Amestris was a very different place than home. Lan Fan could feel it in the air here, in the very ground she walked on. This place just seemed to emit strange feelings that she could feel collecting in her gut. But that, she figured, only served to keep her on her toes.

That kind of awareness was something she could use right now. The night watch was hard, but an extremely important task for keeping the Young Lord from danger. With no fire or moon to light the dark alleyway on the cloudy night, she needed to let her other senses take over. She concentrated on them, but maybe she was thinking too hard, because she didn't feel the presence until a knife wished past her hood and lodged itself in the wall next to her.

Lan Fan leapt into a defensive pose, now perfectly alert for the person who threw the blade.

The clouds parted just long enough so that the moon's light showed her eyes what her body already knew: a tall, lean man with the hood of a Xingese robe pulled low over his eyes. Three kunai glinted in his hand.

He pulled back his arm and Lan Fan barely had time to move before the blades deflected off her armored forearm, tearing the cloth covering it.

She leapt at the figure, hoping to end the fight quickly, but no such luck. He blocked every blow she struck; he was clearly familiar with her fighting style.

"Where is your Young Prince?" A boy's voice asked from under the hood.

The comment unnerved her, slowing her arm and giving him an opening. His fist connected with her jaw and sent her backwards into the wall. The weapons fell from her hand and scattered across the rough ground.

Her breath gone, she watched as he tore his hood back and asked again, "Now, tell me. Where is Ling Yao?"

She stared at the boy's face, at his eyes as recognition dawned. She knew this face.

"I asked you a question! Answer m-Ah!" He cried. He stumbled back into the wall and drew his hands to his face where a red cut had appeared on his cheek.

Lan Fan whirled around to see her grandfather behind her. He'd thrown the blade she'd been to weak to hold on to. She cursed herself under her breath and stood.

"I remember you. You're the Shao prince, aren't you?" She spat out and pulled out another knife. She stalked over to him and shoved the knife up close to his face. "Why did you follow us?"

The prince's dark eyes darted around in panic. He was looking for a means of escape, anything he could manage to get the upper hand.

"I was looking for your idiot prince." His voice shook, but Lan Fan saw the light in his eyes one second too late. She moved to slice him with the kunai, but he'd already shifted his weight and swung his leg to one side, sweeping her legs out from under her.

The Shao prince ran, dodging Fu's blades as Lan Fan fell to the hard concrete.

She was stunned for a moment, her face heated under her mask. Then she jumped to her feet and faced her grandfather, completely rigid.

"Go after him," Fu growled. "You need to redeem yourself after this disgrace."

Lan Fan nodded curtly before racing off into the night to peruse the tenth Xingese prince.

Though the Prince had a head start, Lan Fan caught up to him quickly. She could almost feel his cowardice flowing through the ground as he fled.

For a trained warrior, he was awfully careless, his feet plodding heavily, while hers hardly whispered as she flew from rooftop to rooftop.

She leapt to the ground soundlessly as the houses abruptly ended and a patch of forest began. He was hoping to escape into the trees just outside of this quiet Amestrian town. But his fear held him back. He hesitated in the dark as he neared the woods.

That gave her the opening she needed. She leapt over him, twisting over his head and forcing him to his knees with a swift kick.

She threw her arm around the prince's neck and held her knife to his windpipe. "Tell me why you've followed the Young Lord here! Have you come to assassinate him?" Lan Fan demanded.

"Pl-please don't kill me! I-I only came to find what Yao was looking for here! In Amestris. I needed to get that edge against him! That's all! I-I swear!"

"You would come all this way for that pitiful snip of information? I'm sure half the palace knows why we came here with all the spies hiding there."

She tightened her grip. "Now, WHY?"

"Alright!" Shao screamed. "I came to discredit him! To steal the philosopher's stone! I know he has it! I know he's found it already! Please I intended no harm, please! I only need to obtain immortality!"

Lan Fan released him with one fluid movement. She towered over the terrified prince.

"Fool. We have found nothing here. Go, return to Xing and confess your dishonor and cowardice in combat. You have no place in the line of successors. Xing cannot be led by such a faint hearted creature as you."

She turned away from the weeping prince. After all, she had her own to return to.