Equivalent Exchange, Unequal Realities

The air in Central Command's research annex wasn't quite right.

Even after the Promised Day, even with the Butcher of Ishval gone and the Homunculi scattered or destroyed, a psychic residue clung to certain places. Edward Elric felt it keenly—a prickle on his skin that was more than dust kicked up by reconstruction outside. He knelt on a massive transmutation circle scrawled across reinforced concrete—a temporary measure in a building still bearing the scars of Wrath's fury.

Around him lay sophisticated arrays of equipment: alembics filled with strange compounds, humming static generators wired into polished metal conductors. Classical alchemy met emergent physics in a desperate, hopeful embrace.

His goal was audacious, perhaps arrogant: to seal the Gate of Truth itself. The terrifying, sublime doorway to universal knowledge remained, a scar across reality. Edward had seen its endless doors, its hundred-eyed guardian, the void beyond. He knew its power—and its indifference.

With Father gone, the primary mechanism for forced human transmutation was broken, but the Gate remained, dormant and dangerous. And where possibility existed, sacrifice lurked.

Edward's research had led him beyond the limits of alchemy, into the underpinnings of Equivalent Exchange itself. He now theorized that the Gate wasn't merely a spiritual or alchemical construct, but an interface—a membrane between his world and a vast, unstable something beyond. His aim was to stabilize that barrier, sealing the Gate permanently. No more human transmutations. No more Father-like entities.

A final act of defiance against the cosmic rules he had wrestled with for so long.

Alchemy had been taken from him once, but knowledge never stayed buried. Through a fusion of classical understanding and new scientific frameworks, he'd built a way back—not to the old power, but something new, something earned. Now he prepared to use it for his boldest experiment.

He clasped his hands, feeling the familiar spark of energy flow through him, amplified by the generators humming around the circle. No need for clapping anymore, but this was a different scale.

Alchemy bent the world through understanding its patterns. Physics manipulated it through material laws. This was their synthesis.

The circle pulsed with light, then thrummed. Not the warm gold of successful transmutation, but a cold, blue-white intensity that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. The air grew heavy, charged with an alien energy that felt sharp, wrong.

He frowned. The calculations had been precise. This wasn't a controlled reaction.

A presence rippled through the circle—not the Gate's familiar hum, but something viscous and corrosive. Conflicting emotions, impossible colors, a laughter that echoed in his skull without sound.

The Gate fragment.

He had theorized that remnants of forced openings might linger—anchors in this reality. He intended to use one, a residual echo of Father's monstrous Gate, as a focal point for the sealing.

He had believed the echo inert—a scar, not a wound.

He was wrong.

The fragment flared, vulnerable and destabilized by his ritual. And in that moment, another force slipped through: a subtle bleed he had mistaken for background static became a flood—a key turning in an unseen lock.

A scream ripped through the annex—not Edward's, but from space itself. The light intensified. The air roared with impossible energy. Edward felt himself stretched thin, as if pulled inside out.

The circle fractured. Equipment sparked and died.

He was no longer in the annex.

---

He was falling.

Through a realm of impossibly vibrant, clashing colors—swirling vortexes of magenta and viridian, screaming orange and nauseating purple. Shapes formed and dissolved faster than thought—impossible geometry, predatory eyes, fragmented awareness older than time.

This wasn't the ordered void behind the Gate of Truth. This was something else.

The Warp.

His ritual had torn a pinhole into a realm where thought shaped matter and chaos knew no bounds. The subtle bleed had been a whisper; now he heard the full-throated scream.

A presence coalesced around him—vast, terrible. Consciousness rippled with endless schemes, cruel amusement, and intricate designs. Threads of fate glittered and snapped toward him, seeking to unravel his soul.

Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate, saw a new toy.

Edward felt a primal terror beyond anything he had known. Facing Father had been terrifying, but this… this was the raw face of cosmic horror.

Then—a different presence.

Vast. Ancient. An iron will that cut through the chaos like a blade. No form, but immense power, protection, and weary responsibility. A golden light flared—not physical, but spiritual—a shield of unwavering presence intercepting the threads of fate.

Tzeentch's laughter faltered, replaced by frustrated, hissing retreat.

Far above the Warp's grinding chaos, a golden mind stirred. The Emperor of Mankind, bound to the Golden Throne, had sensed the incursion—and a soul he could not ignore.

He saw a threat—and potential.

Edward felt the warmth of that presence guiding him away from the precipice, shielding him as the chaotic tides receded.

He fell further, the screaming silence fading.

He hit something hard.

---

Pain lanced through him. He lay gasping, tasting dust and metal. The Warp's alien energy was gone, replaced by a different weight—an oppressive atmosphere thick with heat, ozone, and the acrid tang of industry.

He forced his eyes open against a dull, red light. The sky was not blue, but a perpetual crimson haze. Colossal structures of metal and ceramite towered above, scraping the rust-colored sky. Plumes of dark smoke mingled with the air.

This was no battlefield, no void—this was an engine-world.

Forge World, Edward thought, instinctively grasping that this was not Amestris, nor any place touched by alchemy.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps approached, accompanied by clicks and whirs.

Figures emerged—tall forms in crimson robes, moving with mechanical precision. Faces hidden behind masks or replaced with gleaming metal prosthetics. Augmetic limbs gleamed. Optical sensors glowed coldly.

They marched in unison.

One knelt beside him, jointed limbs clicking. A red-lensed eye peered down without warmth or curiosity. It lifted a metallic hand to prod him with a multi-tool.

"Query: organic anomaly detected. Unidentified energy trace. Subject exhibits non-standard biological configuration. Designate: xenos-classification? Heretek?"

The voice buzzed in a language he barely recognized, Binary cant—a series of clicks and hums from its vocalizer.

Containment protocols initiated. A servo-claw snapped into place beside Edward's head.

He tried to speak—to demand Equivalent Exchange for this nightmare—but the air burned his lungs. Exhaustion dragged him down. He caught glimpses of cold mechanical eyes, of darkened skies and shrieking factories.

This was not the aftermath of Father's humanism gone mad.

This was a different world entirely. A colossal, indifferent machine where dogma replaced understanding, and the flow of souls meant nothing.

His consciousness flickered. The last thing he saw before succumbing was the crimson sky of this Forge World—a brutal contrast to the hopeful blue he had left behind.

He, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, had sought to seal a door—and had instead fallen through creation itself, landing in a reality where Equivalent Exchange meant nothing, and the clash had only begun.