Hohenheim did not know why he thought that it would be a good idea. He decided that later, the excuse would be that he was drunk. Very drunk. But somehow, he had found an old phone number in a coat pocket and he didn't quite remember who had given it to him.

So, as most alchemists do, he decided that the only way to find out was to call the number and have a charming conversation that wouldn't be too embarrasing for him.

Hohenheim nearly fainted when Father had picked up on the other end of the line. After an incredibly long insult, that he was later punished for by Trisha because Ed had somehow heard, (and repeated it. In front of Al. And then Winry... Pinako had not been happy. At all.) they somehow ended up complaining about their children.

That's right. Father had ironically (or maybe not, considering his name) had children. Seven of them, and with no one else to help him, they were driving him slowly insane. After he finished laughing, which took several hours, and more swearing from the Father of the homunculi, Hohenheim had somehow, rather stupidly invited all eight of them to come around for a family gathering.

He was drunk. That was the one and only reason he could come up with. Even worse, he couldn't find a way out of this, and now was stuck dealing with it.

"So..." Hohenheim cleared his throat. His small but precious family was gathered in the room with him, and was now staring at him, curious as to what had made him stop hiding in his study while the sky was blue.

Well, Ed, being an adorable little toddler, struggling to look innocent, with a big, dusty book badly hidden behind his back. Hohenheim debated taking it off him, after all, he recognised the book, and it had some particually explosive alchemy in it, but looking at those large, soulful golden eyes, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

For some reason, this made him remember a certain conversation he'd had a long, long time ago...

"Family?" The homunculus questioned, red eye peering at Hohenheim in complete and utter confusion.

"Yeah, although I wouldn't expect you to know anything about it." Hohenheim had sighed fondly, having long since grown used to the thing's weirdness.

"No, it's not that." The being in the flask giggled (it was a horrible, horrible sound- Hohenheim still has nightmares about it), "it's just that you'd make a horrible parent!"

"Hey! I wouldn't be bad!" Hohenheim protested loudly.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night. Lord knows you need your beauty sleep."

But that was a story for another time, because on the subject of insane, immortal, power-hungry unnatural beings, he still had to actually tell his family about the particular mess he had managed to drag them all into.

"Well, I recently came into contact with... my..." (creature from my nightmares? worst enemy?) "long lost identical twin brother." Hohenheim invented wildly on the spot, and he for one, was very proud of his lying skills.

Nobody else was. Hohenheim, while an amazing alchemist, couldn't actually lie to save his life.

"And I invited him and his seven crea- children to come and visit!" Hohenheim said brightly, just in case saying it happily made the situation any better. It didn't.

"How nice! When are they coming?" Trisha asked cheerfully, while wondering what her husband had been drinking, because from what he'd told her, he didn't actually have any relatives... Still, if it made him happy...

Hohenheim nearly cried in relief. No awkward questions! Now for the hard part... He quickly checked his pocket watch (well, the State Alchemist watches had actually come from the tradition of alchemists carrying around a pocket watch, because Father and his entire program was really unoriginal) and with an entirely false smile, annouced: "In ten minutes!" Before mysteriously disappearing from the room.

Ed stared at the small group that had gathered in front of him. Most of them were his age, although they all looked really weird. There was a strange boy with spiky green hair openly staring at him, but that wasn't what was bothering Ed...

"Are you wearing a skirt?" Ed blurted, unable to help himself.

This had several reactions...

The boy in question flushed red and hissed, the guy with really pointy teeth and sunglasses burst out laughing, the calm boy with the weird shadow smirked, the teenager with the eyepatch snorted and the girl let out a shriek of amusement.

"... My dad is weid." The spiky haired kid explained.

"For once, I agree with Envy." The kid with the sunglasses said sadly. "I mean what normal person names their children after the seven deadly sins?"

"Are you actually..." Ed trailed off, and Al shifted from where he had been openly been staring at the new arrivals to hide behind his brother from the sheer awkwardness the homunculi were radiating.

