Archive of Our Own ^beta

Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, was having a reasonable day.

It was not a great day, but as a whole he was satisfied with it. His phantom pain was minimal and his automail was functioning nicely, both arm and leg. Al was out wandering Central with Mei, once again taking the time to marvel at having his body back and immersing himself in everything.

So yes, Ed was satisfied. 

At least until the entire day (and the foreseeable future) went to shit.

Between one blink and the next, Ed was f a  l    l      i        n          g    and then he jerked up, as if waking abruptly from the verge of sleep. He stalled for a moment in confusion, before his eyes landed on the figure in front of him.

“Truth,” Ed growled, eyeing the featureless humanoid, who stood in the howling void of the Gate Realm. “… What are you wearing?”

The question was well warranted. In the past, Ed had only ever seen Truth as a void of static. Of nothing and everything. At times, It had worn Ed’s limbs, taunting him with them, waving at him with his own hand. But this time around, Truth had decided to dress Itself in a floral patterned shirt, a straw hat, and sandals. It also held the handle of a suitcase decorated in the same manner. 

Truth grinned, It’s uncanny smile stretching much farther over It’s face than would be possible on a human.

“I’m going on vacation. Watch the Balance while I’m gone and try not to destroy the world!”

Truth vanished, taking It’s stupid floral patterned shirt and suitcase with it. 

Then the world o v  e    r      l        o            a                  d                           e                                     d.

everything everything everything

ē̴̻̘̹͊̐͐̍̈ ̵̛͈͌̇͠v̵̥̫̞̥̮̖̑̀̄̎́̚ͅ ̶̭͉͇̖͙͉̯̥̳̂͆ͅe̵̛̼̻̗̺̥͍̔͗̋͑̃́̓͠ ̸̡̻̆̀̂͆̏͂̽͠ṟ̵̙̘̈́͐̔͋̈̌̇̐̇̍ ̶͖͙̘̹̙͚͕͂̊y̴̧͚̖̻͈͋̎͌̅ ̴̦̠̬͔́̑̋͗͂̈́͜t̸̨͙̠̞̝͉̟͈͐̿́̔̓̕̚ͅ ̴̛̺͆̇̓̒̔̀ͅͅh̸̢͕̱͛͋̏̀̈́̇͘ ̶̢͚̞͚̆̍̽͘I̸̥͌͂͆͒̃͘͘͘̕ͅ ̶̡̡̭͖̭̏̆̏͒̈́̾̄̆n̸̪̱̠͕̎̃̚͜͝ ̶̢̦̻̣̖̰͎̮̍̋͂̋̊̅̔̓ͅĝ̴̡̱̠͍̩͈̣̏̓̿͊̃

Ed blacked out.

Ed woke up with the god of all headaches. 

“Fuck,” Ed muttered, clutching his head. “What the fuck happened?”

He felt like he’d just had the knowledge of the entire universe wired directly into his brain. As it turned out… that was exactly what’d happened.

Ed just… knew. 

Ed blinked. He Knew. He knew Everything. 

“Motherfucker,” Ed growled, and his voice echoed with the cadence of thousands. He looked at his hands, only to find them faded slightly, colors muted underneath a Presence made of static and the Negative.

Like Truth’s.

Because… Ed was now the Truth.

“FUCKING TAKE IT BACK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!” Ed (and also Truth) roared into the howling abyss. 

But he Knew it was useless. Just like he Knew why the Truth had decided to do this. Truth (and also Ed, but not) had decided to take a vacation, and for some unfathomable reason (that was also fathomable, Truth even had a list), It had decided that Ed would make a good substitute. 

The Universe, the World, All, One, Truth and sometimes God now had a temporary holder: Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist.

And Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and Alchemist of the People now held a temporary title: God.

He swore, and the Void did so with him.

Ed stewed angrily in the Gate Realm for several minutes and an eternity. 

He was still Ed, that was undoubtable, but he was also just… taking over Truth’s position for the interim. Upholding the Balance and the Laws of Equivalent Exchange. Like you do when God decides to drop the responsibility of the Universe on you. The fucker. 

Ed inhaled. 

Right, time to make his Great Escape™.

