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CHAPTER 5:
THE ILLUSIONS OF THE PRESENT
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Alphonse was looking up at a rock ceiling too far above to measure, his entire body aching and sore as though it had been held in one position for a very long time.
But that didn't matter now; and it didn't matter that, based on how the last thing that he remembered about what had happened to him was looking up and forwards at the double doors of a stone edifice resting on light gold.
The same thin arms with hands of feelers more pitch dark than the silent vacuum of space had seized Brother as well.
"Brother, are you all right!?" he yelled with so much terror and horror and anguish and worry that he couldn't remember how profoundly it plummeted, if it had a bottom, as he moved his hands to his sides and pushed himself up, ignoring the soreness and aching, and the unfamiliar light brown cloth shirt and pants that he was clad in.
"Al?" an unfamiliar young woman's voice questioned, her voice sounding strained and hoarse from lack of use.
"How are you?"
Al turned his head to look in the girl's direction.
But then something keened through his head with searing, blinding agony, and it all came back.
The sole reason that Al was aware of anything; and that he was able to see through the hot desperate tears of despair and self hatred and guilt and agony that wasn't and was blinding his vision and all reality and existence that was and wasn't and wouldn't be and would be and had been and hadn't been and couldn't be and could be him, within him, the surface of a husk that was no longer hollow, anyone outside of him, and anything outside of him; or register or perceive anything through any of it, was because he was back in his body at long last, and Al knew that if he didn't try to feel thankful for it, at least a little; Brother would feel even worse, whenever Al was able to tell him how he felt in the first seconds after he'd become aware that he'd regained his body, and mind.
If he couldn't tell already himself, wherever he was.
A location that Al was almost certain that he knew.
Rose was kneeling at his left side, her baby in her arms, inside a cathedral that was now in ruins and open to a gargantuan cavern with innumerable buildings spread throughout it rising up concave slopes that could solely be here for but one reason, but even this meant little to Al now.
Rose had just started and looked past him, tears in her eyes and on her face, but her mouth pressed firmly and determinedly together, and her face set in the same way, even though there was as much acute and drawn entire despair and total anguish and full guilt and whole self hatred and complete horror and full terror in it as Alphonse felt within himself.
She placed her baby carefully on the former floor of the cathedral, now stone tiles rather than gold marble, and then stood up and sprinted in front of Alphonse to face whoever it was.
Al cringed violently at how Rose was forcing herself to stand this close to him, after what had happened to her.
Further ignoring his aching and soreness, he pushed himself to his feet and moved back to stand directly in front of her child.
He'd have preferred to shield Rose with his body himself; but as much as he hated himself further for not protecting Rose with his own body, he knew that her baby was at least as important to her as Brother was to him; and she might be safer if she was slightly less worried about her baby, so she'd be a lot more able to dodge any assault, or defend herself against any strike, on her own.
Past Rose, a girl who Al truly had never met before was pushing herself into a sitting position, with green eyes and long orange hair, and tears of her own in those eyes, and on her face; clad in Brother's favored crimson cloak with its Flamel symbol, and what appeared to be the lower garb of a Milosian Black Bat military uniform.
"Who are you?" Rose asked, her words a protective and guarding defiant challenge.
"Are you Envy, or an ordinary human?
"If you're here for Al, you'll need to go through me to lay a single finger, or toe, on him."
Mercifully, blessedly, Alphonse was no longer the Philosopher's Stone, so he didn't know if he'd be able to protect Rose in a body that wasn't as suited to battle a Homunculus as his armor body, and Philosopher's Stone body, had been.
But he was not going to just give up and lie back down on the floor, and let Rose die as Brother just had.
The girl's eyes went wide, both at Rose's words, and as she saw him standing behind her, and she sagged with boneless and leg vanishing and knee disappearing and exhausting and draining and heavy and fatiguing relief.
She smiled a wan, weak, but nevertheless relieved, and accomplished, smile.
"You can trust me," the girl responded.
"One of the very last things that I want to do is hurt Alphonse Elric."
"And what, specifically, is the reason that we can believe that?" Rose questioned.
"I have no proof besides the cloak that I'm wearing, but if Al has his body, then you should both have at least a small amount of reason to believe me when I say that, as the toll for giving Al his body and mind back, he's all right in a world on the other side of what you name the Gate."
Al barely kept his own legs and knees from being cleared from existence, and new hot tears pushed into his eyes.
Rose shifted slightly, as though she wanted to look back at him, but she didn't drop her guard and turn her head.
Her own voice was clouded with more tears when she answered the other girl, but her voice was now very angry, and so incomprehensibly more protective that, if not for how he was trying to keep the pain away so his return to his body wouldn't be ruined as much as it could be; Alphonse was almost certain that he'd have retched violently until he'd fallen unconscious once again, even if it meant dry heaving ceaselessly until it happened, because of everything that he'd done, and not done, by letting oldest Brother get to him, and lying unmoving on the floor until Brother had been murdered through terrible emotional and mental torture at oldest Brother's hands; and oldest Brother had then threatened to try to erase anyone and everyone, and everything and anything, Brother had striven and fought for so excruciatingly, and for so long, by murdering every other human in Amestris, if not the world; perhaps even Dante.
