One Man Takes as He Pleases

Ed, Al, and Trisha were thrust from a gray-skied nightmare in the face of a mad god and brought into a dense forest where the sounds of birds chirping met the soft sunlight which breached the leafy canopy. In their immediate vision, 3 stone obelisks with varying etchings were in the foreground and a village of wooden houses with thatched roofing to survive the heat could be seen in the distance. A pale people with consistent signs of sunburn and others with skin turning olive could be seen roaming through the village from one place to another.

One such pale person spotted the sudden arrivals and shouted to the tight nit community. "Strangers by the All Tree! Strangers by the All Tree!" he created a ruckus as murmurs broke out while most couldn't stand to not look at the guests who arrived near their most recent point of interest or worship.

The Elrics weakly investigated their surroundings and found three more stones with yet unknown purposes, and they had barely missed trampling a sprout that stood in the middle of the ring of stones. Truthfully, it was too sturdy for them to destroy easily.

A woman who had braided her hair along the side of her head and wore thin hides with armor in places where needed had advanced at the head of a villager welcome/investigation party. She saw the two children, bleeding into their barely bandaged arms while their mother had stepped in front of them and talked before anyone else.

"Please help my sons! They're bleeding too much!"

Frea looked down with a frown and gave a small investigation before making her decision.

"Finna! These youngins need medical attention!"

"Yes, Shaman!"

Storn Crag-Strider had stepped down from his post and given it to his daughter with the villagers unanimous approval. The year she had taken the seat, a sprout had come from the ground between the All-Maker Stones and they took it as a sign of good fortune. Since then, the Great Skaal Forest had given them nothing but fruit and challenge which was followed by a good harvest. Very rarely was anything in the forest fatally poisonous, but they still tried everything new on prey animals first before spreading it. Their success was so magnanimous, one wouldn't have to look far to find children between the ages of newborn and three. Expansion was on the horizon.

Finna was let through with a sort of air of respect as she approached the brothers and raised her hands to both of their stumps. This earned only frowns of confusion or consternation from the family until her hands lit up. That was until their stumps started to tingle.

They exchanged glances with each other, and then recognized that some kind of light was coming from her hands and wanted to know how she did it immediately. "What's happening?" Trisha asked.

Ed and Al merely took off their bandages and showed her how the wound was closing at a visible pace.

"They're incredibly strong, Shaman. This doesn't happen that fast even among our ranks," Finna mentioned. Truthfully, their wounds would have closed in a few hours at most.

With the emergencies out of the way in short order, the brothers immediately clung to Trisha like their life depended on it and she couldn't help but bawl her eyes out and save her confusion for later. Frea looked a bit awkward before sending the rest of the villagers back to their lives and thanking Finna while she stayed.

"What did Yuri do? Where did he send us?" Trisha had accurately read the fact that he had sent them here and vanished.

"Yuri, you said? I shoulda known," Frea spoke up.

"You-You know Yuri?" Ed asked after unburying himself from his mother's chest while Al looked up the same way.

"Well, around here he's called something else," She muttered. "Wherever you came from, you aren't there anymore. Welcome to the Great Skaal Forest in the world of the All-Maker, Avalon."

*BRRRRRRRRRRR* Her introduction was interrupted by the abrupt quaking of the ground. An unnatural tremor that shook at random intervals and was followed by dull booms.

"What the hell was that? Earthquake?" Trisha was still on edge while the Elric brothers took point around her and brandished the circles on their hands, not knowing that here it would do them no good.

"The All-Maker has informed us that Alera and Drem have been fighting for a day without rest and will likely continue. It has been quite the earth-shaker as of late."

"Wait, Alera? As in Alera Nightingale?" Trisha asked.

Frea raised an eyebrow, "Is there another Alera?"

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Yuri appeared beside another Yuri as the land below them deteriorated and turned to magma and ash. "Yo, can you fix me up?"

The Yuri who was assigned to watch over Ally's exchange gave a raised brow glance to the Yuri who just arrived. "Weren't you watching over the Transmutation? What happened to you?"

"We share a soul, were you not watching?"

