Chapter Text
... Kuester’s got it out for me, I think. You know that eastern wunderkind that qualified for State Alchemist at twelve? The old bastard’s assigning him to my command. Are we really so strapped for soldiers that we can’t even wait until they’re through puberty? I swear to God, if anyone asks me to give him The Talk, I’m going AWOL.
Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist. I haven’t even met the kid and I already hate him. What the hell kind of alchemy does he do to get a codename like “Fullmetal”, anyway?
Pray for me, dear. God might just be the only one who hasn’t forsaken me over here.
(Excerpt from a letter sent from Col. William Hoover to Isaac Mathias, dated Feb. 5. 1905.)
--
[don’t you worry, little al-che-mist, says the voice. it is the muted echoes in the night, the sound of a drop hitting a pool, the shouts lost on the wind. it is only a matter of time.]
--
Ed is thirteen the first time he uses alchemy to take a life.
It’s a reflex gone wrong, the fight-or-flight instinct that Sensei drilled into him playing up at the worst time, and Ed doesn’t even realise the Cretan soldier is dead until it’s too late. For a few seconds, he stares at the dead body in the typical green of Cretan military fatigues, before he shakes himself out of it.
He has a mission to complete.
Afterwards, when Ed has transmuted the train tracks into an unrecognisable mess and returned to give his report to the colonel, he sits on his bed and he thinks. This is what he signed up for when he took the State Alchemist Examinations. He walked into that hall with no illusions as to what it would mean to be a combat-focused alchemist under military command and he did it anyway, because—
Because of Al.
Al, who is in a coma in a hospital in Central, whose medical care is being paid for by Edward’s missions for the military. Blood money. Al would be disgusted if he knew.
Edward sighs and flops backwards on his bed. What bothers him the most, he thinks, isn’t the fact that he killed, isn’t that he used alchemy to do it – it’s that he can’t remember the soldier’s face.
It’s just a—blank.
“Major Elric, sir!”
Edward blinks himself back to reality and takes in the appearance of the soldier stood at attention in the doorway to his room. “Can I help you, Lieutenant?”
“The colonel wants you back in his office, sir,” the soldier says. “Something about an inconsistency in your report.”
Edward sighs. “I’ll be there in five.”
He checks his appearance once, running his eyes over his loose clothes – not a military uniform, because they deal primarily in guerrilla warfare here, and the objective is to not draw attention to themselves – and checking for any noticeable bloodstains. He came straight from the target to the train station to the dorms, but it seems he’s come off lightly this time.
Presentable enough, he decides and trudges out of his room to find the colonel.
This is how the military works. Death is an everyday occurrence. Life goes on.
--
There are worse places to serve than Western HQ, Ed reflects. The war with Creta is rather subdued, so far as combat goes. It’s not so much about open hostility as it is about sabotage and subtlety – dishonest, maybe, but it’s the kind of fight that Edward managed to survive in for over a year without taking a life.
Doubtlessly that’s the reason he was assigned here in the first place. No-one wants the negative publicity that would come from sending a twelve year-old to the frontlines, but Ed’s combat potential was too great to ignore.
“Yes, I am taking care of my automail,” Ed says for what feels like the fiftieth time. “No, there isn’t going to be a repeat of the incident in Pendleton. Yes, I am eating enough. No, you can’t come visit.”
Ed ignores the sniggers from the other soldiers in the area (“I can’t believe Fullmetal has a girlfriend and I don’t. He’s, what, twelve?”) and tightens his grip on the phone. Winry’s words are rapid-fire to the point where it takes a phenomenal amount of effort for Ed’s sleep-deprived mind to decipher their meaning.
He sighs, feeling the weight of each one of his fourteen months’ service as he tries to form an explanation for Winry.
“I’m stationed at Western HQ, Win,” he eventually settles on saying. “Things aren’t so great with Creta at the moment. It’s pretty dangerous.”