"That's just the kind of tactic that Envy and Dante would be willing to use," Rose replied.
"For all we know; because I saw Gluttony walk off, and I'm almost certain that he did so because he retained enough of his sense of self that he was trying to exploit Dante's distraction from losing the Stone to avenge the death of the female Homunculus who he's so close to that Dante brought about; you're not Envy, but Dante herself, your form altered because you've somehow merged with Gluttony."
"As I said, I have no proof that I'm a friend of Edward's, but I'll tell you all that I know, and maybe how out there it very likely sounds to you will convince you."
Al couldn't breathe, and this time, he needed to blink away tears before he could see Rose, and the other girl, once more.
Complete, total, absolute, utter self hatred that he hadn't been able to keep his guard up, and that he'd fallen for the same tactic that he'd let oldest Brother murder Brother with, for a few seconds, wiped him clear of all perception.
But she had a point.
Dante and the Homunculi were skilled at manipulating people by intermingling lies with truth, so their lies hurt a lot more.
After what had just happened, if this was Envy, or Dante herself, he or she would be exploiting lies with resounding truth, or the remorseless truth, to their fullest extent, because that would give them a far larger chance at obliterating what will to battle Al possessed right now.
"Because whoever Dante is, I know enough about how Homunculi studying what we call the Crimson Star and you call the Philosopher's Stone, and alchemists affiliated with them, like to operate, to be aware how they attempt to divide and conquer."
There were more tears in Rose's voice now, but she was still too wary and protective, and defensive and skeptical, for it to be put into speech or awareness.
"Very well, then," she responded, her voice edged, but a little less angry, now.
"Say your piece."
Al pushed all of the potential skepticism of his own that he might have at what the girl was about to say to the side.
He couldn't let disbelief, or astonishment, or shock, or surprise, prevent him from paying attention to the girl's voice and tone, and facial expressions and body language, to try to figure out if she was lying, at least in part.
"My name is Julia Crichton," the girl identified herself.
"I don't know the specifics, but there are worlds on the other side of what you call the Gate, and what my world names the Portal of Truth, and the Doorway of Truth."
Al's legs and knees weakened with relief that he was able to keep himself from experiencing more than a faint flicker of shock and surprise at how Julia herself was from the world that she claimed that Brother was imprisoned in.
"Edward didn't tell me why, specifically, so I assume that it has something to do with how the Truth, and what my culture calls the great power, distribute the laws of the natural world," Julia proceeded.
"However, there are at least two other worlds where alchemy has made the same progress that it has here, albeit in somewhat different directions, and Edward was sent to one of these parallel worlds on the other side of the Doorway, or Gate, or whatever you'd prefer to call it.
"In addition to the presence of other worlds, however, the Gate distributes souls in such a way that, although the civilizations of each world have taken different routes, so their inhabitants have grown in different cultures and become different people, with different societies and personalities than yours, the inhabitants of the worlds have doubles."
The flicker of shock and surprise was accompanied by a small flicker of surprising, but genuine, joy, that there were other Brothers and Dads and Winrys and Grannys and Teachers and Sigs and Masons and Mustangs and Hawkeyes and Gracias and Elicias and Armstrongs and Sciezkas and Rosses and Bloches and Roses.
And maybe even Moms and Ninas and Hugheses and Martas and Scars who were still alive.
Perhaps who Brother had already met.
A very small amount of relief that Brother might be spending time with another Al or Winry or Teacher or Mustang or Hawkeye this very instant lightened Alphonse a threadbare strand of a feather of an infinitesimal bit.
But that also meant that the person who Brother had referenced as very likely dying to return him through the Gate earlier was very likely a double of Brother himself from one of these alternate worlds, and that, by letting Envy get to him, he might have put another Brother in serious danger, or even murdered him.
For several seconds, Al's stomach heaved so sickly that he was almost certain food was going to rise into his mouth from it, but it didn't happen.
"The Law of Equivalent Exchange working how it does, however, Edward was thrown directly into the presence of parallel Homunculi researching a parallel Stone."
This time, Al kept the tears from obfuscating all of his vision, but his heart still stopped for a few seconds.
Rose almost staggered violently, and Al shifted in the event that Julia wasn't who she maintained she was, and she used Rose's reaction to try to murder her, or hurt her.
By letting Brother die, he hadn't just almost caused all of his efforts to lead to one thing in return, he'd rendered them even more futile by forcing him to become entangled with more alchemists and Homunculi close to the Stone, perhaps including another Dante and another Homunculus of oldest Brother?