It was true, the fact that they shared a soul meant that every single soul clone and Yuri the original could all see what was happening in the sense range of any of them. The original kept the biggest sensory range, and the clones had their own objective so watching the original was generally not done but watching between each other as a backup should be perfectly reasonable.

"As you can see, I have my own crisis to watch. Let me look. Oh, Truth seems to have some kind of hang-up not expounded upon."

"Not a lot of people in this world who can break the guy's shell open quite like us, to be fair."

"I used to see him as more of a concept, but he acts quite human."

The earth cracked and the Alera Watch Yuri waved his hand once more to repair the land they had shattered.

"They still haven't decided a victor?"

"Their reserves regenerate extremely fast in here, especially Drem's. It's like they were parched and now they have a lake. We brought them here to avoid hurting the world out there but they're doing even more damage here. Alera is besting him in skill and small encounters while Drem is resorting to bursting as much energy as he can at once so she can't avoid it, which she manages to do anyway. The part that even Drem is starting to see is that she is evolving incredibly quickly. It's like she was made for war, the Fate Lines were just the start, her aura is starting to suppress Drem alone and he can't hit her for the life of him since two hours ago."

Drem had been on the back foot for two hours now and continuing. His pride was refusing him to bend the knee while his mind had already known he had lost but was holding onto straws and denying every conscious implication that he had in fact, lost. He had more energy, sure, but Alera was actually expanding her own mana level as the time in this battle passed and it eclipsed even his own naturally rising stores. It's like she was just waiting for the opportunity. She had already reached 90% of his level. And he couldn't hit her for the life of him! The foresight wasn't helping, and her speed was already beyond his while her strength was reaching his shortly. More and more of her hits were starting to shatter and bruise his internals while she took advantage of any distraction as if she knew the outcome of her own attacks as well as his.

'My regeneration is my only saving grace, but this has gone on for long enough. I don't foresee any kind of victory for me, especially with the shouting. Stopping Time with her shouts truly devastated me both times she did that, relying on instinctual memory won't give me that kind of power any time soon.'

"Well done...blessed of Akatosh and consumer of Alduin. I concede... you have my servitude." Drem pointed his head down and crossed his arm over his chest with a tone of depression. Ally, of course, wouldn't gloat in her victory. Drem found a pair of arms crossing his and reaching his back while Ally put his head on her shoulder.

"You fought well, Dremmy."

"Hmph... I suppose you've earned that right as Yuri has." He groaned.

"I'll send the next female dragon I find to you and you can get freaky!" Ally broke off the hug and elbowed him.

"I can find a mate myself, thank you very much. But yes, point me in the right direction if you do first..."

Drem looked up and found two Yuri, one seemingly helping to heal the other.

"Did you really kick my ass hard enough for me to see double?"

"Yes, but you didn't beat me that hard and I see them too."

Drem narrowed his eyes at her and shook his head. One Yuri gave them a thumbs up and then returned them to Aerugo to sign the bond with a wave of his hand.

"You good? I'm gonna disperse."

"Yeah, I better face the music before the Elrics start filling in the dots themselves. Taking them here seemed like the safest option, but even if I planned to bring them here eventually it still seems a bit early..."

"Oh no! Anyway," And the Yuri who didn't have any more responsibilities vanished.

"...Dick."

*BOOM FWOOOOOOOOOOO* A burst of air erupted and pushed aside the atmosphere of Avalon abruptly!

Yuri #2 nodded at the familiar sight before going to check up on the Elrics.

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Yuri suppressed a giggle as he regained his 2% clone and his domain got that much stronger, not that he needed it. He looked over to Roy, finding him nearly as tainted as the people he definitely knew he was going to take as soul pills.

'I knew the Tritagonist wasn't the hero of Ishval he was made out to be, but seeing one of my favorite characters as one of those 'just following orders' guys is just disappointing. Oh well, let's get started.'

Runic text too big for those on the ground to discern started making the ground of every district in Ishvala and beyond glow. From within this glow, as the living found it hard to see, the souls of the dead rose with ethereal blue phantoms. Soldiers and civilians, insurgents, invaders, and innocents all looked at these ghosts and recoiled or backpedaled in fear. Only the lucky few who found their relatives among the rising grasped their hands forward and watched enraptured with either hope or concern.