With a little tugging, shouting, convincing and pleading, Ed figured out how to pry open his Gate. Casting a middle finger behind him at the howling void, the Fullmetal Alchemist (and also Truth) strode through the Portal. The trip back to the Material Realm was surprisingly pain free (considering his other experiences with it) and the little shadow hands seemed more inclined to play with Ed. They nudged him and giggled in hissing whispers, playing in his white void static that opposed the abyssal black surrounding them.

It was decidedly weird.

He was f a  l     l         i                       n                            g.

Ed jerked forward, gasping as he slammed into the Material Realm at terminal velocity. He cast an adrenaline fueled, flickering gaze around him, only to find himself in the living room of his and Al’s apartment in Central, as if he had never even left. 

Ed jerked his eyes to his hands, turning them over and inspecting them critically. 

There was no buzzing static or void white. Just black sleeves and two hands, one of bronzed human skin and the other matte chrome gunmetal that clinked softly as Ed rotated his fingers. He wondered how long he’d been gone, and was ecstatic to find that he didn’t know.

He knew how to Know it, he could feel the towering wall that was the Truth sitting just out of reach, held back by his Gate. 

It hurt to have the Knowledge of Everything in Existence sitting in his head. And while he was a knowledge guru, having access to the Truth of Everything was honestly rather contradictory. As Truth, he Knew everything, but Truth didn’t discriminate between what was important to Ed and what was not. What was and wasn’t irrelevant. Truth was and Knew everything, so when Ed was the Truth, he in a sense, didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Completely agonzing. 

He jolted as he heard the front door creak, stumbling and then running over. He spotted Al coming in, dropping a bag by the door. Al, hearing Ed’s thundering footsteps, turned with a smile, opening his mouth to give a greeting. 

“Al!” Ed seized his brother by the shoulders. “How long was I gone?”

“Er…” Al blinked. “Well I was gone for, I think six hours?”

Ed scowled, hissing a curse under his breath. “Damn. I was only gone for five minutes. Bastard.”

“Did… did you make a bet with someone?” Al asked cautiously, peering at Ed as he tried to puzzle out Ed’s strange behavior.

“You know our favorite Bastard?” Ed said dryly, stepping back to release his hold on Al.

“You made a bet with Mustang?”

“What? No! I meant the other Bastard.”

“…Dad?”

“Why would I… No, Truth!”

Al furrowed his brows in confusion. “What does It have to do with this?” Ed’s brother paused slightly, then hissed angrily. “Edward Elric, did you make a deal with Truth?”

“More like a job offer. Except it wasn’t an offer so much as a ‘here do this while I screw off to Alpha Centauri’.”

“Edward. What. Did. You. Do.”

“Let’s sit down for this, shall we?”

A few minutes later, Al was nursing a cup of caffeinated tea, but had decided to forgo the tea part and transmuted the leaves so that he was drinking what amounted to pure caffeine. 

“Is that really healthy for you?” Ed asked, staring at the godless concoction in concern. 

“I can’t be sober for this,” Al said, steepling his fingers in front of his face. “Let me get this straight… Truth made you It’s substitute?”

“Yep.”

“And It, quote ‘plopped the job on your lap with no explanation before fucking off in floral printed pajamas’? ” 

“Pretty much.”

Al inhaled, exhaled, then pointed at his brother with his steepled hands. “How do you always get into these sorts of situations?” 

“Evidently… Truth has it out for me.”

A hop, a skip and a week later, Ed and Al found themselves meeting Mustang at Central Headquarters. 

In the past year since the coup, the pair of brothers had been helping chase after rogue State Alchemists. Most were those who remained loyal to the former Fuhrer, or felt stifled under the thorough internal investigations (now) General Mustang and Fuhrer Grumman were doing into ‘is this person a bloodthirsty maniac or not’. 

And, as the Alchemist(s) of the People and what amounted to national heroes, Mustang thought it was good for his credibility (and continued livelihood) to have Edward and Alphonse on his side. 

He wasn’t wrong.

Ed still thought the man was a bastard though. 

“I can’t believe you need us to chase down this guy,” Ed complained as he and Al followed Mustang down the hall. “Honestly, you think this guy could pose a threat enough to be an assassin? Really?”

