deep or bone deep weary exhausted of even fatigue.
It appeared as though he still had at least three more Homunculi to defeat today.
And perhaps another Dante, if she was connected to these Homunculi.
This also meant that when his dad on this side of the Gate, or his Homunculus, had transmuted the souls of Cselkcess, Cselkcess hadn't been a city-state, but an actual small nation.
How in the world had this Dad, or this robed Homunculus, set up a Philosopher's Stone transmutation circle the size of a small state?
And, if these Homunculi sought to create a second one with this method, had the Ishbal of this side of the Gate; or Ishval, if this Amestris referred to them with the other most common translation of their cultural and religious identity; developed into an ethnic minority larger than a city-state as well, and had the Homunculi tried to fashion the second one there?
Or were they trying to do it in this Amestris' Lior; or Reole, or Liore; whichever name this Amestris had given the ethnic minority there?
What had these Homunculi done to the Rose, and the people of Lior, of this Amestris?
And to Winry's parents?
"In that case," he informed the Homunculus of this version of Dad, "You might actually be happy with your identities and lives as Homunculi, but as far as I'm concerned, that gives you even less reason to pursue the Stone, much less the way that you did the Cselkcess one, and you might be doing a similar one in Amestris.
"None of you are laying a finger on the Gate, whether it's with my assistance or not.
"You're staying out of my Amestris, and I'm about to eject you from this Amestris' government, as well."
Edward clapped his hands, unsure if he could transmute, as he knew nothing about what powered alchemy in this world.
But, to his surprised shock, a somewhat wider and larger automail blade than he should have transmuted emerged from his automail arm, and one that didn't feel any less heavy than an ordinary automail blade should.
Al staggered to his feet and shifted into a ready position.
With unexpected quickness, Lin shifted his scimitar into a neutral combat position himself, although unsteadily enough that Ed could tell that the blood on his own body had partially come from him.
But he also realized that his jaw was hanging as complete, absolute, full, total shock ripped and shrieked through his perception and being.
As well as new self hatred and guilt at the knowledge that he'd just partially, or fully, drained the souls of one or more people from another true Philosopher's Stone.
But that couldn't be right.
A true Philosopher's Stone, even one transmuted from over one million one hundred souls, shouldn't be able to enhance a transmutation meant to call energy from death unless it was specifically in a location where it could interface with the ebb and flow of All Is One, One Is All.
But it clearly had, and that shouldn't have happened unless–
"The Cselkcess Stone hasn't been fully used up yet, and it's actually being harnessed as the power source for Amestrian transmutations, while stymying the power source that you should be using!" Edward cried.
Al jolted violently.
Lin's eyes flew wide.
Envy swung his tail into a nearby pillar hard enough to rip a large chunk of rock out of it.
Gluttony started violently himself this time.
The robed Homunculus' eyes widened slightly, but then he raised one sandaled foot and lowered it onto the floor, and shifted it slightly in both directions.
An unknown force displaced the air outwards in all directions into them, and Edward knew why that had happened.
Al staggered back as though struck at the realization of what the robed Homunculus had just done.
Lin clenched his teeth together tightly.
But at least this time he'd been able to form an automail blade before battling with transmutations ceased to be an option.
Edward whirled to face the Homunculus of Dad.
"Dante had a continual transmutation circle active, while she was holding the Al who I know hostage on it, so I couldn't transmute during my last battle with her.
"But that didn't make a difference then, so it won't now."
That was empty bravado, as it almost certainly wouldn't have made a difference even if he had transmuted when dueling Envy, as he'd almost certainly have reacted the same way whether or not he had a sword attached to his arm.
And now that Ed knew that the Homunculus of Dad did have at least one complete Philosopher's Stone at his disposal, unless he could perform alchemy in the same ways that Wrath had been able to and Ed could identify which parts of his body were fully human, whether that complete Stone was relatively more limited by Equivalent Exchange than one on his world, his words now were far more empty bravado.
Wrath had been talented enough with his ability to transmute without moving, as long as one of his human body parts was touching the substance that he wanted to transmute.
A Homunculus with a true Stone was almost certainly incomparably more talented, even more so if he had enough of this Dad's memories to possess his alchemic genius.