Gunshots resounded again as soldiers tried to put them back down only for their bullets to pass through harmlessly. Seconds later, Yuri heard a cannon go off with a loud boom and the shell hurtled toward him from the outer edge of the front line. That shell too hung lifelessly when it came close enough, and it spun around without Yuri's motion as if docilely returning to sender. The shell arrived in the exact same barrel it left and a blast broke apart the area it came from as it blew up in a chain reaction. Seconds later, every arm large or small was quickly dismantled into parts or even perfect cubes of its own material.

Wrath's brow furrowed deeper and deeper. This was not something within the realm of even Father to do, not yet. Nor did this seem like Alchemy! His order to fire the cannons at will was nipped in the bud immediately, there was no countermeasure for this kind of thing except Alchemists.

"Sir! We are getting reports that Alchemy isn't possible from many of our ranks!"

Wrath's brow furrowed even further beyond deep. 'Has the "Wrath of God" that Grand Cleric threatened me with come so swiftly? Rubbish! But for now, perhaps retreat is most viable. Without Alchemists, this war will be at a standstill anyway.'

"Call for a retre-"

Screams erupted around his camp as the ghosts started to ascend even here. Amidst the bloodied grounds, corpses started vanishing and reappearing in whatever shape they were left in beside their owners before they were completely reformed as the day they had died. In the six underground research sites competing for prestige and using the fuel of Ishvalan blood, prisoners and corpses joined the grounds of Ishval and their respective souls while every single stone that they had made vanished from their containers and hurtled around Yuri's position like the belt of Saturn. Wrath could no longer keep calm when he saw those in the dozens.

Yuri frowned, ignoring the commotion Wrath was trying to stir up, while he realized that some stones with Ishvalan blood had already escaped from the territory of his Domain. He merely clapped his hands and extended his reach towards Central while the stones swirling around him gained a humming and electrifying synchronization. It was a like-summoning spell, very easy for this kind of distance.

The grounds of Ishval had gained the same ghostly hue across the whole veritable nation, nowhere did these souls not reach even to the point where they were pulled from the earth and had a red hue popping up here and there. Dead bodies which had been destroyed were regenerated from even the slightest hair, the only remaining skin cell, or even remade in the image of the soul. All sons and daughters of Ishval were gathered into Ishval no matter the manner or the area of their death. The soldiers were fleeing, shivering in fright, rubbing their eyes to wake up, or even praying despite Amestris being a godforsaken place in every respect.

The Herald's Bell rung three times more, and the positions of victim and killer were reversed.

Just as Trisha did, soul and body bonded before all and the collective gasp of every native breathed out in a horrendous burst of wails, overshadowing any previous sounds of war. The Philosopher's Stones circling Yuri as if a heavenly crimson host descended in a hail of meteors and burst into resplendent scatterings of souls and the biological data tied to them before reforming into their original selves as they touched the ground.

The previous living, now rejoined with the previously dead, were dumbstruck as the Ishvalans of the past rose to their feet in joy and confusion as the emotions they had died with shed from them as water from a duck's back. They looked between their fellow survivors and wondered if this was heaven, roaring with a joy that could only be articulated with a roar of passion and a tide of hugs and tears.

But soon the rejoicing noticed the fleeing masses of those in blue uniforms and a tinge of hatred was rekindled in their hearts. Crimson eyes scanned the crowded streets of their ruined nation and found themselves to be outnumbering every one of these Amestrians suddenly by an average of 10 to 1, and neither party was armed.

And so they rioted.

Able-bodied men rose up and tore the screaming soldiers to pieces with the hands that knew to claw through hardship and endure inhospitable conditions for a living instead of merely pulling a trigger at the behest of another man. The women looked on while covering the nearest children's eyes, the revived doing so coldly and some with shouting and hollering.

Two men wore their uniforms with no small amount of shame, they looked at each other and they smiled self-deprecatingly before kneeling and accepting this outcome. Tears formed from their eyes, not in sadness or fear, but as if a great burden had been lifted off their shoulders, and only they waited for death amidst a storm of shuffling bodies and the sounds of beating fists.