“Loose ends mean a fraying rope, Fullmetal,” Mustang quoted.

“Yeah, right. You just need bodyguards don’t you? I mean… you are useless when wet.”

The General scoffed. “And for you I’d just need a giant magnet. And really, Fullmetal—,”

Ed rolled his eyes, mouth opening to counter…

He was f a  l     l         i                       n                            g.

Al blinked, staring at the suddenly empty space his brother had just occupied. 

One moment he was there, the next, nothing.

Al drew breath to call out for Ed, but faltered, remembering their conversation nearly a week prior. Truth, vacation. Ed, substitute. Al, in crisis. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed his brother… but this certainly made the reality of it much clearer. (And concerning).

“—and really Fullmetal, is that too much to… Fullmetal?”

Mustang turned around, eyes widening in surprise as he took in the single Elric brother that was now following him. The General narrowed his eyes, inspecting Al suspiciously. “Where did he go?”

“That is a very good question.”

Ed blinked.

He stared at the empty white void that now surrounded him (that, to some degree, now made him here). Except, it wasn’t so empty anymore.

Now, a towering gate stood sentinel in the blankness.

And, the figure of a man, standing in the void. 

The man looked around, confusion and fear working its way onto his weasel-like features. He looked vaguely familiar to Ed, but he couldn’t recall quite from where. The man stared at Ed, pupils dilating and breath quickening, terror filling his face.

“W-wha—” 

“What are you in for?” Ed said shortly, a little confused himself.

Oh, wait… he Knew.

“Ugh, hold up,” Ed held up a hand, coated in white-not-white static. “Are you telling me that you did human transmutation in order to make yourself taller? Seriously? You committed the ultimate alchemic taboo because you decided to gain a few inches?! To what, make yourself look nicer? You are an idiot.” 

Why the fuck didn’t I think of that, Ed grumbled.

“But… I didn’t say anything?” the man said hesitantly. “And what is this place? Who… who are you?”

Ed smirked, a wide grin stretching across his face. Oh, how the tables had turned.

“What is this place? It’s the In Between. Purgatory. Nowhere. Everywhere. Nothing. Everything. The place of Eternity.” Ed paused, then grinned. He could see why Truth had fun with this sometimes. “As for me? They call me many things. The Universe, the World, All, One, Truth and… your punishment.” 

The idiot balked. “But… but I just wanted to make myself taller, more handsome! How is that a crime?” 

Ed shrugged. “Read the Laws, buddy. It’s equivalent exchange. Nothing comes without a cost.” 

“But… who the hell are you to decide that?”

“Who am I? Bitch, I already told you who I thought I was,” Ed smirked. “I’m God.”

The man choked.

Ed rolled his eyes. “You know what? You’re honestly more pitiful than anything. Let’s see… hmm, you like your looks so much? How about I take your hair.”

The man’s hair started dissolving, fragmenting and peeling away and dissolving into dust. The man screamed, clutching at his head. “NO! MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR!!” 

Behind him, the Gate opened, shadow hands grasping, reaching out towards the human. Black shadows wrapped around him, pulling the man back, back, back towards the Gate. The man shrieked, reaching out towards where Ed sat. Leaving, Ed got a good look at his now balding head.

Motherfuc—

“—cking YOKI?!”

Ed’s screech echoed through the hall of Central Headquarters, and several military officers turned to him in mild surprise. Their surprise turned to mild panic as Ed turned his furious (and confused) gaze on them, and the officers stiffened, whipping themselves into a salute.

“S-SIR!” the nearest officer to Ed shrieked slightly. “We-we didn’t hear you come in! Colonel… er, General Mustang was looking for you!”

Ed scowled, and the officer gave a slight ‘eep’. “Settle down,” Ed grumbled. “Don’t salute me. Now where’s my brother and Colonel Bastard?”

“That’s General Bastard to you, Fullmetal.” 

Ed spun, curling his lip at the sight of Mustang. “Ah yes, the Bastard himself.”

“General, sir!” 

Mustang waved a hand at the officers. “At ease, nothing needed at the moment. Now,” he turned to Ed, narrowing his eyes, “mind telling me where you flitted off to, Fullmetal? ”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Flame Boy,” Ed smirked, then waved a hand. “Ran into a particularly hateful aquanteince, robbed him of his hair, you know how it goes.”

