by kishokahime
WARNING: UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR Fullmetal Alchemist (2003).
Babylon is a Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) fanfic by Beautiful Fiction.
When Edward made that fateful bargain with the Gate to get Alphonse back after Al sacrificed himself to save him, the price was steep. Two years afterward, Edward is still paying the price.
In the meanwhile, Ed and Al are given a mission by Mustang: find the people responsible for robbing the grave of Maes Hughes.
Babylon contains examples of:
- Abandoned Area: The hideout of Vivus Nix and Carmine is an abandoned funeral home where no one would bat an eye at the hearse Vivus Nix uses to steal corpses.
- And Then What?: Now that Edward managed to restore Alphonse’s body and survive Dante and Homunculi, Edward doesn’t really know what to do with himself as he really didn’t think he’d survive it. He chooses to stick with the military since he finds the idea of a normal life too boring and purposeless.
- Back from the Dead: As a result of Carmine's ritual to destroy the Gate, Hughes and the four other victims were resurrected for the purpose of being sacrificed. Hughes is the only one to escape being sacrificed.
- Bad Guy Bar: The Grindle is in the seediest part of Central and filled with the hardest thugs and crooks. Its where Edward finds out about Vivus Nix, who are responsible for the grave-robbing.
- Bearer of Bad News: Doctor Collins who tells Roy and Riza about Edward’s collapse and unstable condition, doubly so since he calls Roy’s private number that’s only used in true emergency or the outbreak of war. He also tells Al, Roy and Riza that Ed’s condition is terminal.
- Big Bad: The Gate itself since it is responsible for Carmine’s plot and for Edward’s slow demise.
- Carmine is this to the original series since its because of her that the Gate hasn’t actually applied Equivalent Exchange for over several centuries and gained its cruelty through her corrupting it.
- Blood Knight: Carmine reacts to Edward with glee when watching him pummel her lackeys
- Call-Back: “Stop right there, Fullmetal. I’m not done with you yet.”
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The Gate wants to take its due and end Edward’s life, but it spares him and help him survive in order to protect itself from Carmine and force Edward to restore it.
- Cast from Lifespan: With the Gate hiding in his body, Edward's alchemy becomes powered through his lifeforce. If he uses too much, he risks wearing himself out or risks dying.
- Chekhov's Gun: The ring belonging to one of the dead Vivus Nix thugs Edward fights in his investigation of the grave-robbing. Carmine had the ring marked with an array to activate in her proximity which tells her that Edward is intruding since the owner is dead. She activates the array for the ring to burn Edward as it lies in his pocket.
- A Child Shall Lead Them: Despite being a child, Kaleo was king of Babylon. In practice, his mother Princess Carmine ruled.
- Claimed by the Supernatural: The Gate tattooed the arrays on Edward’s forehead, torso and arm in exchange for Alphonse’s body so Edward won’t forget what he paid. It’s also took parts of Edward’s lung tissues and will claim the rest of him when he died. This ends up helping the Gate as it uses the arrays to hide its remains in Edward when Carmine destroys the Gate.
- Compensating for Something: The miniskirt speech and his increased nature as a Casanova were attempts by Roy to deny his bisexuality.
- Cut Himself Shaving: Edward hides the remains of his bloody cough by disposing the evidence and claim the leftover blood was him accidentally nicking himself while shaving. To be fair, he actually was shaving.
- Cyborg Wizard: Edward has an Artificial Limb and is an alchemist. And Alchemy Is Magic.
- Dictionary Opening: The first chapter starts by defining "Babylon":Babylon:
Lit:
1 )The city of Babylon
2) A place of captivity or exile
3) Derived from the Greek "Bab-Ilani: The Gate of the Gods. - Doomed Hometown: The civilization of Babylon for the Big Bad Carmine. Babylon was destroyed because her evil High Priest tried to take the throne from her and her son by claiming that Human Sacrifice of Royal Blood would appease the gods in the disasters plaguing the kingdom. He was planning to sacrifice everyone at the public execution to further power his alchemy, but Carmine fought him off resulting in all of Babylon being used to create the Gate.
- Do Not Go Gentle: When Edward realizes that his illness is incurable and might not even have a night left to live, he decides to confront the Gate to take back his life or die trying from it.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: Normally Edward could use alchemy or his fists to get out of situations no problem but the Babylonian alchemy is addictive, messes with his judgement and risks his own life as well as the lives of everyone around him.
