Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Torn Existence ❯ Natural Born Sinner ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Author's Note: Alright, I'm trying my luck with a sequel. I got a lot of people asking for one, and I realized my ending for the first one was sort of...abrupt. First and foremost this WILL HAVE SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE SERIES!!! So I suggest you watch the end before you read this. Second, this is post series, no movie. Ed and Envy never went through the Gate in this story, nothing in the movie ever happened. I hate changing the ending, but it just worked out that way. Anyway, please review and tell me what you think. If you hate it, say so. One more thing - there'll be two characters telling this in 1st person point of view. Every time it switches from one character's point of view to the other's the text will be broken with this:
* * * I know I really should have written this in 3rd person but I like writing in 1st person better. So don't get confused, just remember when you see the asterisks it means it's the another person telling it.

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This is a mistake.

I told myself that over and over, but my mind refused to listen to logic as I continued to drag the chalk along the stone floor, completing the same transmutation circle I’d made the night my brother and I transmuted our mother.

This is a mistake.

With shaking hands I connected the remainder of the last line, completing my design. I stood up and gazed down at my work. It was different from my first attempt; there were six more circles drawn around the room, identical to the one on the floor. The seven point array was my last hope; a final chance to see Marie’s smile and feel her touch. As low as my chances of succeeding were, I was going to try. I was blinded by love.

I recited out loud the all-too familiar list of ingredients as I arranged them in the center of the array. “Water, 35 liters. Carbon, 20 kilograms. Ammonia, 4 liters. Lime, 1.5 kilograms. Phosphorous, 800 grams. Sodium, 250 grams. Potassium, 100 grams. Sulfur, 80 grams. Fluoride, 7.5 grams. Iron, 5 grams. Silicon, 3 grams. And small traces of fifteen other elements.”

I must admit, when I looked down upon the unpleasantly familiar scene, I hesitated.

This is a mistake.

At this point the voice in the back of my head was practically begging me to stop. But I wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t listen. It was not only for me that I was doing this; it was for her. I wanted to give her another chance at life.

Marie had shown up out of nowhere; this girl who, unbeknownst to me, would alter my life in a way no one else had. My mother’s death, and my brother’s miserable existence that resulted from our attempt to remedy it, left me empty inside and devoid of nearly all hope. Marie made me whole again, gave me hope for the future. Needless to say, I fell in love with her.

But fate apparently didn’t approve of us. I was the victim of its cruel sense of humor throughout my last week with her, during which she was taken from me, returned to me, and then taken yet again. Destiny, fate, God, whatever you want to call it, intended the second attempt to separate us to be the last, and to be permanent. But I had other plans.

I didn’t plan on staying with the military after I got Al back, but I decided staying and doing a bit more research was a good idea. Of course, I never told anyone what I was researching. I made Al stay in Resembool with Pinako and Winry. I hated to keep this secret from him, but I didn’t want him to be involved in any way whatsoever. If anything happened to him again, I don’t know what I’d do.

Colonel Roy Mustang - a General now - had been more suspicious than anyone. Even as I assured him I would stay away from human transmutation, his words had evidenced his doubt. They echoed in my mind as I gazed with trepidation upon the scene in front of me:

“You’re not God, Ed. There’s no such thing as God. We just have to deal with the way the world works, and be content and live while we can. There’s nothing else we can do.”

The power to change the world. Most would say it was in God’s hands. He, and He alone, could alter the natural laws of the world. I didn’t believe a word of it.

Mustang was right about one thing; God did not exist. The answer was science. Science was the reasoning behind natural law, and therefore was the only thing with the power to alter it. Maybe there was nothing I could do, maybe I should have been content with what I had and resigned myself to the way things were. But I was too damn stubborn and too pissed off at the world to care. I was going to attempt to use science once again to cross into “God’s territory,” whatever the hell that was.

The missing ingredient. That was the problem before, when I attempted my first human transmutation. The creation of the homunculus Sloth was evidence enough that I was close. I’d created a fully functional, living being. But it was unstable, it didn’t possess a soul.

The soul was what was missing. It was the reason every single attempt at human transmutation in the past had failed, resulting in the homunculi Envy, Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Wrath, Pride, and Sloth. If I failed, another would be created. I was unsure as to the whereabouts of a few, but I knew for a fact that there was currently no Lust, Greed, or Sloth. My failure would most likely result in a re-creation of one of those three.

But failure was not an option. I had to return the life that had so abruptly been taken from her. I couldn’t help but feel partially at fault for her death, I should have been there to protect her from the bastard who killed her. Second on my priority list, after returning her to life, was to find that son of a bitch and kill him.

It had been nearly a half a year since she died. As difficult as it was, I had put my ideas of reviving her to the side so I would be able to focus on returning my little brother Alphonse to his original body. Thanks to the Philosopher’s Stone, I was able to. It was cruelly ironic that we’d obtained the Stone soon after her death; the reason I got to know Marie in the first place was because she had been searching for the Stone as well. Marie’s family had actually originated from Amestris, but due to tampering with the Stone they had ended up in another world. She needed the Stone to get home. I had visited her world once for a brief moment, which also happened to be where my father now resided. It was located on the other side of the Gate, a world that had taken a different path from mine and where the science of alchemy was not practiced. Quite the contrary, the people who died there were the very things that fed the energy for the alchemy we performed.

I had nearly lost Al again that day, when Envy, who I discovered was created by the transmutation of my half-brother, killed me. Al, who had the Philosopher’s Stone inside him, sacrificed himself and revived me. I, in turn, gave my body, mind and soul to get him back. But for some reason, instead of taking my life, Equivalency instead chose to once again leave me without a leg, which had been returned to me, along with my arm, when Al revived me. I was forced to get auto-mail for my leg again, but I was used to it by then and if it meant getting Al back, it was worth it. As to why I got away with losing so little, most people agreed that the pain and sorrow, the heartache and the obstacles we overcame, were the price Al and I paid. Whether it was true or not, I wasn’t sure. I suppose it had to be.

Be it good or bad, Al came back a ten-year-old boy, his age when we’d performed the human transmutation, and had forgotten everything that had happened since then. Needless to say he was alarmed to find Winry and I so much older than he was. Even though Marie would undoubtedly be hurt that Al would have no recollection of her, she would be overjoyed to see him back to normal. She’d cared deeply for Al, and he for her.

Because I was going to do this, despite all of the failures that served as examples, my own losses from personal failure, and the warnings that were present in any alchemy book that had ever been written, I admitted freely that I was a fool. But I was a fool with a cause, a reason and a talent for alchemy; the science of understanding the structure of matter, breaking it down and then reconstructing it as something else.

My cause was to restore life that was unjustly taken. My reason was that I’d believed that I had found a way to overcome the obstacle that had stumped alchemists for centuries - how to obtain the equivalent of the soul in order to fulfill Equivalent Exchange during transmutation. Equivalency said that in order to obtain something, something of equal value had to be lost. And the soul is not an easy thing to find an equivalent to.

But I was ready to give up whatever it took, and I had a backup plan; something no one in the past had ever had when they had attempted the “ultimate taboo.”

After I was killed, I saw Marie at the entrance to the Gate, before my journey to the land of the dead had commenced. In the brief moment we had, she explained grievously that she had sensed my entrance and had come to me, horrified that I was dead. But almost as quickly as I had come, I felt myself being pulled back as Al attempted to revive me. I told her to wait at the Gate as long as she possible could, to stay at the crossroads that linked the land of the living to the land of the dead. I couldn't revive my mother, but maybe with this rare connection I could get Marie back. It had never been done before, so there was no precedent of failure to discourage my attempt. It just might be the key.

As risky as it was, that was my plan. I only hoped that she had been able to remain at the Gate, at the crossroads. If I had easier access to her soul, having only to reach to the Gate instead of into the land of the dead, I just might be able to pull it off.

This is a mistake.

But I don’t give a damn.

I guess I’m just a natural born sinner.