If the Homunculi and the State had transmuted imperfect Stones in what was almost certainly another Laboratory Five, or true Stones on this side of the Gate weren't more limited, and they hadn't transmuted them in public for another reason than the ones Ed believed, his chances of defeating these Homunculi were all but nonexistent.
If Ed could touch whatever part of Dad's Homunculus' body concealed the Cselkcess Stone, he'd be able to transmute with it himself, but even if it was part of his entire body, it would be as challenging to get close enough to do so as it would be to defeat the robed Homunculus through any other means.
"So this is what's wrong with how alchemy works in this country," Lin snarled through clenched teeth. "You must have been the Philosopher from the East who taught the early Amestrians the first most practical alchemy, then, and Van Hohenheim the Philosopher from the West who revolutionized Xingese alkahestry."
Al corrected his stance before his legs gave out once more.
Lin's mouth dropped open, and a triumphant smirk appeared on his face.
"A true Philosopher's Stone can be used to transfer a soul from one body to another, with the Equivalent Exchange of leaving part of that soul behind each time," Edward informed them both.
"It can give the alchemists who transmute with it limited eternal life."
Lin opened his mouth, but Envy snarled with hateful fury first.
"Then the Hohenheim of your world, and the late Dante, if she was the same, are and were fourth-rate frauds! I can assure you that Father is gifted enough that the immortality that he gave to himself, and to the Hohenheim of this world, is anything but limited!"
Edward extremely highly doubted that, but a small rope of unease washed through him anyway.
If the Homunculus of this Dad had been able to turn what was left of his Stone into the power source for alchemists over an entire moderately sized nation, had he discovered a way, at least with the alternate energy currents on this planet, to give a human or Homunculus a form of immortality that was much closer to literal eternal life?
But he'd worry about whether or not this Homunculus had pulled that off, and how, later.
"I can't believe that," Al responded, his voice breathy denying disbelief and shock and astonished surprise.
"I can barely believe that even limited immortality can be accomplished."
Envy strode forward quickly towards Al.
"We need you alive, and this other little boy as well, but that doesn't mean that I won't shred every last piece of your armor into bits save for your blood seal if you don't stop insulting Father's genius.
"Doesn't what Father just did to your power source tell you anything!?
"You squirming loons have never been in control of the world.
"You've just gotten a tiny taste of power, so that led you to believe in your typical stuck up ways that you can utilize it for your own ends, and inspired your usual audacity that, even though you have no idea what forces you're toying around with, a small amount of power enables you to control the world.
"Whatever Dante obtained, Homunculi possess the knowledge and wisdom to harness the flow of All Is One, One Is All through means incomparably transcending anything that you pitiful lower life forms can achieve.
"Nor do I see the Dante from this side of the Portal in possession of even a limited immortality anywhere around here, or we would have heard about it long ago. So she herself must be groveling as whatever outline of a shell of a ghost that you humans drift within in whatever delirious fever dream that you call an afterlife, or her own soul is now wallowing in misery inside the Cselkcess Stone.
"As always, the foolishness of humanity never ceases to amaze."
Edward didn't like the concept of wishing that anyone was dead, no matter how horrible the person was, but he couldn't think of that many reasons to justify not actually partially wishing that the former fate had befallen the Dante of this world.
"Then tell us what ends you're using the Cselkcess Stone for," Lin retorted.
"You said that you'd do as much if Ed got us out of the fake Portal."
Edward started violently.
He wanted to believe that this fake Portal was just the result of a failed attempt to open the Gate with Gluttony, but his own younger brother and he had figured out after their failed human transmutation from what they knew about it that components of the Gate that they had seen could be reflected in the material realm indefinitely with specific human transmutation circles; so if this Homunculus of Dad, or this Dad himself, had been able to establish a statewide transmutation circle, Edward might have seen that eye inside Gluttony because he might have actually created a similar, although flawed, reflection of the Gate within him.
Was this what this Homunculus of Dad wanted human sacrifices for?
To reconstruct the Gate as part of his own body?
Or was it something similar, but even worse?
"I made that promise to the little Fullmetal boy, and he's not currently the one pestering us with his follies," Envy sneered with smug and condescending derisiveness at Lin.