- Evil Gloating: When Carmine has Edward in her clutches, trapped and unable to fight against while she plans to use him as a sacrifice to destroy the Gate, she gives a speech about her motives to destroy the Gate and is annoyed that he showed up instead of her preferred sacrifice Roy Mustang.
- Faking the Dead: To explain away Hughes' resurrection, Mustang and Hawkeye fake documents proclaiming that Hughes was on a years-long mission that required him to go underground.
- First-Episode Twist: The first chapter has a flashback of Edward's death at the hands of Envy and his self-sacrifice to revive Alphonse.
- Foreshadowing: Lampshaded, the fact that Edward fell into an open grave and he’s later to be found to be dying to have been a terrible omen.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Gate-possessed Carmine.
- Give Me a Sign: Team Mustang are searching for Edward after he discharged himself while they were all sleeping to continue the investigation. They were searching for Edward in the military graveyard when Roy asks for a sign. Cue large explosion in an abandoned building not far from the graveyard.
- Grave Robbing: The gang of Vivus Nix are robbing the graves of murdered military officer, including the one of the late Brigadier General Maes Hughes for Carmine’s use.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: Fuhrer Hakuro deals with the terrorist terrorizing Central by completely ignoring her and refusing to give Mustang any back-up when he tries to deal with the problem.
- Heroic Bastard: The source of the Gate, King Kaleo, who is Carmine's son.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Carmine tried to corrupt the Gate to get it to give her back her son which the Gate is based on. That resulted in the Gate in gaining sentience and gave it malice. So when she tried to destroy it, which resulted in the corruption possessing her.
- High Priest: Thaqir, the Babylonian priest who became very prestigious due to his powerful alchemy. Who became so powerful that he was able to force Carmine and her son, Kaleo, the princess and king respectively as a Human Sacrifice.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: The prostitutes in Riders
- Hope Spot: This is what Al feels the past two years have been. He and Edward finally managed to bring back Al’s body and survive in that without having to lose anymore than they had. Only to turn out that for Al’s life, Ed’s life is cut short.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Roy would constantly crave alcohol to deal with the stress of covertly running the country, the aftermath of overthrowing Bradley and dealing with Ed. He doesn’t because he doesn’t risk it becoming a crutch and becoming an alcoholic.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: When escaping the backlash of Carmine’s transmutation, Edward forces the revived Hughes to leave him behind, saying his family deserves their husband and father back. Hughes does it thinking that Edward had a plan, not knowing that Edward planned to sacrifice himself since he was dying anyway.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Edward has all the systems: weakness spells, flashes of pain, fever and coughing fits, although it’s not from a disease. The Gate is taking his lung tissue to order to kill Ed and get the rest of him. The doctors told him that it’s terminal but he doesn’t die from it.
- It's Personal: Roy, Ed and Al want to find the people responsible for robbing Hughes' grave. Turns this was invoked by Carmine to lure Roy Mustang in her trap. To her disappointment, she got Edward instead.
- Life Drinker: Carmine has the ability to suck the life out of people and the environment around her to supplement her alchemy.
- Life Will Kill You: Discussed. After all what Edward has been through, Roy can’t believe that Ed could be taken out by an illness. Subverted as the illness has a supernatural cause and he doesn’t die.
- Locked into Strangeness: After absorbing the Gate, Carmine gains grey hair and grey skin
- Miss Kitty: The madame of the Riders brothel is Miss Sally, who is a former prostitute herself and does what she can to keep her boys and girls safe. She takes in runaways and orphans and educates them and gives whom she takes in a choice to join the brothel or leave when they grow up.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Edward’s investigation of the grave-robbing of Maes Hughes spirals into a millennium-long conspiracy to destroy to the Gate of Truth.
- Mother Makes You King: Kaleo became king through his mother, Princess Carmine.
- Must Have Caffeine: Everyone in Mustang's office has run on fumes and coffee to get themselves through dealing with the aftermath of a terrorist attack on a major train station and the serial killings of homeless people and children.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Its Carmine’s attempt to use Edward as a sacrifice and using Maes Hughes’ body that Edward not only gets a life extension but Hughes is brought back from the dead directly because of her.