"Although Equivalent Exchange prevents Edward, or these Homunculi, from reaching your world, they still found the means to take a round trip to our third world without involving genuine human transmutation, and he followed them to try to keep them from acquiring two Stones from our world. I found out a little about what he'd done here while he worked with a double of Al and himself to defeat them."
Something shifted over Julia's face, and more tears of her own brimmed and fell.
Worry surged, for Julia, because she'd said that Brother was okay.
But, even though Brother was still intertwined with more alchemists and Homunculi pursuing the Stone, the knowledge that he had met another Al, as well as a double of himself, caused the lightness inside Alphonse to increase another string of the bit that it had before.
"When I last saw him, we'd successfully stalled these Homunculi from gaining two Stones of ours through an extremely costly method over the course of centuries that, unless you yourselves want the details, I don't want to talk about right now."
More sickness seared tears from behind Alphonse's eyes into his vision at the knowledge that two new complete Stones must have been transmuted, even though it had happened on another world, because no red water or red stone should require centuries to be transmuted no matter how One Is All, All Is One ebbed and flowed.
But Julia had said that she was here on Brother's behalf, to tell him that he was all right, so Al answered first.
"Unless you believe that knowing will enable us to assist Brother in keeping them away from the Homunculi, I'm willing to save it for later.
"Rose?"
"I'll second that," she answered.
"I doubt knowing will change anything at this time, so you're welcome.
"And thanks," she responded.
Rose said nothing, but Al spoke back, "You're welcome."
Julia gave him another wan, weak smile, and then she continued.
"I'd told Edward that I'd let you, Alphonse, know that he's still alive, and not as much of a prisoner of what the other Al calls the other side as he could be.
"So I used a Stone that I'd found myself to do so."
Rose almost staggered violently a second time.
"Do you have any clue how many people Scar has killed to create the Philosopher's Stone? Of all the soldiers that invaded Lior? Seven thousand of them didn't make it home. But don't fret. They're all right in here. Oh, I bet you didn't realize all the souls of the Ishbalans that were sealed inside Scar's arm are inside you now. Isn't that great? So now that you're fully aware of just how valuable you are to us, I suggest that you live!"
There are so many moments when I should have died. Time after time after time. But I survived. Why was I their choice when so many others have died?
This confirmed that the two Stones had been completed.
So it didn't matter that, if Julia was telling the truth, as true human transmutation wasn't involved, however many souls had gone into Julia's Star, it shouldn't have cost that many.
Who knew how many more souls had just died permanently because of him.
But this was the kind of lie mixed with truth that Envy or Dante might say, and one of the most likely kinds, because it was a new means of trying to guilt trip him with familiar faces, rather than ones that they were already prepared for.
This time, not that many more tears came.
Al's guard was now sharper than the beam of a microscope.
Julia gave them both as reassuring smile as she believed that they might be comfortable with.
"But, as it turned out, I didn't perform the transmutation just for this Alphonse.
"I ended up needing to do it to keep my own older brother from dying of serious injuries, and as it was transmuted by a petty thief to try to stop my people from transmuting it to win a revolution, one or more of the souls in that Stone might have been contributed from the revolutionaries who had actually wanted to become its ingredients if we'd been the ones to transmute it."
Rose shifted a little.
Al barely suppressed the urge to start violently at that one.
But, even knowing that there were actually people in one world who wanted to join with a Stone, and that one or more of the souls involved might have been contributed to it willingly and one or more of those souls might have wanted to die permanently of their own choice; virtual imprisoned death, and literal death, were still losing your body, and dying.
Losing your body, and death, weren't any less horrific just because you were fine with either happening.
The new sick self hatred and insides distorting guilt didn't lessen at all from hearing that.
"Did you protect your brother?" Al questioned quickly.
He couldn't take the chance that Julia wasn't lying about that.
"And you can call me Al, too."
Julia gave him a slightly stronger wan smile.
"Edward started his return trip when I did this, as my transmutation removed the two Stones from the Homunculi's clutches.
"I'm not sure what happened to the head Homunculus.
"The last time that I saw him, he was passing into a second Truth of resembling the gold Truth that I traveled through to reach here, so he must have been stranded in a fourth world; separate from the one that his servants reached, a second Truth of white that was likely the one that they'd come from.
"He tried to transmute with a Stone of his own to redirect his passage back into the second white Truth,"
Al's insides warped at the knowledge that the first world of white Truth might have a finished Stone of its own, transmuted with who knew how costly a means.
The faint surprise that a Homunculus could perform alchemy on one of the other worlds meant little to him outside of how much danger that that had put Brother in.
"but it didn't work.
"Thus, before he vanished from audible range, he told the other two Homunculi that he'd figured out that alchemy apparently can't be powered at all on that side, and commanded them to find a means to recover him from that world before the last core piece of his research was put in place."
That meant that the Homunculus leading the other two had brought what was very likely a true Philosopher's Stone to a world that had no skill in alchemy.