"I'm Envy." The spiky haired boy muttered, glaring at the floor.

"I'm Greed." The kid with sunglasses announced bodly.

"I'm Pride." The voice echoed from several shadows coiled around a boy not that much older than Al.

"I'm Lust." The only girl huffed, tossing her long hair over her shoulder in a way that reminded Ed of Winry.

"I'm Wrath." The teenager with the eyepatch grunted.

"He's Sloth." Wrath rolled his one visable eye and pointed at the snoring kid in the corner.

"And he's Gluttony." Lust pointed with a particually sharp nail at the toddler chewing on the potted plant.

"No offense, but those names suck. I'm Ed." Ed said cheerfully. Al was still hiding behind him. "And Al is standing behind me."

There was along, awkward silence...

Ten minutes later.

Gluttony burped loudly as he finsihed the plant... And its pot... And half the wallpaper.

Another ten minutes passed...

"Okay, who wants to prank our dads?" Ed asked, unable to stand the silence anymore.

"Hell yeah! Offically my new favourite cousin!" Greed and Envy yelled at the same time. They glared at each other.

"Good idea." Lust smirked.

"I'll hold down the base here." Wrath sighed, closing his eye... and promptly refused to hear anything else they said.

"I'll help down here! Dad will get mad if we go near his study!" Al squeaked. Sloth snored in agreement. Gluttony mumbled something that might have been agreement around a mouthful of a chair.

"I'll help... as petty as it is." Pride decided. "But nothing too messy."

"Okay, so here's what we're going to do..." Ed said, pulling out one of the many books he had... let's go with borrowed... from Hohenheim's study.

No matter what many people will claim later, this is truly how the homunculi learned how to laugh in such an insane and evil way. It was also how Ed developed the smirk that would later give Roy Mustang nightmares, and how Al learned how to be selectively deaf to the majority of his big brother's ideas.

Father and Hohenheim, immortal, sworn enemies sat in the latter's study, enjoying cups of tea. They were enjoying a pleasant conversation about life in general. Hohenheim was pleasantly surprised that Trisha had been in a good enough mood to make tea, considering how mad she had seemed when he dropped the news on her.

He, nor his evil companion saw what was coming...

"They're dumb. They're actually dumb." Pride whispered in shock.

"Okay, so what do we do now?" Envy asked egarly, as Ed passed out bottles of paint, and started drawing a circle on the wall. "And what's that?"

"A transmutation circle. It was in this book I stole." Ed explained with a grin. "You just focus on your jobs."

Lust tip toed over to the door and gently tried to open it. Okay, so maybe the two men weren't that dumb, because they had managed to somewhat childproof the house... But not homunculus-proofed, so their intelligence was still in question.

Lust's fingers sharpened into her Ultimate Spear and the lock was no more...

Then Greed exploded in. protected in his ultimate shield, covering both the men in bright pink hair dye, rainbow paint and perfume...

Things only got worse from there... For no matter where the immortal men ran, there was no escape... Trasmutation circles filled with laughing gas covered the entire house, and the homunculi, armed with various different art suplies and cooking ingredients, seemed to pop up everywhere.

Meanwhile, Trisha was baking cookies for Sloth, Gluttony, Wrath and Al... She was also passing a large number of supplies to the pranking team.

At the end of the day, seven beaming homunculi (those who weren't pranking soon warmed up to Trisha and her legendary cookies) and two children cheerfully waved goodbye.

"See you soon!" Ed called, grinning as he already thought up new pranks.

"You bet!" The pranking team chorused.

"Yes, you should definitely come back soon!" Trisha smiled at them all.

Father, meanwhile, decided that if he ever wanted to destroy the world, he'd give the brats sugar and be done with it, Philosopher's Stone be dammed.

Hohenheim, meanwhile, decided that the homunculus in the flask may have been on to something about parenting, and decided that maybe he should look into getting a new lock on his study.

And with the rate Ed was getting through his books, hide his theory on human transmutaion too.