Latest intelligence reports suggest that the next targets are going to be West City’s transportation links with the rest of Amestris. Any train into the city could be the one that’s destroyed and Ed is not letting Winry get caught up in that.
That information is classified, though. Ed can’t tell her it and he definitely can’t tell her it over the phone, so his warning just comes across as condescension.
She doesn’t take that so well. “Well then what the hell are you doing there, Ed?” Winry shoots back. “Can’t you request a transfer?”
Ah, this old argument.
Ed sighs. “We’ve been over this,” he says. “Southern HQ and Central don’t have any openings, Northern HQ deals primarily with Drachma, and heading back east isn’t an option unless I want to end up on the frontlines in Ishval.”
It’s then that Winry goes very, very quiet.
“Winry?”
There’s the sound of her taking in a deep breath. “Mum and Dad are thinking of going to Ishval,” she says. “They say that with the war heating up, the military’s going to start needing more competent doctors.”
Ed thuds his head back against the wall behind him. “Winry,” he says uselessly.
“I’m scared, Ed,” she admits. “I’m scared that they’re not going to come back and I’m scared that you aren’t either.” She inhales again. “So you better stay alive, you hear me? No matter what you have to do, you stay alive, got it?”
A gun in his face, don’t think, just act, hands together, transmute, move, move, move—
Blood.
“Got it,” Ed says weakly.
“And call me when you can.”
“Got it.”
“And drink your milk.”
“Got i—you little scumbag!”
The sound of Winry laughing down the phone follows Edward for the rest of the night and carries him over into a fitful sleep.
No matter what you have to do. If only she knew.
--
Life in West City drags by.
As he grows, Ed spends less and less time back at the command centre and more and more time out in the field. He blows up warehouses and he wrecks supply lines and he hits and he runs. His days are charged by adrenaline and his nights by cold, irregular slumber.
Once a year, he gets on a train and heads for Central to personally deliver his annual assessment report and, once a year, he stops by the hospital where Al is. For as long as he can bring himself to, he sits by his brother’s unconscious body and he waits.
Nothing ever comes out of it.
It’s during these visits to Central that Winry stops by to check on his automail. She fusses over the circuits and reams into him for not keeping up with his maintenance, then charges him an exorbitant sum for the pleasure. She’s growing up too, but not in the same way as him. Better.
Good, he thinks, as he flexes his newly upgraded automail for the first time. She deserves that.
Sometimes Ed thinks he will spend the rest of his life in the same way, slowly adding to his body count and bank account in equal measure, until he finally screws up enough that a clap of his hands will not buy him an escape. This is the rhythm that Edward has chosen for his existence, though, and he will not complain about self-made suffering.
Before he knows it, he is fifteen years old – one year off the minimum age of enlistment in the military – and he has wasted a fifth of his life fighting a meaningless war. Is everything so ultimately pointless, he wonders, fists clenching as his mind turns to Al, unmoving and slowly crumbling away in a bed miles away.
His fingers unclench, skate downwards over his left leg, his automail leg. The prosthetic that gave him his moniker. Maybe it should define him, he thinks. Maybe he should anger over the loss of his limb. Maybe, he should be bitter and aggressive and volatile, but—
All he is, is empty.
That night, he dreams that the metal from his left leg is creeping up his body, slowly and unfeelingly taking over, until it reaches his chest. His breath leaves him in a gust as he wakes, hands patting himself down, checking he still has his flesh body.
Then he laughs. More machine than human, he thinks, and it stings of the truth.
--
[step into my parlour, little al-che-mist, a whisper in his ear. we’ll make a cynic out of you yet.]
--
After Ed passed the State Alchemist Examinations at the young age of twelve, he was given the option of taking on a research placement or entering the field. He had looked the office clerk in front of him down with a strong gaze and flatly asked which paid better.
Danger pay, it turned out, was a real thing.
So he had accepted the blue uniform that was placed in his arms, packed up what limited belongings he couldn’t survive without, and shipped himself off to West City to serve under General Kuester.