“Hmm, if he’s hated by you perhaps I should meet this man.”

Ed snorted. “I think you’d fry him first.”

After Ed’s misadventure with the nonlinear timestream in the Gate Realm, he managed to avoid getting pulled into the Gate for another few days. However, the times when the Gate decided to take him to Truth’s Domain were decidedly not optimal. 

Case in point? 

“Come on, he’s getting away!” Ed shouted, vaulting over a crate. 

“Well stop wasting your breath talking then!” Al countered, dodging around the obstacles as he chased Ed’s coattails. 

“Hypocrite!” 

Ed skidded around a corner, hand reaching out to grab the coat of their fleeing alchemist. His hand went through air, and for a moment, he thought he tripped. 

He was f a  l     l         i                       n                            g.

Ed opened his eyes into the howling white, inspecting the next alchemist that had come before him, and wondering what their sin had been.

He Knew. And he was furious .

“Where… where am I?” the alchemist asked, looking around. “Where’s the lab? And… who are you? Did you kidnap me? I’ll contact the director about this, he’ll have you hanged—,”

Ed laughed, his many layered voice echoing and consuming the void.

“You think the threats of your human superior mean anything to me? No, Merrick Abstergath—,” the alchemist in front of Ed jolted, “—you are in the Domain of Truth. I am All and I am One. I am the Universe and the Beyond. I am God and I am You.”

Ed smiled, and it was all teeth. A smile that stretched, stretched, s t r e t c h e d, and a Presence that gazed down with an infinity of eyes, Judging. “I am your victims. The children you murdered, who you saw fit to try and twist into a weapon of death. I am your Judge, Jury, and Executioner.”

“Tell me the name of your god!” the alchemist shrieked, clawing his hands and bearing gloves with alchemic circles stitched into them. “I’ll make you pray to them on your knees! No one gets away with speaking to me like that!”

“I am the Truth,” Ed as the Truth, and the Truth as Ed snarled. “The Truth of your decisions, the Consequences of your actions. You want to play god so bad, puppet the fates of people? Well, puppetmaster, consider this your strings cut.”

The alchemist shrieked as both of his hands began to peel and dissolve, crumbling to dust. Ed as the Truth, the Truth as Ed opened the Gates, watching coldly as Merrick Abstergath was dragged into the abyss by hands of shadow.

The Gates closed with a bang, and Ed stared at them, a coldness that had nothing to do with his current physical form rippling through him.

“There isn’t enough to make up for you,” Ed whispered, a thousand times over, into the void.

“You lost him?” Riza asked, raising an eyebrow. “How? You were on top of him!”

“Er…” Alphonse sweated lightly, and Riza narrowed her eyes. He was hiding something.  “Well… you see… Ed had to take a bathroom break!”

Riza’s eyebrow arched higher. “A bathroom break.”

“Yep!”

“In the middle of a chase.”

Al shrugged. “It was very serious.”

“Really.”

There was the thud of footsteps, and Riza and Alphonse turned to see Edward emerging from a nearby alleyway, expression grim. “Ah, Edward,” Riza inspected the young man, trying to determine his thoughts. “Al tells me you lost our target.”

Edward blinked, furrowing his brows for a second before they smoothed, and he shrugged. Strange, it almost looked as though he were remembering that. “Ah… yeah, sorry,” Ed rubbed at the back of his neck. “He slipped through my fingers.”

Riza examined the alchemist. He looked… rather more worn than he had a few moments ago. Was he really that distressed about losing their catch? Perhaps that was why Alphonse was trying to deflect? He knew his brother was be feeling this guilty?

“It’s alright,” Riza assured, hoping to soothe Edward’s guilt. The poor teenager had enough as it was. “We’ll get him eventually. He’ll get his due.”

 “Yeah,” a dry smile crept its way over Edward’s face. “He will.”

The third time Ed was called to pass judgment as the Truth, he opened his eyes to the howling white void to see a woman.

A woman he recognized. 

Izumi Curtis.

Teacher.

Truth, you bastard, Ed growled, as he met his teacher’s gaze (though all she saw was white). 