- No Body Left Behind: Edward comforts himself with the thought of the Gate taking his body if his confrontation fails as the idea of his body rotting in the ground disgusts him.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The fact that Mustang didn’t give any snide comments or didn’t look smug and in fact was disheveled and unsettled spoke volume on how disturbed by the grave-robbing.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Carmine makes fun of Edward by calling him the closest thing to a vampire due to the Gate giving him her Life Drinker abilities.
- Power at a Price: Because Edward is already so ill and is supporting the last remnants of the Gate, using any sort of alchemy without taking the energy somewhere else could severely debilitate him.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: Fuhrer Hakuro either ignores the obvious problems Central is facing, or makes them worse by outright hindering Mustang when he tries to do something about it.
- Properly Paranoid: When Hughes comes back from the dead and is not hostile, the first thing Hawkeye does is to question him to check if he’s not a homunculus.
- Princesses Rule: King Kaleo's mother, Princess Carmine ruled Babylon as his regent. She couldn't become queen because she wasn't married with the implication she couldn't do so without disinheriting her son.
- Secretly Dying: Edward knew that he was dying for years but didn't tell anyone because he didn't to burden Al with any guilt and wanted to live the rest of his days normally.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Both Roy and Winry give Ed an epic chewing out on hiding the fact that he was dying.
- Really 700 Years Old: When Edward first sees Carmine he couldn’t tell whether she was younger than him or older than Roy. She’s been alive since Babylonian times, which is older than Xerxes! She even brags about being older than Hohenheim.
- Ring of Power: Carmine wears gold rings on all of her fingers which amplify her already powerful alchemy.
- Rule of Symbolism: Edward falls into an open grave and can’t get himself out until someone else helps him.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: A double example, the dark side of the Gate sealed itself in Carmine while the light side sealed itself in Edward.
- Shoo the Dog: Attempted, Edward tries to get Alphonse to leave him and go back to Resembool while Edward works the last of his military contract but Alphonse refuses.
- Something Only They Would Say: When Team Mustang finds Maes Hughes resurrected, Hawkeye asks him several questions to confirm Hughes’ identity.
- Survival Mantra: When Roy rushes to the hospital after hearing about Ed’s deteriorating condition, he chants to himself: Please don’t let it be too late.
- Synchronized Morning Routine: The story begins with Ed and Al getting ready for the day while Edward struggles and hides his chronic pain. He shaves, he dries his hair using alchemy and has breakfast with Al.
- That Came Out Wrong: Roy and Riza are discussing Edward's declining health:Riza: He (Edward) needs rest.
Roy: He's stubborn, Lieutenant. Have you ever tried to get Edward into bed? He's very resistant.
Riza: [holding back laughter] Can't say I have, sir. Blondes aren't my type. - True Companions: Lampshaded.Mutual respect had been a long time coming, but now he knew there was nothing that he couldn’t ask of them. In return they knew that he could always be relied up and he was a powerful alchemist to be reckoned with.
- Touched by Vorlons: Since the Gate hid itself inside Edward, he gets the Gate’s knowledge of ancient Babylonian alchemy and its ability to take and give energy out of everything and everyone around him.
- Twice Shy: Both Roy and Edward are in love with each but both think it’s unrequited. Edward thinks Roy would not be interested to be being an avowed ladies’ man and Edward is afraid giving Roy more ammo against him. Roy thinks Edward hates him for justifiable reasons and doesn’t want to open himself for heartbreak. Both men also note how they don’t trust each other and that Edward is subordinate to Roy.
- Unproblematic Prostitution: Played With the Riders brothel. The brothel is very upper class with the madame looking out her workers but she met Edward when a john tried to rough her up in order to get a refund and a girl left because she felt stifled on the brothel's set prices.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Everyone is furious at Edward for covering up the fact that he was severely ill until he nearly died from it.
- Working Through the Cold: Despite already being very sick, Edward works in the rain to try to find the people responsible for robbing the grave of Maes Hughes. This turned out to be a terrible idea as it overworks his already weakened immune system and causes him to collapse and end up in the hospital.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Al feels the last two years have been this: he finally gets his body back and he and Edward are finally moving on with their lives only for Edward to be dying of a terminal illness.
- Your Days Are Numbered: The doctor tells Edward, Roy and Alphonse that the conditions of his deteriorating lungs that Edward could die in the next hour or the next month.