Edward extremely highly doubted that it would have made a difference if he'd made it to Lin.
"Then I'll just need to find out the hard way," Lin remarked.
"I'm taking the Cselkcess Stone, and giving it to the Emperor to win the succession struggles."
Ed suppressed the urge to clench his left hand into a tight fist.
How could he defeat both the Homunculi and Lin?
But things had worked out with Dante, even though that had just been because Al had been the Stone, so he had a chance of finding a way to win this.
Without wasting any time, Lin sprinted towards Gluttony and moved to stop on top of a pool of blood still flowing from below the now fully restored Envy, and place Gluttony between himself and the Homunculus with the Cselkcess Stone.
He obviously knew, from how he'd transmuted with his Stone just by touching Al and Edward, that it might be an exercise in futility to attack his supposed Father head on.
Edward ran aound Gluttony, suppressing the rush of gratitude that no further pain arced out from his recent injuries, and he turned to face both Lin and the Homunculi.
"You can trust Lin to keep the Emperor from misusing the Stone," Al put in.
"He's helped us out repeatedly since we met him."
Ed's wariness of Lin lessened slightly, but, although he'd mostly focus on defeating the Homunculi in that case, he'd make his own judgment about that.
Gluttony opened his mouth in excitement, and he looked at the robed Homunculus.
"I have no use for him, and I don't know him," Dad's Homunculus remarked.
"You can eat him whenever you want to."
Gluttony spun around eagerly and charged at Lin, but Lin just smirked.
Then he rushed at Gluttony and rammed his sword directly between his teeth.
Gluttony started in surprise, caught off guard that Lin would actually give him his weapon, and Lin exploited this opening to slice off Gluttony's teeth in two quick cuts and then wedge his sword horizontally into his mouth.
New crimson danced around the sword from the bottom and top of Gluttony's mouth, perhaps the result of the robed Homunculus transmuting through the gas of the air as Dante had been able to, perhaps the result of his Stone trying to repair him automatically, but with the sword in the way, no new teeth could grow.
"Now who's the fool?" Lin asked.
"As I demonstrated when we took Gluttony captive, your regenerative capabilities work around anything in their way, and jam it up."
Gluttony's torso opened, revealing the ribs and the eye once more, and Edward could now see it clearly enough to tell that it was composed of multiple concentric circles of shades of varying red and wideness.
But Envy snapped, "He wants to try to throw Father into the Portal and force him to use up enough of his Stone getting out that he won't be able to transmute with it, and he can take one of ours."
Al began trembling and shuddering and shaking once more at the revelation of how his own brother had escaped the falsified Gate.
Edward's vision swam as tired darkness passed through his perception.
How many souls had been sacrificed to save his life this time?
"So close, but so distant," Lin remarked.
Then he brought a foot back above the pool of blood, and he kicked it up in a wave directly at the crimson eye and hurled himself to the side with blinding speed before it could connect with the eye.
For the first time, although it was still distant, true sickness and horror and terror and despair seared and shrieked throughout all of what was and wasn't within and outside Edward, and reality wavered inside and about him.
If Lin was attempting to gain the advantage that Ed believed; choosing the price that Gluttony's Gate sought so he could open Gluttony's Gate long enough that it would seize all of the blood connected to that fountain whether Gluttony wanted it to or not; thus enabling him to threaten to throw the Homunculus of Dad into it, that meant it was no mere mirror of the Gate inside Gluttony.
Gluttony was partially composed of a genuine artificial Gate.
Was that what the Homunculi of this Amestris were close to the Stone for?
Rather than complete their souls by obtaining humanity, did they seek to attain souls by somehow obtaining an artificial Gate itself?
Or, even though under almost any other circumstance Ed couldn't have believed that any alchemist, no matter how arrogant, would be conceited enough to try to do this, or that it was even the most remotely amount possible, if entities who came from within the Gate didn't obviously need one or more Stones to break the Law of Equivalent Exchange in some way, and they apparently saw no current need to extend their own brand of eternal life
Unfathomably immeasurably worse, were these Homunculi actually seeking to complete themselves by obtaining the very Truth itself?
Furthermore, whether they were or weren't, one or more souls were about to be badly hurt, or die, as a result of what Lin had just set in motion.