“Where… where am I?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Where… where’s my baby?” Ed felt something strike his heart. She was young, far younger than he’d ever known her, looking to be in her mid twenties. 

“This is the Domain of the Truth,” Ed as Truth and Truth as Ed replied. “We are Nowhere and Everywhere and In Between. As for your child—,” Ed’s tongue tasted like ash, “—they are Beyond the Gate.”

Ed waved a hand towards the towering monolith that stood behind Teacher. She turned, gaping at the structure. Then she ran at it, slamming a fist into the Gate, and prying at it’s doors.

“Let me in!” she screamed, thundering her fists against it. “Give me my baby!”

Truth as Ed nodded to the Gate, and it opened, spindly hands of shadow drawing Izumi Curtis in. She went willingly, clawing her way towards the Eye, in search of a child thought to be on the other side. The Gate slammed shut with a BANG that reverberated through the abyss of white. 

For a second and an eternity, the void was silent. 

(Somewhere, some when , Ed cried and wailed at Truth for making him pass judgment upon his teacher. Somewhere, some when , Ed cradled the soul of her stillborn child and imbued all the love he could into the small life, thanking Truth for letting him be the one to oversee his family.)

Between one moment and the next, Izumi Curtis appeared. 

Her eyes were wide, and Ed could see the Truth of what she had learned, what she had seen dancing through them. 

Not all who passed through the Gate, who faced the Truth, saw the Truth. Some had a relatively minor exchange, so what they saw was few. Some faced an equivalent exchange that took more than what they had to give. Others were simply blind or were not looking for the Truth.

“Who… who are you?” Teacher asked, her voice a whisper.

“I am All and I am One,” Ed as Truth and Truth as Ed intoned, and Teacher’s eyes widened in recognition of the phrase. “I am the Universe, and I am You. I am the Truth. The Truth of your desire and the Truth you cannot face.”

Ed fell silent, watching his teacher. She breathed, in and out, hands clenching and unclenching into fists. 

“I can’t get my baby back, can I?” 

Her voice cracked, and something inside Ed did too. 

“What is the worth of a human life?” he asked instead, and the Truth took It’s payment.

The Gate slammed open, and shadowed hands pulled Izumi Curtis into their depths.

Several weeks passed and several times more did Ed as Truth judge those who would break the Law of Equivalent Exchange. Some were minor and some were not, and Ed found himself sympathizing with Truth’s need for a vacation.

He needed one and he’d only been at this for over a month.

However, the highlight of his tenure as Truth’s substitute had to be five weeks into one of the weirdest times in his life.

“Elrics, get down!” 

Ed and Al complied, hitting the deck as Hawkeye fired over their heads. Gunshots rang in Ed’s ears and he clapped his hands, pressing his palms into the ground. Stone surged upwards and towards his target, spikes bearing down. Red flashed, and his attack crumbled into dust.

The Fullmetal Alchemist glared across the field, where a pair of former State Alchemists, one of the rogues they had been pursuing, stood unharmed. Officially, they were known as the Boiling Alchemist and the Breaking Alchemist. Unofficially, they were known as the Bloody Brothers.

Why? 

Well, during their tenure in Ishaval, the pair had a tendency for leaving a trail of corpses, broken beyond recognition and blood boiled in their veins. They hadn’t taken kindly to having their methods or motives examined, nor the consideration of a prison sentence.

Even worse, they had gotten their hands on one of the Philosopher's Stones from Lab 5. 

“Al, on your left!” 

Ed’s brother followed his command, dodging right as one of their targets sent a rippling wave of cracked earth towards him. Hawkeye sent a few shots in the direction of the attacker, but a dense cloud of steam rose up, separating the two sides. 

Ed swore, glancing at Mustang who stood behind them with Riza and some of his unit. “Too bad we have a flame alchemist that is useless when wet!” Ed hissed. (Indeed, Mustang was standing at the sidelines after getting soaked, like the useless Bastard he was.)

Mustang ignored Ed’s counters, instead squinting through the mist, muttering obscenities. “Fuck, they’re getting away! Come on!” 

With that, the Elric brothers chased the Bloody Brothers, ducking through the alleyways of Central. “Where are they going?” Al panted, keeping stride with Ed. “At this rate they’re gonna corner themselves!”