Kuester took one look at Edward Elric, standing to attention in his ill-fitting uniform, snorted derisively, and fobbed him off onto Colonel Hoover.
Ed and the colonel have a working relationship, nothing more. Hoover appreciates that Edward can get the job done with minimal fuss and minimal casualties on their side, and Edward appreciates that Hoover is the one who decides whether or not he’s worth the money he’s paid.
Ed doesn’t trust the colonel, per se, but he can predict his moves and that’s almost as good.
“Fullmetal,” Hoover greets without any warmth. “Good job on the mission in Fafaus. You saved a lot of lives.”
I ended a lot of them, too, Ed thinks, but does not say. He’s too young to be jaded – that’s how the saying goes, right?
“Thank you, sir,” he says instead.
Hoover puts a sheet of paper in Ed’s hands – paper orders, which is odd, because they rely typically on word of mouth here in the west. Ed scans his eyes down the words on the page and freezes.
“You’re being recalled to Central,” Hoover explains. He sighs. “Much as executive poaching pisses me off, there’s not much I can do about it. Order came from up top.”
“I thought Central was pretty much the only place in Amestris that wasn’t short-staffed,” Ed replies, voice slightly strangled.
Hoover shrugs. “The conflict in Ishval has led to a lot of reassignments,” he says. “Word of advice, Fullmetal: Central’s different to West City. More traditional. I know that you’re typically a plain-clothes officer, but I’d suggest you to dig out your uniform. Maybe alchemy it so that it fits you this time.”
Ed feels his eyebrow twitch. “Are you saying I’m short, sir?” he grits out.
“Not at all, Major,” Hoover says smoothly.
“And the verb is transmute,” Ed adds with a sneer.
Hoover’s returning look tells Ed just how little he cares. “Dismissed, Fullmetal.”
Ed gives him a sloppy salute on his way out and revels in the way that it makes Hoover sigh as if Ed’s very existence is shaving precious years off his life. It’s a point of pride for Ed that Hoover has nearly forty percent more grey hair than he did three years ago, despite being only thirty-nine.
Out in the hallway, Ed exhales. He looks down at the paper orders in his hand and he just thinks. Central’s not too bad, really, even if Ed is only going to be there a few days at most, but he has a bad feeling about all of this.
Under the authority of Executive Order 3066, Ed reads again, Major Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, is hereby ordered to return to Central City for reassignment.
He scrubs a hand down his face. What is this all about?
--
“You ever been to Ishval, Fullmetal?”
Ed looks up from his hands and tries to ignore the way that they’re shaking. It has nothing to do with the poor suspension on this vehicle, but no-one needs to know that. “No,” he says, “but I grew up in the east, so.”
“No kidding, me too,” Second Lieutenant Verra says. She turns the car slightly so that they’re not driving straight into the sun. “Where you from?”
Ed doesn’t want to think about this, doesn’t want to think about anything from before he became a soldier, but he answers her all the same. “Resembool.”
“Huh,” Verra says. “Normally we’d be routed through there, but Command’s trying to keep the State Alchemists split up – make it harder to wipe you all out, you know?”
“Yeah,” Ed says, throat dry.
“You going to be okay with your automail, by the way?”
Are all officers outside of West City this chatty? Have Ed and his antisocial tendencies been spoiled by the don’t-both-me-don’t-bother-you attitude of Western HQ?
“I’ll be fine,” he answers. “They make this special cold-resistant automail up in Briggs, but it’s more extreme-temperatures-resistant. The military sent some stuff down for my mechanic and she put a new leg together for me. Should be able to deal with the heat.”
It makes him sick, really, that the military involved Winry in this. She’s listed on all of his forms, because being a State Alchemist means that the military pay for his automail upkeep as part of his medical care, but—
Damnit, getting off a train at Central Station to be greeted by Winry and an armed escort was not how he wanted his week to start out.