Perhaps a very large number.
Red cascaded over the robes of the Homunculus who called himself Gluttony's father as he realized what Lin's tactic was at the same time, and he began a transmutation.
But he must have known that it was too late as much as Ed did.
As soon as the substance of the blood passed into the flawed Gate from Lin's own initiative, it reacted in the same way that the regular Gate did when anything was offered to it.
A horizontal column of clear, shimmering air erupted outwards from it, engulfing the descending fountain of blood that had struck it and the wall beyond it and whatever was past that, and taking all of it into its flawed Gate, and all of the blood outside of it began to shift in its direction as the Gate sought to claim it as well.
And the column continued to flow, for Edward knew that, as Lin had offered the blood to it willingly, it would continue to assimilate it regardless of what Gluttony wanted until it had taken in every last drop of blood connected to the geyser that Lin had fed it.
Gluttony jolted violently.
The Homunculus of Dad stopped his transmutation before it reconstructed, or just decomposed, anything, and before doing so caused a rebound.
"I advise you to surrender," Lin spoke with satisfied and smug triumph to the Homunculus of this double of Ed's Dad.
"Enough blood was spread over enough distance throughout this laboratory at the time that I kicked the fountain into it, and thus caked into its floor, and perhaps walls, that it will take hours for the Portal to draw it all in; and no matter how effectively or quickly you transmute its surroundings, too much is now caked into it that the Portal still won't shut down.
"Nor, as this involves the Portal and I doubt that you'd have given Gluttony a Stone originating from puny prisoners, can you end this process by recombining Gluttony's Stone with what I assume was the Cselkcess motherlode from which it broke off.
"Unless your skills in combat consist of more than just transmutations, and you're dexterous or agile enough to keep evading Gluttony's Portal beam for that long, it doesn't matter whether you can transmute anything that you're touching without a circle or not. Your sole means of defending yourself against it will be to continually feed group of souls after group of souls to the Portal from your own Stone and transmute yourself back out of it, and as soon as you return to the material dimension you'll be within range of the Portal to just be brought back inside it and need to do it all over again.
"By the time Gluttony has swallowed all of the blood whole, you'll have used up far more souls than I'm sure that you'll have cared to, and perhaps, depending on how many you've already used up before now, even too many of them for you to be able to continue repairing any injuries that you take.
"So I can keep turning Gluttony in your direction until it catches you and forces you to repeatedly transmute yourself back out of the Portal until he's eaten all of the blood.
"Or you can turn your Stone over to me, and tell me what the goal of your research is, and I'll leave Gluttony where he is until he's imbibed all of the blood."
"I have sufficient alternate means that you're unaware of to defend myself against Gluttony's Portal," the first Homunculus responded, all emotion once gone from his voice, and his face calm enough, that Edward couldn't tell whether or not he was just bluffing, or if he had valid reasons to believe that he did.
"But your own athleticism has impressed me enough that I believe that you might be useful after all, so I'll make you a counteroffer.
"As a Stone can transmute Homunculi into natural humans, it can also transmute natural humans into Homunculi."
New exhaustion caused Edward's limbs to become heavy, both at the confirmation of that hypothesis of his, and what he knew that the Homunculus of Dad was about to offer.
"Leave Gluttony where he is, and I'll place a new Stone with the currently defunct Greed inside it within you."
Even though Edward was almost certain what the price that would exact from Lin was, the knowledge that the Greed on this side of the Gate was still alive, albeit currently a prisoner of another Homunculus, caused Ed to feel a smaller bit lighter.
Lin's eyes flew wide.
"Your body will become Greed's new one, but, if you can discover a way to recapture control of your body from Greed, you'll be able to provide the Emperor with the Stone that you seek.
"Are you willing to shoulder that challenge?
"Your other option is an Equivalent Exchange of hostages for Gluttony.
"One that, should you not agree to either term, Envy will shortly order the military forces stationed hours away from Rush Valley to take in the form of Winry Rockbell."
Al gasped in complete, total, full, utter, absolute, whole, entire horror and terror and despair and staggered backwards violently as though recoiling from molten lava to crash to his posterior, shaking and trembling so hard now that Ed almost genuinely was terrified that he'd chip his armor, perhaps even at the location of his blood seal.