Indeed, there were no good escape routes this way, nor strategic advantages. It was the wrong direction for the river or sewer access (which would have given Boiling a ready source of ammo). And while the Bloody Brothers were thugs and murderers, they weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t head into an area devoid of strategic locations unless they had a plan.

Fuck.

Several minutes of tearing through alleyways later as they chased after the alchemists, Ed, Al and the Mustang crew stumbled into an open parkland. 

No… not a parkland, Ed realized as he saw the rows of assorted stone slabs. A graveyard. 

“NO!” Ed screamed, realizing what the pair were about to do, but it was too late. Red lightning crackled through the air, and the Bloody Brothers tried to resurrect the dead. 

Al, Mustang, Riza and the rest of Mustang’s unit looked on in horror. Not because they thought it would work, but because the rebound from such a scale… well not even a Philosopher’s Stone could absorb all of that.

Ed felt a spike of pain lance through his skull, and he felt the Gate, the Truth, tugging at him.

Ed slammed it aside, because yeah he fucking knew already!!

Looking upon the pair of alchemists, red lightning twisting and flickering across the graveyard as they pulled the dead from the earth, Ed felt fury bubble up in his chest. Why did people (including himself) always try to play God with alchemy? Father, the Dwarf in the Flask, it had shown the cost of doing so!

Hell, Ed was unwillingly stuck as God’s substitute, and he could tell you: it fucking wasn’t worth it!

“That’s it,” Ed growled, and a thread of an echo reverberated in it. Al and the Mustang crew glanced over at him, eyes wide. “You know what? I’m done. You want to mess with the Law of Equivalent Exchange? You want to try and counter the Gate? Fucking fine .”

If they wanted the Gate. He’d give them the Gate. 

He’d bring the Gate to them.

Ed pulled on the Truth in his mind, and he felt his eyes flicker with white static. Someone gasped, but Ed as Truth ignored it. He had a job to do, and he was going to fucking do it . Ed held out a hand, searched, and then pulled. 

With a cry that screeched of the Abyss, of the Eldritch and Things of the Beyond, the air of the Material Realm split . A crack tore through the fabric of reality, rippling outwards to form into a towering monolith. The Gate of Truth. It faced Ed, gazing down at the one who had called It, with the Bloody Brothers stuck between. With a CRACK that rumbled like thunder, the Gate opened, revealing an abyss so dark it held Nothing. 

And then, the Eye unfurled, a piercing stare that Judged You and Found You Wanting.

In the graveyard, the Bloody Brothers stared up at the Gate, at its Eye, in shock and horror. Shadowy hands unfurled from it’s darkness, ensnaring the pair of alchemists in coils of the Abyss. They screamed, kicking back as the shadows consumed them, and the Gate shut with a BANG.

The air was deathly still.

“Well, I know what I’m going to be seeing in my nightmares,” Havoc muttered, his cigarette falling from his lips.

“Fullmetal,” Mustang said sweetly, but Ed caught an undercurrent of terror in it. Mustang had seen the Gate, he knew what it meant. He knew what oversaw it. “Mind telling me what that was?”

Ed shrugged, rubbing his neck with one hand. 

“Oh yeah, I’m substituting for God.”

A week after the Incident, or ‘Ed Gives Everyone Nightmares’ event, as it would come to be called, Ed stared down Truth in a howling white void as It took back It’s position.

“Motherfucker,” Ed snarled. “Never do that again.”

Truth brought a hand to It’s mouth, in a gesture that looked to be imitating ‘scandalous’. “Gasp, why ~ Li-ttle Al-che-mist ~ , I thought you’d have more sympathy for me! Walking in my shoes and all.”

“You are a bastard and I hate you,” Ed said flatly. “Never saddle me with your shit again. Now, send me back.”

Truth shrugged, but the white void dissolved.

Ed woke up, God-hood free.

A year later, Ed woke up in a howling white void with a sing-songed call echoing in his ears.

“I’m cashing in this year’s vacation days! See you in a week, ~ Li-ttle Truth ~ !” 

Ed’s howls drowned out that of the Void's.

I did a doodle for this too, so have Ed as Truth: