Disclaimer: Nor mine.

To: RandomCitizen

IMPORTANT AN: This fic is placed in the FMA world. DP characters born in said universe are not the real ones; just people who look the same with the same names —the movie used the same logic... Now, if the FMA are OOC, then that IS my bad. ENJOY!

Chapter 0: Green Eyes

Water. The element most of the human body is build of. The most basic source of life. Without water, everything, the world itself, would wither painfully and slowly.

It is a fact that all living creatures depend of water… and yet, it is also a fact that water can be a theat.

Even if its cheered on after the first rain after the unmerciful dry season.

The last day of the dry season on the town of Amestris an old cart loudly made its way to one of the many little towns littered around the roads to the capital. The cart was old, and rattled as the worn out wheels threatened to fall off each time the exhausted horse gave a tired step forward on the dirt road peppered with rocks.

"Are we there yet?" asked the passenger of the cart to nobody in particular as he slouched on the uncomfortable seat in the inside. A fat drop of sweat formed somewhere bellow the messy bangs of the short blond, rolling all the way down his pale skin and vanishing half-way into the braid.

The whole trip had been hell. The scorching heat made him felt like he was in an oven, and even the sundown enhanced that feeling by turning the sky the vibrant red-orange of fire.

Not even the nights were remotely fresh.

And, to make things worse for the young man, his left leg and his right arm were artificial limbs entirely made of metal; which, of course, greedily took as much heat as they could, making it possible to fry the meat and flesh that came in contact with.

Understandingly angry, the young asked for the hundredth time in the last hour. "Are we there yet?"

A weirdly echo-y snigger followed the petty whine. "You sound like a kid, Ed."

Still in his slouch, Ed looked up to the source of the noise: a huge armor which highly contrasted with the childish voice coming from within. The blond stared his sole fellow passenger and soon a vein popped in his forehead because of the irritation.

"Like a kid! You just say that because you don't have to put up with the heat!" He complained and jumped, only evading hitting the roof with hit head because he was too short.

"Calm down, brother, you are just going to make yourself hotter!" The armor moved while moving his palms up in a gesture of surrender.

Conceeding that point, Eduard simply returned to his previous position, grumbling moodily under his breath.

A couple more of bumpy ride latter, a shrill yell pierced the air, and barely a second latter the two brothers jumped out of the cart and onto the dry grass that got shredded under the impact of leather boots and metal.

The place they had stopped at was a far cry of a proper town: most of the buildings were barely wooden huts with broken ceilings, the doors had long since fallen from their hinges and dirty, shredded sheets half-covered the view from the inside.

Barely taking in the view, the Elric brothers ran ahead between the debris of several buildings that had been toppled over by a way that was too violent to be natural. Soon enough, they made it to a nearby wood of which trees had given up the last of their leafs. What seemed to be all the people in the village had gathered around a circle drawn in blood.

"Hey, Al, can you see something?" the short of the two, Eduard Elric, asked his taller, younger brother since his weight didn't allow him to see beyond the sea of people and their ragged clothes.

"A transmutation circle. Ed, they are trying to do alchemy! What should we do?"

Not missing a beat, Eduard replied: "We watch… for now. We need to know what is going on."

Using his small frame to his advantage, Eduard crawled between the legs of the townspeople until he could see from where he crouched. A crazy-eyed man with bright orange rags. The huge body of the black-haired man was thick and looked fatter than his peers; but further examination led Ed to conclude it was an illusion. The man might have been four times wider than the rest, but it was solely because of his bone structure.

His speech went on.

"Tonight I come to you with good news! The research we have spent the last twenty years into have finally born fruit! Today is the day our suffering comes to an end!" The man made a suffering pause, memories of his lost family tormenting his soul: If Maddie had just resisted a bit longer… but no, she perished by the same disease and hunger that took Danny and Jazz.

Little murmurs were exchanged on the silence that followed, and Ed had to strain his ears to catch up bits of what was being said.

"Poor Jack; they stole his kids…"

"…Then his poor wife."

"So many loses…"

"The spirits…"

Once more the man, Jack, spoke; this time his voice quivered and broke several times as he continued his speech.

"People of Amity Town, this lands have always been put at the mercy of the spirits haunting our lands. Spirits have always been evil, albeit not very smart. However, we always knew… I always knew, it would come to this; therefore, I have found a way to bring them from their hidings so we can finally take them on!"