The sense of living in a dream mostly faded, and so much fatigue of even exhaustion now dragged and clawed at Ed and contorted his heart and all of his insides and asphyxiated and strangled and choked and squeezed and suffocated them in an immovable aching vise that comprised all that wasn't and was before space and time didn't begin and after it never ended, Ed was barely able to keep his own horror and terror distant and reality and existence themselves from not fleeing as they had with Sloth and Envy.
If this Amestris' Al and Edward lost this Amestris' Winry, even if just as a prisoner of these Homunculi and not to death, they'd be erased of all or most of the hope that they'd held onto after losing their fully human bodies.
And, dream or not, a Winry on any side of the Gate was one of the very last people who Ed wanted to lose himself, in any fashion.
But could he truly think of the other two worlds as no more than dreams, after everything that he'd already done to the Al and Edward here, and what might be about to happen to this Amestris' Winry?
Even after everything that had happened on his side of the Gate today, was he making the same mistakes that he had before he'd returned to Lior?
"Fine," Ed snarled.
"I doubt that you can actually do anything with this information if you know, as true Stones are a lot more cost effective to transmute on my side of the Gate than on yours, so you have no valid reason to try to reach my Amestris.
"So you can suit yourselves.
"I'll tell you how the Truth works on my side."
Envy smirked in smug satisfaction.
Ed started as an unexpected sincere eager excitement appeared in Dad's Homunculus' face, and he actually grinned widely.
Fury surged through Ed, but he ignored it.
"It links us to a third parallel world, where the ebb and flow of the cycle of decomposition and reconstruction move in a form that didn't able alchemy to develop, but from which it can draw the energy generated by the deaths of everyone who have died through all of its space time, even all of the potential space times that haven't happened yet," Edward refused to believe that there was such a thing as a fixed future on any side of the Gate, "And use it to power our transmutations."
The Homunculus of Dad pressed his lips together, considering.
After a number of seconds, he spoke, and genuine eager elation was in his voice.
"So this is why you were able to harness energy from my Stone even more effectively than any alchemist from this Amestris.
"As this Amestris draws power for transmutations from our planet itself; I postulate that our world functions as an anti-particle to the two parallel worlds that you're referring to, and there's a fourth parallel world on a direct opposite side of our world.
"However, the flow and ebb of One And All, All Is One in our two anti-particle worlds must act in the opposite way that they do in yours, and rather than one world feeding another, both of our anti-particle worlds ought to be repelling the energy created by death; thus forcing those currents to rush in a way that doesn't oppose the tides that enable alchemy in this world, but allowed it to develop in almost precisely the same ways that they have in this world."
Then there was very likely at least a third Al, and Winry, and Granny, and Rose, and very likely Nina and Hughes, as well, who were victims of the Stone's forbidden power, and human transmutation, and the other horrors of the misuse of alchemy.
What had been the point in ending all of the research into the Stone in his own Amestris, if it had been happening for around as long, and cost as many victims in similar ways, in at least two other parallel Amestrises and the cultures and races nearby?
"We can only focus on what's right in front of us."
Dreams or not, how were the Als, Winrys, Grannies, Roses, and perhaps Ninas and Hugheses, of two other worlds, not right in front of him?
"However, as the Portal sent you here, this is most likely the parallel world with the least dissimilarities to your own, and that means that energy from the fourth world must at least try to reach this one and ebb and flow slightly more tumultuously. Transmuting Stones should thus be slightly less cost effective in the fourth world, enough that this world might provide me with a somewhat faster means of completing my own research into the Stone.
"Even when you close your eyes, there's a whole world out there, outside of ourselves and our dreams."
Dizzy all erasing of even the erasure of ivory obsidian and everything eradicating horror of even anything that was onyx ivory almost dragged Edward down into the night, and he was certain that, if he passed out, he'd retch violently as he did so and asphyxiate in his own throw up.
Whether the Al and Winry and Granny and Rose of the fourth world were suffering as the ones of the other two worlds where alchemy could function were, and the Ninas of those worlds had or still were, Ed had just condemned a third full Amestris to become victims of the pursuit of the Stone and human transmutation anyway, or in additional ways.
These other three worlds weren't just dreams.
The sole reason that Edward was still keeping the horror and terror and self hatred and despair at what he'd just done away was because, if he didn't; he stood no chance of preventing these Homunculi from imperiling the Al and Winry and Granny and Rose, and perhaps Nina and Hughes, and the Mustang and Hawkeye and Teacher and Sig and Mason and Havoc and Armstrong, and his other loved ones and friends, and the innumerable people of the world outside of them, by trying to travel through the Gate to that world.
"There is a city-state named Milos, that this planet's Creta was once interested in seizing in order to expand soon after Amestris was established, but it passed the city-state over because it was in the vicinity of a volcano, so the potential that it might erupt made acquiring that territory more trouble than it might be worth," Dad's Homunculus was going on.
"I ordered Bradley to avoid seizing it for similar reasons."
At least that was two less wars and years of oppression, at least on this side of the Gate.
"However, the Milosians research alchemy powered by the photosynthesis within plants, and it specializes in transmuting magma and lava, and lava is comprised of the building blocks from which the first life on this planet originated.
"Bradley's spies have repeatedly discovered evidence that this led them to make a number of unsuccessful inroads into researching highly refined transmutation circles that, had they proven their theories, would have gathered the souls for transmuting true Philosopher's Stones over a period of time through means that I can't identify outside of the general sense at this time."
Ed wished that he could be relieved to hear that.
But, whether it was very unlikely that the Milos of this planet could transmute the Stone in the near future, that it had researched it at all meant that Ed needed to destroy all of the research into the Stone there, as well, as soon as he destroyed all the research into it in this Amestris.
"But, based on what I do know about these means, if, due to how transmuting a Stone is slightly less cost effective on this fourth world, these inroads might have been more successful there.
"If I can reach this world; and the humans of that Creta and Amestris have lived as they tend to, the Homunculi of that planet have developed similar to how we have due to how transmuting the Stone is even less cost effective than on this world, and events have thus proceeded in a Milos capable of transmuting a Stone by now as I assume that they must have; I should be able to prove my theory much sooner."
"If the goal of it is to become a complete living being, not by becoming human, but by becoming the Gate or the Truth,"
Al gasped in a mixture of horror and terror and awe, and what shuddering and trembling and shaking that had lessened returned
"you still don't have enough confidence in yourself as artificial people.
"You're just seeing the Gate and the Truth as crutches as much as the Homunculi of my world saw natural born humans.
"If you want to gain genuine confidence in who and what you are, you need to stand up and use your own strong legs as Homunculi, not natural humans or the Gate or the Truth."
A number of unidentifiable faintly uncertain emotions passed very briefly over the face of Dad's Homunculus before his face became calm and removed once more, but Edward had seen enough to know that all of his new fears, with the exception of whether the Homunculi here just wanted to become Gates, or the actual Truth, had been confirmed.
But Dad's Homunculus, although he was obviously in denial as much as Dante's Homunculi had been, at least knew that, whatever he had convinced himself his reaction had meant, that Al and Lin and Edward had saw it meant that there was no longer any means of hiding the goals of his research, with the exception of whether he sought to become a Gate or the Truth itself.
"Knowledge is the means of standing on the most powerful shoulders above any restrictions," he responded, his tone once again similarly disinterested and detached. "By finishing my research and proving my theories, I won't begin leaning on a crutch.
"I'll have obtained the means of surmounting all hardship, and walking on my own strong legs free of all confines.
"As I said, I began life in a flask.
"A literal flask, and I was unable to survive outside it until I acquired the Cselkcess Stone. Even now, this body of mine is a flask in its own way.
"Solely knowledge can fully enable me to climb higher than any living being, insect or other life form, and fully free myself from a flask, and from the flask of reality itself.
"It's as simple, and final, and complex, as that."
Lin scowled with black fury.
"Then you're not just a cripple, you're a hypocrite," he said with contained anger.
"I overheard the Ed and Al here discuss what happened to the Greed here.
"He doesn't believe what you do. He just wants immortality, and because he went his own way, you dragged him back here against his will and stuck him back inside the selfsame flask that you're so determined to escape that you'll sacrifice countless souls to do it.
"Whether we perform a hostage exchange or not, I accept your offer to become Greed's new body.
"In order for me to find a way to give him a third one that isn't even bound to the flask of a Stone, and, though I'll keep his Stone myself, Greed can get up and use his legs as he so chooses, whether you approve of him doing it or not."
Al jolted violently.
Ed felt more blood drain away at what this would put Lin through.
"I extremely highly doubt that that's safe," Al spoke, a new form of terror and despair and self hatred and agony in his voice. "The Philosopher's Stone, imperfect or whole, is still a high energy substance, and energy that isn't at rest generates harmful heat and light.
"Furthermore, even if you want Greed inside you, this Homunculus will need to mix it with your blood in order for your soul to be reconstructed alongside Greed's."
Homunculi did have souls on this side of the Gate, however flawed they were?
Edward didn't know if that made their torment any better, or still incomprehensibly indescribably worse.
At least having no soul meant that your soul wasn't tattered shreds.
"And with as much harmful heat and light as is involved in that transmutation, your soul itself might be hurt so much that regaining control of your body will become impractical."
Envy gave Al and Lin another condescendingly sneering smirk.
Maybe it was just because it was Envy, but while Edward didn't care if anyone looked down on him, his attitude itself was starting to cause a slight amount of familiar irritation to rise.
"Assuming that you even survive.
"Don't do it."
But Ed's stomach plummeted sickly as Lin just walked over to Gluttony, took his sword out of Gluttony's mouth, still coursing with red crackles, grabbed his nearest arm, and rammed his scimitar down through that arm to pin Gluttony in place.
"Lan Fan gave her arm to enable me to provide for the approximately five hundred thousand Yao clanspeople depending on my becoming the Imperial successor," Lin spoke.
Sickness surged up to contort Edward's insides and stomach and heart for innumerable different reasons now.
"And I have no tolerance for leaders who sacrifice their own people, and this Homunculus and President Bradley are both willing to do this, to Greed and to who knows how many Amestrians."
He started walking towards the older Homunculus.
He touched the center of his forehead with one hand, and, without any crimson washing, the skin of it separated a small amount to the left and right, revealing a vertical crimson eye similar to Envy's inside it, but with a round iris rather than a slit one.
Once more without any red coursing, a familiar small semiliquid of pale red built up around the bottom of the eye, and then it dropped forwards towards Dad's Homunculus' open palm, coalescing as it did from what might have been red water or a complete Stone in a different form due to how the pathways of energy operated differently on this side of the Gate, and solidifying.
But before it could reach it, five kunai arced from behind them to fall into the floor around the hand in the shape of the five points of a Xingese alkahestry transmutation circle, and to Edward's shock, light blue cascaded out from them and a stone fist arced up to smash into the back of the imperfect or complete Philosopher's Stone and send it curving through the air in the direction from which the kunai had been thrown.
Edward turned his head to see a girl who couldn't have been more than about ten wearing the different shades of the Xingese upper class for clothing, and with her black hair in a number of long, braided strands; kneeling in front of a five pointed transmutation circle with a design that he'd rarely seen before and with five other kunai plunged into the floor at its points.
None other than Scar stood at her side, the corpse of what was clearly a part canine Chimera lying before his feet and beside them with blood flowing from a head wound that had undoubtedly been the result of a decomposition that confirmed Ed's fears about the Ishbal or Ishval of this world.
But just mild surprise and horror and despair and self hatred rushed through Ed at this sight; for as the semiliquid imperfect or true Philosopher's Stone continued its arc; the girl, who couldn't have been that much older than the Nina who he'd known had been when she'd died, held up her right hand with its palm open and a deep, bleeding gash extending down it partially diagonally and a triumphant smirking grin on her face; and Greed's Stone landed in the cut, bulged into different semiliquid sizes and brought veins rising out of the girl's palm around it, and then it pushed and surged into the wound while forcing the rising veins to expand and spider web further upwards and outwards, and vanished into the gash to incite crimson to begin dancing and cascading about the girl's whole body.
.
"We're real, Edward. We're not just part of your dreams like you thought. I care, and I make mistakes. I may not live much longer, but I'll still be here. Just don't forget me."-Alphonse Heiderich
FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: THE CONQUEROR OF SHAMBALLA