But, although Brother had somehow made it back from that world, as it was a Homunculus who had now been trapped there, even if Brother had found a way to use alchemy, or returned through another means, the Homunculus might not be able to.
Or even return, unless his colleagues brought him back.
Al felt another string lighter at the knowledge that Brother had successfully delayed research into the Stone in another world, if not ended it by permanently stranding an important Homunculus with a Stone that, whether or not it wasn't imperfect, might be a vital resource for the other Homunculi and alchemists.
Then Julia's lips twisted a little.
"However, even though it turned out for the better, at least for now, the Homunculus was still able to influence my transmutation enough to take both Stones that we call Stars along with him."
Alphonse suppressed the urge to cringe violently.
But it was better that they'd ended up in a world where alchemy might not be able to be performed, even with an imperfect or genuine Stone, or someone, human or Homunculus, native to a world where alchemy could function stranded there.
Once more, tears that Al needed to find out the reason for as soon as Julia was comfortable telling him appeared in Julia's eyes and spilled down her face, and the imperceptible something passed over it.
"But I was able to heal my brother, and hopefully that cheered him up about a lot of problems that he's been having, at least a little, because he was sent along with the other two Homunculi into the second Truth of white."
Al felt new hot wetness push into his own eyes, and cascade down his face, at the knowledge that Julia had been separated from her own brother.
"Edward returned into the second Truth of white, and that's the last that I saw of him."
Julia grimaced.
"I'm very sorry, but that's all that I know about what happened to him in general.
"But in terms of specifics, I have other pieces of evidence that I did meet your brother.
"Does it mean anything to either of you that he got in an argument with his double where he very likely unsuccessfully tried to convince his double to stop living for his dreams of giving his own brother, Al, his body back, and regaining his own original flesh arm and leg?"
All that Al knew was the night.
Edward realized that his eyes were closed.
He had no idea why, however.
"He's awake," a voice that was recently familiar spoke.
"I just heard his breathing patterns change."
And then everything was there, and Ed opened his eyes and moved to sit up, but the familiar weight of gloved hands at the end of the armor of the Al of the third world were then pushing him down through a sickly shifting and swimming head at the end of an Al leaning forward besides a bandaged Lin sitting next to him on a train bench.
"Take it easy," Al spoke, sounding suffocated with so much relief that Edward knew he had as little chance of fathoming it as he had his own brother's at a time like this.
Everything that this Al had said thus far had confirmed that he was as close to his own Edward, and vice versa, as his own younger brother was close to him, and Ed returned the sentiment.
So Edward was pretty sure that this Al had been terrified endlessly beyond the furthest reaches of his soul at the uttermost foundations of his blood seal that Ed wouldn't even wake up.
Ed relaxed back onto the bench right away, ignoring the cutting throbs in his head from doing so.
"I told you that you were pushing yourself too hard," Al continued, as he sat back.
Everything within Edward shrieked and seared and yelled and screamed with sick terror so icy that it must burn hotter than he imagined the indecipherable temperatures were of the gamma emissions generated by the most violent supernovas; to sit up, transmute a means of jumping off the train, return to Central, and find out whether Julia had kept the Stones away from the Homunculi, and what had happened to the Homunculi themselves, and anything else that he could.
But that they were on a train seat told him that, whatever had happened since he'd lost consciousness when he'd been about to pass into the unfamiliar double doors, he was far enough away from Central by now that the Homunculi and any military forces working with them would have almost certainly implemented any practical means of him finding out.
There was now nothing more that he could do for his Al; to find out whether he'd regained his body and was free on his side of the Gate; or about the Homunculi from this anti-particle, or particle, world.
Horror and terror and frustration and self hate so blinding pearl it was onyx wiped all of what he registered out of his existence, and reality.
But returning to Central might make things even worse now, and as brilliant as Ashleigh had been, Edward could be reasonably certain that Julia was successful, in one form or another.
Even though Edward had repeatedly underestimated the Homunculus of this world's version of Dad, he knew how human transmutation worked all too well.
If he'd underestimated Dad's Homunculus yet once more, and he'd been skilled and experienced, or talented and experienced, enough to contribute to a human transmutation initiated by Ashleigh's sister to attain one, or both, Stones; his sole means of obtaining them would have been to direct them, and himself, into the one Truth that no transmutation could affect.
If he hadn't returned to this Amestris, and he'd obtained either, or both, Stones; he should be in London, or somewhere else in that world, now, and unable to do anything whatsoever with them until the other Homunculi found a way to retrieve him from it.
Furthermore, wherever Ashleigh had ended up, he no longer had his own Stone, so he shouldn't be able to cause anyone as many problems now, for the time being.
Edward knew better than to hope that getting all of his own body back had been enough to bring him to his senses, as Julia had still opposed him, and he still wanted to avenge his parents, and he'd lost his chance to do so.
Lastly, Ed was certain that Julia had saved the valley of Milos.
Under any other circumstance, her Stone most likely wouldn't have been able to transmute all of the lava escaping the geothermal power station, and still within it, but with a receptacle such as Ashleigh's face nearby, he knew that she would have been able to pull it off.
So Edward's best option now was to discover what this world's Sloth was up to, and prevent Dad's Homunculus from transmuting the Truth into himself before that Homunculus implemented the last vital requirement for the Homunculi to prove their theories.
However, even though passing through the Gate five times in a single day had obviously been too much for him to endure, he was not going to give himself a chance to try to come to terms with anything until he was certain that Winry was safe from the Homunculi here, and their agents in the government.
And, as their presence on this train meant that they might be headed to a Lior, or Liore, or Reole, or at least to meet with this Amestris' Winry, until he knew what had happened to the Rose and Lior, or Liore, or Reole, of this world, as well.
"Lin and I fled from Greed as soon as you vanished," Al told him, his tone soothing and reassuring and assuring.
They must be in a train car where no one else was nearby, or an empty one.
Alphonse's voice became a mask as he said the next words, though, almost beyond doubt because of what this world's Scar had done to Winry's parents.
"Lin asked Scar to accompany us, but he said that he was going to explore the complex to search for evidence of what the Homunculi are researching, and look for a way to get the Stone out of the girl, who is apparently named May.
"We located the doctor who was treating Lan Fan and called Winry from his house, so she should have left Rush Valley well ahead of us, and any forces dispatched from any nearby military base if the Homunculi are angry enough about what you did to the one who they call Father.
"She might even be in Reole by now."
A desert skinned face with a mouth moving without a voice, and broken, unseeing eyes; and a field of tombstones jumbled together as though they were seeds of death borne fruit; appeared in his vision as he experienced every solitary last single drop of blood drain out of not just his face, but the totality of his body, leaving behind nothing but labyrinthine spider webbing mazes of fragmented and shattered and fractured and ruined endlessly boundlessly switchback inverted broken desperately hopeless pallid and phantom skeletal and ghostly and pale and deathly horror and terror and despair and self hatred to blinding it was unendingly blacker than even the singularity at the center of the universal black hole that the universe might become if the theory of its death by cascading together into the Big Crunch if its mass was greater than the weight of its expansion was true.
The Ed and Al of this world had been involved with a Lior.
"I'm sure, whatever happens, you'll find your way out. You've got strong legs. You'll get up and use them, won't you, Edward?"
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.
"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's true, I have to try. For your sake, Al."
"Ed! Get up, Ed! Get up, Ed, and move forward!"
But, even though the lightest feather brushing beginnings of the concept of it atoning for, or making right, what he'd done to the Rose and the Lior of his Amestris was so much a nadir of an issue in regards to this Rose and Reole, if whatever had happened here had involved a Cornello, he had no guarantee that it was too late to protect them from the worst possible things that might happen as a result of just living for Al's and his dreams, this time.
And even that possibility caused hotness to push against the backs of his eyes.
But he still wasn't going to take a breather until he was sure that she was out of harm's way.
Too many things could happen before she reached this world's version of Lior, apparently given the translation Reole by the general populace.
And too many things could have happened to the Rose of this world, and this Reole.
Carefully, ignoring how reality swam and shifted acutely and thickly as he did it, he sat up and rested back against the seat behind him.
"Lan Fan, and another retainer of his, named Foo, insisted vehemently that they were going to accompany us here, and Lan Fan's injury to her arm has been treated enough for her to move. But she was determined to guard Lin along with Foo on the roof, so she's up there taking watch even though the train is in motion."
Ed couldn't breathe
"Don't worry about them," Lin put in. "They have years of experience taking watch on top of trains, and Foo himself trained Lan Fan in everything that she knows to serve me, as he's her grandfather."
Alphonse didn't react, so he must have already known this.
His breathing returned a little.
"Were you successful yourself?" Lin questioned, a mixture of anger on his face that someone from a rival clan had outmaneuvered him to the Philosopher's Stone, and reinforced resolve and determination to attain the throne anyway, as she couldn't yet return to Xing with it.
"There were two Stones available for the Homunculi, but an alchemist who I met on the other side threw them into the Gate when I brought the Homunculi on the return trip to remove them from their reach. And in one way or another, from my own experience with human transmutation, I'm certain that she was successful."
Hearing everything that had gone on in Milos wouldn't enable Al and Lin to face any important Truths at this time, so Edward really didn't need to go into detail about those events.
"I passed out before I even reached the Gate, though, so I don't know the specifics of the ways in which she kept the Stones away from them.
"All I can be sure of is that they're either out of his reach; or he acquired them, but he's now stuck in the first world that I visited, and as the currents of energy there can't power alchemy, he's in no condition to use them until the other Homunculi can bring him back here."
Al gave off a deep, heavy sigh that his armor body couldn't contribute to.
"We have other friends in the Amestrian military who we're worried about, though," Lin said. "You might have met your doubles of them. A Colonel named Roy Mustang, a Lieutenant named Riza Hawkeye, and a doctor who used to work for it named Knox."
Edward's heart and insides twisted in new coalescing aching and hot longing.
He had no knowledge at all about whether or not Mustang had been able to defeat Pride, but while he trusted in the now Brigadier General's skill and talent, after so many years of an uneasy connection that Ed hadn't usually even been willing to call a friendship, he'd at last admitted how much the Flame Alchemist meant to him, and he'd come to an understanding with him.
And who knew how long it would be until he saw him once more.
And how many more doubles was he going to need to keep meeting, or hearing about, until he could finally try to come to terms with what was going on?
Ed could at least allow himself to feel even more emotionally and mentally exhausted at the knowledge that this Mustang had yet to be promoted, though.
"We didn't find out that President Bradley is a Homunculus until just yesterday, after we implemented an idea of the Ed who you're inhabiting to try to find out what the goal of the Homunculi's research is by taking one captive.
"The Colonel and the Lieutenant worked with us to capture the Homunculus, before he got away and put us through the events that led to us meeting you this morning. But they didn't return to Knox's, so we assume that they're trying to dig into the extent of the Homunculi's influence into the military on their own."
"Just because alchemy has developed in somewhat similar routes on this world to the routes that it took on mean doesn't mean that people, or civilization, or culture, or science, alchemic or otherwise; will grow up in the same ways on each world," Edward answered.
He hadn't needed to truly spend time with his own fourth double to be reminded of that.
"We are who we choose to become, of course.
"But the issue that doubles exist at all means that our doubles share similarities with us to a decent degree; so, whatever choices we make, how we've already chosen to react to our differing, or similar, situations has at least enabled me to make educated guesses about what kind of people these doubles are.
"Yes, I've met a Mustang and a Hawkeye, and I know them well myself."
Al shifted so the Sunlight pouring through the window reflected off him more brightly, to convey that he'd be smiling in approval if he had a human body.
Lin genuinely smiled in approval.
"And, from the issue that you know one yourself, and a Mustang and a Hawkeye know each other, that tells me that they should be up to the challenge of finding out how deep the Homunculi have penetrated the government."
Ed forced himself to smile, and it was also genuine in its own ways.
"The Homunculi weren't even able to install a second Homunculus as Bradley's secretary in this Amestris," he said with confident reassurance that was also legitimate.
"And the Mustang and Hawkeye that I know have been able to deal with Homunculi who made even more inroads into our government than these ones have.
"They should be okay."
"This Ed doesn't know them, but I agree," Alphonse contributed, though there was incredibly profound worry of his own in his voice.
"A few months before we met you, shortly after we first visited Reole, we ran into a bunch of terrorists on a train who tried to abduct a General from the Amestrian East, named Hakuro."
Hakuro was stationed in the East in this world?
Maybe things were different with him in this world, as with Dante and Dad's Homunculus and Envy and Sloth, but the possibility that a General who might be as competent as the Hakuro who he knew had been stationed in the East, and not in Central, alarmed him greatly.
That the leader of this Amestrian government, even though his rank was Führer-President King, and not Führer King, was a Homunculus meant that, even though most of the rank and file very likely didn't know this, the military was still almost certainly as corrupt in general as the military that he had served.
If the Hakuro here was, at least in part, the same as the Hakuro who he'd known, yet Bradley had sidelined him, was there a military officer in this Amestris who was both corrupt and competent enough that Bradley had been able to give the Homunculi direct influence in the military High Command proper?
Perhaps Archer, or Kimbley?
If so, had the Homunculi sank their talons into the government of this Amestris as much as they had his own State government, but rather than placing their second key agent as Bradley's secretary, they'd placed him or her in High Command?
And was that why, if Bald had led the terrorists, they hadn't been confident enough to try to capture this Hakuro until three years after the Bald who he had known had tried to abduct his world's Hakuro?
But even if Bradley had been able to do this, Mustang and Hawkeye should still be fine.
They'd put up with another version of the Fullmetal Alchemist.
"Brother and I arrested the terrorists, but one of them was able to escape and tried to ambush Mustang.
"He'd anticipated it, however, and took him out with little to no problems.
"Mustang is sharper than you know.
"However much influence the Homunculi have in this government, he'll be able to work his way around it."
Lin gave them both a thankful smile, but he didn't look fully convinced.
"How close are we to the desert around Reole?" Ed questioned.
"It's not a desert town in this Amestris, and we're actually pulling into its train station near the radio that I broke," Al answered.
Edward's stomach heaved so violently that it brought tears to his eyes, and he sat up straight so rapidly it contorted with vertigo.
They'd just entered another Lior, and he hadn't even realized that the buildings outside that he was seeing in his peripheral vision belonged to it?
"I'm sure, whatever happens, you'll find your way out. You've got strong legs. You'll get up and use them, won't you, Edward?"
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.
"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's true, I have to try. For your sake, Al."