Eduard's thoughts raced at the bits of information he could fish from Jack's words. Overall, the man was not making sense. First of all, spirits didn't exist, and thus, there was no way they were the cause of the suffering of these people. Second, the "spell to another dimension" was a transmutation circle that was simply drawn wrong —The complex lines and numbers were arranged quite curiously, the outer circle held a stiff hexagon, and the text, numbers and little drawings were all arranged in a erratic spiral fashion all the way to the center to a much smaller circle.

The transmutation circle was nothing the likes of which he had seen, but, despite being only 14 years old, he knew enough about alchemy to know that the circle was too imprecise to call forth the results of any form of alchemy. And thus, he was fairly sure that it would do no harm. Now, if he only could pinpoint the source of that yell…

"Bring him!" Jack ordered, his blue eyes watching unmercifully to a thin, grey-haired man in his forties that struggled to be left free.

"Sorry, Vladdy, but you know why it must be done."

The imprisoned man trashed in the hold of two men wearing cracked sunglasses and what used to be pristine, white clothes.

"Jack, you are making a mistake! Opening the portal is a mistake!"

Seemingly out of nowhere, Jack took out a long gun and aimed to his best friend's throat. "Good bye, my friend."

What happened next was one of those moments that could only be appreciated if they had happened in slow motion. Eduard managed to skip forwards as the knife made it down; the hands of the people that had been drinking Jack's words like wine grabbed him and attempted to pull him back. It was within a second that Ed's right arm rose to intercept the attack, and the sound of metal against metal was deafening loud in the otherwise quiet atmosphere.

"What!" *PUNCH* The big man fell backwards on the bloody drawings, and Vlad's legs sagged and he fell down as Eduard punched Vlad's holder. The offending knife now was lying harmlessly on the ground, several meters away from the demented giant.

The crowd momentary stillness was broken, but they looked lost on what to do.

Infuriated with seeing how this people didn't seem willing to save one of their own, Ed snapped. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!" He yelled, "WHY DID YOU STAND THERE WHILE A MURDER WAS ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE?"

"Brother…" Al faintly called from behind the crowd. It had been a while since Eduard Elric had become the Fullmetal Alchemist, the youngest man to ever become an Estate Alchemist. It was also not the first time Ed had witnessed how despair enhances human stupidity… still, he was pretty sure he would never be able to stay calm in a world of fake prophets, corrupt government and pointless murder.

"You do not see it, do you?" Jack spoke as he stood up slowly, his hand moving side to side to clean the blood falling from his broken lip. "If we don't do this we are all going to perish. This is the last hope we have left!"

Seething in anger, Eduard yelled anew: "If you are all so miserable here, then why don't you leave?!"

The dead silence that followed that roared louder than any sound, and it was just then that he fully took in the faces in of the people watching him. Everyone in that place was too young, too old or too sick. There were no healthy men in sight, and he was certain that no means of transportation had been around in the town he had traveled.

"You don't know what you are talking about, kid. This is our last resort. One way or another we are going to die, at least this way we can say we tried it all."

It was then that the truth came down on him. These people had nowhere to go and no way of getting anywhere else. This people were trapped in a patch of land sandwiched between the desert and a dying forest filled with creatures as starved as they were.

Most of this people clearly didn't believe the man's spiel about spirits, but they seemed too far gone to care about another death than their own… and yet, they watched, prying for a miracle to come from the ramblings of a mad man.

"Listen, I can help you!" He tried to calm them all, "My name is Eduard Elric. I'm a State Alchemist—"

"Ha! As if we needed the help of the government." A purple-eyed female sneered from the crowd; she was young and part of her greasy, black hair was styled into a high ponytail. "You arrogant pricks have abandoned us for too long for us to believe your promises."

The Fullmetal Alchemist turned to reply to the girl —whose age was clearly around his— when the same yell from before came from behind him. Ed turned his head so fast he would probably suffer for whiplash latter realizing he had failed as the life fade from the eyes of the grey-haired man and fell down to the ground.

The moment Vlad died the circle was triggered… And Ed was standing into the circle as an encompassing white light blinded him.

The next thing he knew he was again in front of The Door.

The sheer unexpectedness of the development froze him onto the abnormally white world in which The Door was located. A wave of terror moved up and down his back as the heavy doors opened to reveal the milliard of eyes floating in the endless black void.

"Beautiful."

That simple word made Edward jump.

Edward wasn't alone.

The madman, Jack, had come along.

"Spirits," Jack began, knife clenched in between his knuckled with almost enough force to break the sheath. He dashed towards the door, trying to stab what the door showed him.

"Wait!" Edward tried to move and stop the man but his feet didn't move. His feet were glued to the endless white of the floor.

There was no stopping Jack.

The black-haired man was too consumed by his madness to notice Ed. Jack also lacked the knowledge of what was in front of him.

The black knife stabbed into the shadows and black mist floated for a second before wrapping itself around the knife. The mist thickened and moved slowly over Jack's hand, consuming more and more. Suddenly aware of the pull, Jack swung the knife into the inky hands that seemed to multiply like hydra's heads each time he cut one off.

It didn't take long for the bigger man to be wrapped in darkness all the way to his head. Hundreds of eyes popped into the blackness along with teeth-filled mouth that laughed with sadistic mirth.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU!" The man yelled and, puzzlingly, began to chant senseless words that seemed to echo in the nothingness.

Acting more out of instinct than anything else, Ed ran forwards to try to save Jack, grabbing him by the feet —which were the only part not covered by the blackness of the door.

"Let him go!" He demanded between greeted teeth, pulling him with so much effort his back was arching in a 45 degree angle, and his heel almost managed to dig in the whiteness under him. However, it was clear that he would soon have to let go of the man or fall along with him.

Another couple of black arms jumped out of the door and wrapped their fingers around Ed's elbows. He began to be pulled inside himself.

For a moment it seemed it was the end for the State Alchemist: black tendrils started moving on his skin like spilled ink. The voice of Jack could be heard chanting from inside the door, but Ed's mind was tuning it off. All he could think of was Al. His little brother who was out there, trapped in an armor, his body lost forever inside the door.

He had failed Alphonse.

But he had not been capable of stopping himself from trying to save another human being from the The Door, especially not since the memory of his brother's true face —the one he had not seen since he was a kid— flashed in place of the bulk of the older man as fright shone beyond his madness.

His life flashed in front of his eyes. His mother putting the white blankets to dry, Winry's smile, Al and him exchanging looks in front of a transmutation circle, the blood flowing out from where his right arm and his left leg used to be… his promise of getting back their boddies.

Edward was trashing. He will be dammed if he let everything end like this.

And then… as Jack was completely engulfed, Ed could feel a cold breeze coming from The Door. The unexpected wind came as the hands pulled him in, his face almost so close to the darkness that he was unable to see what was causing the pressure of his chest.

A the hungry black hands tried to bring him in, a single white one pushed him on the opposite direction. The pain the contradicting forces made upon him made him scream. He felt like all his limbs —normal and mechanic— were going to get ripped.

He was in so much pain that he didn't realize he was screaming.

The struggle between the two forces lasted mere instants; but to Ed it felt much longer. Fortunately for him, the white hand defeated the rest, and he was now completely free from any hold, but his mind was too jumbled and his body too sore for him to appreciate the help: he felt like a stone building had crashed on him.

The last thing Ed saw as his body shut down in agonized oblivion were eyes. He looked at them and they looked back at him from The Door. Those eyes. So many eyes. And amongst them, a single pair of neon green eyes shining amongst black ones.

…

"…rother… brother, wake up!" The familiar voice of Alphonse met his ears.

"Al?" He managed to reply through a hoarse throat as his unfocused golden eyes looked up to the familiar armor. Ed felt himself smile despite the pain.

He was back! Better yet, he was alive!

The warmth bubbly happiness in his chest almost made him laugh, and he would have laughed himself silly if all the long-forgotten townspeople had not yelled out in fright at the same time.

The subsequent burst of adrenaline gave Ed just enough strength to turn his head on the same direction Al's had tuned before yelping.

There was someone else sprawled on the floor. Someone, or rather something, had made it back along with him.

In the center of transmutation circle was what seemed to be a white haired boy with clothes so tight they could be mistaken as black skin over all up to his neck. What Ed instantly recognized as white gloves covered the thing's hands, and equal colored boots were placed on his feet. But the thing that stood out the most wasn't that, nor was the moonlight-like shine coming from the thing; no, what stood out the most were the eyes that were revealed as his eyelids moved up.

Those eyes.

Those Green eyes.

The eyes that had been looking at him from the door.

"SPIRIT!" The chaos ensued and everything became a blur of images and sounds. The townspeople ran like hell was upon them, the pain in Ed's body hit him tenfold as he tried to get up, and the creature —looking very tired and resigned— parted ways with the floor as it began flying up, then sideways, disappearing in the woods.

.

AN: Aaand, that's a wrap ladies and gentleman. Thanks for reading :D