Nothing about this week has gone as planned, though.
A long time ago, in Resembool, back before—a long time ago, the first rumours of Edward’s ability to transmute without a physical circle had just begun to spread. A military recruiter showed up on their doorstep, ready with a pitch about the perks of selling one’s soul to the military.
“Why did you even let him in?” Ed asked that night, after he had helped Mum put Al to bed. “I don’t want to join the military.”
Mum sighed. “And I don’t want you to be a soldier,” she agreed, “but it’s a good opportunity for you to further your alchemy studies.”
Ed snorted. “As if they could teach me anything.”
“Edward,” she sighed again. “We’ve had this conversation before. Just because someone’s not as smart as you doesn’t mean that you can’t learn anything from them.”
He crossed his arms and scowled. “They couldn’t teach me anything I would want to learn,” he corrected.
They didn’t hear pleasant things about the military in Resembool. They were too close to the border with the desert, too close to Ishval, not to hear the whispered horrors about the growing war. It will be bloody, mark my words, Ed had overheard a woman at the market tell his mother, and we all know that that blood will not be the military’s.
“Not all soldiers see the front lines,” Mum said, a touch uselessly. “Not all State Alchemists even serve in the field.”
Ed shook his head. “It’s war in Ishval, Mum,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”
Mum did not live long enough to see the truth in Edward’s words. She didn’t live long enough to see him throw away his principles, either, though, so there’s that.
“Fullmetal?”
Ed opens his eyes. He rubs at his face roughly, shifting into a more upright position in his seat. “Lieutenant Verra?”
Verra stares out through the windshield. “We’re here.”
Executive Order 3066: any combat-oriented State Alchemist is to be deployed to the frontlines in Ishval in the hopes of bringing this war to a swift close.
It is 1908. It has been seven years since that conversation with Mum, seven years and Ed can’t even recognise his life now as a product of his life then.
“Thanks for the ride,” Ed mutters. Then, he kicks open the door of the car, pulls on his white coat, and goes to war.
--
[soon. it’s the first thing he ever hears the voice say. soon, little al-che-mist.]
--
Ed hates Ishval from the very moment he steps out of the Lieutenant Verra’s car into the blinding sun. It’s a barren, thankless land crafted from ruins and sand. Privately, Ed wonders why the hell anyone would want to fight over it.
It’s hard not to notice the stares that follow him as he walks through the camp to command’s tent. He supposes he does look rather out of place – a short fifteen year-old in full uniform – but the guards outside the tent let him through after he flashes them his pocket watch.
“Fullmetal Alchemist reporting for duty, sir,” Edward says, saluting crisply once he’s inside. It’s cooler inside the tent, but only marginally so, and Ed feels a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck.
“Ah,” the general says. “Fullmetal. You’re assigned to the Sero District.”
Ed waits for further orders and when none come, asks, “Sir?”
“The Sero District, Fullmetal,” the general repeats. “It’s south of Daliha. I’m sure one of the lieutenants would be happy to point you in the correct direction.”
That is not the clarification he wanted. “And I’m meant to… meet up with a command centre there?”
“What?” The general blinks. “No, we don’t have any centres that far into enemy territory.”
“So what are my orders?” Ed asks, more than a bit lost.
The general stares at him like he’s the one not making any sense. “You’re assigned to Sero District,” he repeats.
Ed wants to slam his head against something. “And what, pray tell, am I doing there?”
A dead stare.
Ed gulps. “Sir?” he tacks on, more than a moment too late.
“I thought I was being perfectly clear, Fullmetal,” the general says, words tight, “but allow me to spell it out for you if it is still too complex. You have been assigned to the Sero District. Cleanse it.”
Cleanse… they can’t mean—
“Leave no-one alive, Fullmetal.”
--
[soon, the voice cackles, soon, soon, soon, it’s coming, little al-che-mist, coming, coming, coming! soon you will see! open your eyes, little al-che-mist. soon!]