jeredu:

The Winter Alchemist:  Not the Colonel you’re thinking of.  (Fusion AU ahoy!)

The title has nothing to do with ice alchemy, and everything to do with this cold, calculating, genius Alchemist of (presumed) Northern blood and questionable ethics.

Colonel Jade Curtiss: a State Alchemist some would call ruthless, the jury is still out on whether he actually has ice in his veins. 

(He has certainly made some enemies over the years, and some of them claim his title reflects a man who is cold and dead inside. That is not strictly accurate.)

Jade Curtiss is a man who has seen the Truth behind the gate due to an incident during his childhood where he committed the taboo of Human Transmutation. 

While the attempt itself was to bring back the teacher he so admired, her death in the first place was a result of his own arrogance in seeking to attain a power/capability he was never meant to have. He involved childhood friend Saphir Ortion (now going by “Dist”) in this endeavor. 

As punishment for committing the taboo, they were both struck down. Forget gaining superior ability beyond human ken- they were both rendered physically crippled. Dist is paralyzed from the waist down and is never seen without his customized wheelchair. 

Jade, unlike Edward, didn’t LOSE any body parts. But the partial paralysis isn’t something automail can easily fix. He walks with a cane (and a leg brace normally mostly hidden under his uniform). The only reason he can walk at all is because he forced himself through years of physical therapy to regain as much use of his left leg as he could. His punishment is more neurological in nature compared to Izumi or Edward. He has lost some feeling in his left arm as well, but the mobility of the arm is not affected.  He has difficulty moving faster than a walk, but somehow he manages to make his movements seem calm, deliberate, and calculated.  If he pushes and overdoes it, he can manage a stilted and uneven run, but doing so is quite painful and to be avoided. 

 However, any who mistakenly think him defenseless or weak will have another thing coming. His locomotive ability may be hindered, but armed with alchemy or a transmuted spear (normally the walking cane), he is quite capable of holding his ground. Invaluable for his research and innovation, he is wasted on the front lines, anyway. Dist is a researcher for the state, and Jade refuses to be promoted past Colonel. He has been tapped by the upper brass on more than one occasion, but Jade remains deliberately uninterested in their schemes. Outside of wartime, he mainly focuses on research and is generally too valuable to dispose of. However, he can still be a terror on the battlefield with his alchemy alone.  

Notes about this setting: because red eyes have a very prominent cultural significance in Amestris, Jade’s eye color is hereditary for this setting, not unnatural. 

This is not based on the 2003 anime.  Manga/Brotherhood rules apply for Homunculi. Therefore, Luke is certainly not going to be one of them. I have other plans for Luke. 

Jade has a particular fondness for utilizing chemical reactions to ionize the air itself and fling bolts of plasma at his foes, making it seem as though he is literally calling down the lightning to strike his enemies.