In a sniper tower not two miles out from their position, a blonde woman held the detached sight from her sniper rifle up to her face as tears could be seen dripping down the uncovered eye. 'Run, Roy, RUN! Please, don't leave me!'

It wasn't long before Roy and Alex were found with pointing and shouting, two men who kneeled in the crowd without a shred of fear, waiting to die. Even the angriest of the Ishvalans came to a blank at that before mustering up the courage to charge them with the crowd mentality.

As Yuri was sending the Amestrians who hadn't killed yet away from the battlefield, he had started to notice that the ones who felt relieved when the Ishvalans were resurrected had lost the weight of their sins on their Karma. Even if they fled out of fear, those who were happy that their actions were reversed didn't seem to retain nearly the same darkness as they had had prior.

'Fucking war. Kids are sent to the battlefield, forced to taint their karma for a nation that had already indoctrinated them into believing it was for the greater good of their militarized country. Of course, some of them will return to their innocence when their deeds are reversed. If letting the Ishvalans take their revenge with their own hands is Justice, then Mercy needs to be spread as well.'

Teenagers and young men who had pulled the trigger due to a herd mentality and regretted it with a passion were whisked away to the outer rim of the front lines. Some were bruised, battered, and broken. Some were already dead and were raised once more. And some were just about to die. To these men, Yuri tilted his head.

'Oh, Roy boy. To think you were one of them too. Not even committing suicide with that knife, just waiting to be taken for revenge like Alex. As expected of a main character, you turned out to be highly redeemable.'

Roy had all but let his eyes drift closed as he was thrown down and started to get his shit kicked in by the angry mob. He started to envy Alex, who had enough muscle to make this a fool's errand. Or perhaps not, since his beating would last longer?

But all of a sudden, the sounds of shuffling dirt and the pain of being kicked in his broken ribs went away as he felt he was laying down on wood suddenly.

"ROY!!!!"

"...Riza?"

Before they could enjoy a touching reunion, the alarm for the retreat was blasted through the base-wide sirens and men started to be taken away through the cars that still operated. Ishvalans were sprouting out of the woodwork but seemed to be immediately transported back into the city.

"Let's go!"

As Roy and Riza were running towards a car that was waiting for the Lieutenant Colonel especially, men left and right started to choke and keel over before boiling into puddles. The two only faltered for a moment before continuing running.

"What the hell is going on with them!"

"That man isn't using Alchemy, something mystical is going on. Just keep your head down and keep running!"

In the research centers beneath the hills that used countless lives to craft stones of energy, Doctor Marcoh along with all 96 of his close or distant colleagues convulsed and melted into the floor before evaporating and flying towards the sky above them. Amidst the reversed battlefield as the Amestrians left who relished the blood they had shed and the suffering they had caused were revived only to melt into a puddle of their lifeforce and soul. Generals like Raven and Fessler {Forgot he should've been dead by now but I mentioned him last chapter, so too late} and many commanding officers who cared not for the lives of the enemy or even their subordinates were boiled down and sadists among any rank were not spared.

As this effect piled into the fleeing Amestrians, the Ishvalans felt even more vindicated while the cloud above their head grew redder and redder. Yuri condensed it into a single orb and the sky cleared to show a perfectly round shiny red marble. Wrath looked back with no small amount of... wrath. He had never suffered such a strange and thorough defeat before. Not in his entire rigged career. A great Philosopher's stone had come out of his failure.

'I'm sure Father has seen an Alchemist like him before, perhaps another immortal. He will lead me to deal with this accordingly.'

{Why did I leave Wrath to be dealt with later? Because taking care of him in a second would be unrewarding and cheap for such a character with a large presence and he's only worth one soul, plus sword fights yo}

Yuri looked down at the nation of Ishvalans who were half looking up to him like he was god and half beating white boys to death, and he held his hands together in the clasped "Mokuton" sign before raising his hands skyward. A great rumble had broken out among the nation for one last time, and cracks were showing at the edge of the entire thing.

{Next chapter plans, the start of a perfect Philosopher's Stone and the details of Truth's dilemma.}