"Ed! Get up, Ed! Get up, Ed, and move forward!"
Get a hold of yourself.
This isn't the Rose who you know.
This isn't the Lior that you know.
It doesn't matter what happens here.
You can't change what's happened in the past.
You know that better than almost anyone, and Rose and Lior, or Reole, are among the very last people who you want to become trapped in the past about.
What would Rose think of him, if she saw how he was feeling now?
What would Rose think of him, if she knew that he hadn't even been aware that the buildings that he'd seen belonged to another Reole?
This is not your Lior.
This is not the Rose who you know.
Doing this with Sloth almost murdered her.
Doing this with Envy almost murdered Al.
But Sloth and Envy had been immoral and apathetic and unscrupulous and uncaring and amoral and hatefully exploitatively selfish and genocidal mass murdering Homunculi, not his actual mother or half brother.
If there was a double of Rose in this Lior, and she hadn't been hurt as badly in this Amestris as the one who he knew, she was a living, loving, vibrant, strong, grinning, warm, smiling, crying, breathing, hurting, confident, hoping, grieving, protecting, laughing, despairing, assured person; and so were everyone else here.
How could he just brush this Rose, and Reole, off as merely ghosts of a past that he could never atone for, and merely make right, as he had with Sloth and Envy?
"I'm sure, whatever happens, you'll find your way out. You've got strong legs. You'll get up and use them, won't you, Edward?"
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.
"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's true, I have to try. For your sake, Al."
"Ed! Get up, Ed! Get up, Ed, and move forward!"
But he had no choice.
Nothing but more death and torment awaited people who lived in the death and torment of the past.
He turned unwilling eyes out the window as though in a dream, and forced all emotion and thought to empty itself out of him at the sight of the broken buildings beneath the twilight sky.
That was right.
He should have known better than to entertain such infantile whimsies.
Reole hadn't even been spared any more than Lior had.
He should just face this Truth and get it over with.
Carefully, even though it felt like he was moving thickly in a phantasm of a delirious fever dream, he forced himself to his feet, ignoring the lancing pain and swimming vision from how much he'd strained himself.
"I'm going on ahead," he told Al and Lin.
Forcing unwilling feet to walk, he strode towards the nearest exit, not paying any attention to anything anyone said, and as soon as the train halted, he opened the door and stepped out onto the train platform, looking carefully at the ravaged structures and homes and businesses around him and taking in as many details of their shattered brick and stone and their fragmented windows and the roofs that had disappeared and the walls that were gaping of huge areas that should have kept their denizens sheltered and curled up at a warm hearth.
There were construction girders, and the superstructures and foundations of buildings around them, but he ignored them to focus on the damage as he forced his unwilling feet to move towards the staircase down from it, and the square hopefully a short distance beyond it where he'd first heard his own Amestris' Cornello's broadcast and Al had needed to repair that Lior's radio.
He'd find this Reole's Rose, if there was one, and he'd apologize for preventing this Amestris' Ed from apologizing to her himself, and he'd try his best to mediate between this Reole's Rose and this Amestris' Al, and then he'd put it all aside as he did everything else that he needed to move forward from, and that would be the end of it.
There were many people moving upon and around the construction girders, carrying new stones and crowbars as they called and spoke to each other and one another with words and emotions and manners and body language and facial expressions that he ignored because he knew full well what he'd see, as they endeavored to make progress in repairing the ruined and broken reality and existence and world and nation and country and state and city and town and livelihoods and businesses and homes and friends and lovers and families and fireplaces and armchairs and beds and bookshelves that another selfish and oblivious Edward and Al, too wrapped up in childish daydreams of a world where everything made sense even after what they'd done to each other and Sloth and would do to Dad and her by chasing the rays of the Sun and the rainbows of transmutation light and circles, had gouged into countless people and houses and buildings and businesses and structures and schools and homes and people and the elderly and babies and children and a girl who just wanted to believe that there was kindness left in a reality that drained all hope and warmth and care and safety and sanctuary and laughter and protection and rolling on the grassy hills giggling and tickling Al and Winry in a three way tickle fight as they tickled each other and him in return while Den jumped around and darted in to lick whoever's face was most open to her enthusiastic and lolling tongue as she wagged her tail like a windmill blowing the caresses of the cool and fervent breeze through their hair and through her fur and against their skin under heavens of aquamarine soaring as far as both of all three of their eyes could see while white fluffier than Den's fur washed away all hard and unforgiving corners and lines and swords and bullets and crimson Stones born of screaming shrieking crying howling tens of millions or tens of thousands or tens or water or flowers or rocks or trees or grass and tank turrets and bombs and fires and masses of grotesquely distorted phantasmagoric bone and gruesome flesh and daggers and husks of metal hollow armor with cerulean welcome into Mom's warm hug and Winry's cool fingers pressing an even cooler and soft cloth against a sweat drenched forehead and Granny's quick witted jokes and Dad sitting in the car telling them that even a thousand lives wouldn't have been enough for him to deserve the gift of Al and him with a smile and Al's warm embrace after he woke up from the nightmare that chased everything away because there was and never had been and never could be and never would be any sanctuary in Al's or Mom's or Dad's or Winry's or Granny's arms just the hollow unfeeling cold of a metal leg and a metal arm and an imperceptibly overcoming and surpassing and surmounting and transcending husk of a lacuna that devoured anythi
"I'm sorry, but we haven't restocked our ice cream yet, so lollipops are the best that I can give you!
"So hurry up, and clop your feet for a pop!"
Everything vanished.
Her skin wasn't the brown of the desert, but her hair was still unmistakably brown with pink bangs as she stood wearing an apron.
But this must be an illusion.
Because Rose was laughing with a wide, welcoming, affectionately loving grin on her face as two childish twin sisters without desert skin themselves raced up to her giggling, stretching their left hands, and right hands, out, respectively, for the multicolored thicket of lollipops that Rose was handing down to them, bills of Cenz clutched in their other hands.
You couldn't close your eyes to the Truth.
There was nothing but pain in the past, and all that you could do was move forward from it.
Rose, among almost anyone in all of existence and reality and the world and Amestris, in any cosmos, in any space, in any dimension, in any time, in any universe, on any side of the Gate, couldn't be smiling and laughing.
This was just another illusion of a past that he could never atone for, could never return to, could never look back at, could never regain, could never long for, could never try to bring back, could never reflect on, could never fix, could never be forgiven for erasing from Al and Mom and Dad and Winry and Granny and Teacher and Sig and Rose
But then why was she smiling and laughing through the tears obscuring everything but the vibrant joy and warm laughter of her smile washing through the square and caressing the children and everyone and everything in it with love and sanctuary and care and security and calling and bringing everyone around her home?
This wasn't what the past brimmed with and drowned in.
The past was torture.
Solely the present and tomorrow held any hope at all in this ruined and remorseless reality.
This could not be real.
This could not be not real.
But if this was what moving forward was going to taunt him with, a hope of redemption that could never potentially or not possibly or possibly or not potentially outside of any unending boundless endless eternal everlasting infinity so endless that it couldn't even be defined by not feeling or thinking or remembering that it was boundless or everlasting or eternal or unending, while he could never go back, and moving back just erased Al and Dad and Winry and Granny and Envy and Sloth, maybe moving forward was just as unforgivable and torturous.
Maybe he shouldn't do either.
He didn't want to do either.
Because, for the first time in his life since Al and he had opened the door to their home and seen the sanguine apple of the crimson drenched Philosopher's Stone and the blood of savaged and blood torn and gutted and bone fragmented corpses and tens of thousands and crimson plagues and sanguine flames and tens of millions of bullets and tank shells and knives and guns of broken structures and tens of gold and white shades and tens of thousands of exchangeable equal rocks of dismembered bodies and double door monoliths roll away from Mom's hand more skeletal pallid than a transparent singularity devouring the pitch onyx and clear vacuum; within the very selfsame twenty-four hours since he'd seen her look at nothing with sight broken of even the ability to perceive torment or smiles or death or giggling while careening with the jerking and staggering legs of a marionette who had never even had legs around the phantasm of the crystalline sharply glaring deranged hallucinating feverish demented delusional delirium of the golden cathedral; someone who he believed that he'd obliterated forever beyond every solitary last hope of recovery or salvation was completely and fully and utterly and entirely and totally and wholly and absolutely and undeniably and irrefutably and blindingly and indelibly actually smiling and laughing and warm and vibrant and caressing everyone and everything around her with love and walking on her own strong legs as carefree as the breeze under the cerulean skies once again.
This isn't the R–
This isn't L–
"Ed! Get up, Ed! Get up, Ed, and mo–"
"I'm sure, whatever happens, you'll find your way out. You've got st–"
"Rose."
Was this his unsteady breath?
"Welcome home."
.
"Take up your sword! Fight, and serve those who died before you!"-Judge Magister Noah 'Gabranth' Fon Ronsenburg
"A Judge Magister there was… Two years past, he took the Midlight Shard and used it not knowing what he did… and Nabudis was blown away. Cid ordered this of him to learn the nethicite's true power. That man swore never to let such terrible power be used again. He forsook his judicer's plate, and his name."-Judge Magister Zecht 'Reddas'
"Judge Zecht!"-Judge Magister Noah 'Gabranth' Fon Ronsenburg
"It's been too long, Gabranth. Reach out your hand, Lady Ashe. But remember that which you must grasp is something beyond revenge, something greater than despair. Something beyond our reach. Try as we might, Gabranth, history's chains bind us too tightly."-Judge Magister Zecht 'Reddas'
"No, we cannot escape the past. This man is living proof. What is your past, daughter of Dalmasca?"-Judge Magister Noah 'Gabranth' Fon Ronsenburg
FINAL FANTASY XII
