Shrike was somewhat enthusiastic about the idea Linke had given him, so he spoke before Armstrong could bring up her topic. "Sir, there's something I want to ask."

"Go ahead."

"I spoke with Linke about my close combat training because I don't... I'm just not good at it. He said that maybe I could do something else instead, like practise alchemy. Is that possible?"

"Practise alchemy? What for?" Armstrong had in fact wanted to bring up Shrike's alchemy skills since she had not heard about them and was marginally concerned that Envy was trying to manipulate Shrike into studying how to create a Philosopher's Stone.

"Just... just to be better at it, sir. Linke told me that there have been times when alchemy would have been very useful in quickly fixing some things in the Fort."

"From what I understand, studying alchemy is very intense and demands extraordinary dedication. Do you think you can manage that?"

"Yes, I... I studied alchemy more when I was younger so I know the basics, sir."

"You did?"

"Yes, but it was just a hobby."

"What can you do?"

"I can change the shape of simple objects and fuse patches on pipes. I guess I can transmute bigger objects too but I haven't tried."

"Why didn't I know about this before?"

"Um... sorry, sir. I didn't think it was important. I've told a couple other ventilation people that I can do a little alchemy and I asked Second Lieutenant Roma if it was okay that I used alchemy to fuse the patches. He just asked me to show it to him and after he checked that there weren't any issues with the alchemically fused patch, he told me that it was okay."

Armstrong frowned at Shrike.

"I'm sorry, sir, I-I really thought it wasn't that important."

"If that's the most you can do, it probably isn't. Or wasn't. So, you say you would rather advance your studies in alchemy than partake in combat training?"

"Yes, sir."

"That is acceptable. Talk to Massena about it and tell her to schedule less combat training for you. But don't cease all training. If it suits you better, practise close combat more with Linke when you go watch Envy on its vacation."

Shrike was flabbergasted. He could not believe resolving the issue had been this easy.

"We don't have many books on alchemy so you need to buy or borrow those from North City or elsewhere. You can talk to the librarian, Corporal Harbin, and suggest that he could acquire more books about alchemy. Are you planning on becoming a state alchemist?"

"Er, no, no, sir. I couldn't, it takes too much work since I'd have to research something and I don't know what and I wouldn't have time for it since I have my job here..."

"Hm. Well, if you can think of a research topic that would be very beneficial to the Fort, you could probably scale down your other duties to free up time for that."

Shrike was amazed again. "Thank you, sir."

"If Envy ever tries to coax you into trying to bring back dead people or learning how to create Philosopher's Stones, tell me immediately."

"The Philosopher's Stone? That's just an alchemical fairy tale, sir."

"I take it Envy hasn't mentioned it to you, then. Philosopher's Stones are real, and they are made of living people, which is why people have tried to obscure away all details about how to create them."

"...What?"

"I'm not an alchemist, but what I've understood, the maker of a Philosopher's Stone forces many humans into a transmutation circle, then forces their souls out of their bodies and makes the Stone with those souls. Then the people's bodies die since they don't have souls."

Shrike just stared at Armstrong.

"Also, homunculi have a Philosopher's Stone as their core. Envy is a homunculus and thus it has numerous souls of humans inside it, fuelling its existence. Envy dies if the Stone inside it is destroyed."

Colour escaped from Shrike's face. What Armstrong was saying sounded completely unbelievable and Shrike was not sure he could believe her, but there was something else he remembered about the issue. He had to think quietly for a short moment before he spoke again. "Th-that's what it meant..." he mumbled.

Suddenly Armstrong did not like at all where the conversation was going. "Shrike?"

"U-uh, shortly after we met, I asked Envy what its true form looked like."

Armstrong remembered the image of the eldritch abomination that was Envy's true form and her face spontaneously twitched.

Shrike actually noticed that Armstrong's expression changed for the blink of an eye, which made him a little more anxious. "I-it said that... 'red and oval, the size of my fist.' It must have meant th-the Philosopher's Stone, maybe... I think it's usually described as red..."

Now Armstrong cleared her throat rather ungraciously and became her usual self. "Really?" she asked, obviously not expecting a reply. Shrike had no idea what had just happened. "Anyway, I don't know alchemy or anything more about the making of a Philosopher's Stone. You're not allowed to make any. Anything else?"

"Um, uh, no, sir... But, wait, Envy mentioned something about creating souls with alchemy and bringing back dead people a couple of weeks ago. But... it said doing that is impossible. And I know it's forbidden too."

"Hm." Armstrong looked a little confused. "Good then. Was that all? If so, you can go."

His mood elevated, Shrike saluted the Major General and walked to the door.

"And Shrike, I hope you learned something about talking to someone about things you wish to change in your life," she said in her usual stern but otherwise emotionless tone.

"Oh... oh!" said Shrike in a somewhat small voice as he realised that he could have changed his schedule and priorities years ago if he had only talked to someone about it. "Yes, sir..." Shrike left Armstrong's office and went to talk to Massena right away.

The next night, when Envy and Shrike had a shift of ventilation shaft inspection, Shrike was more interested in telling about his new schedules.

"I am so glad. Massena said she'd schedule less combat training for me so I could study alchemy! I still have one combat session a week and one session got replaced with physical training." He knocked and patted a pipe that seemed rather worn, but concluded that it was sound. "And all because I talked to Linke about it and he said I should suggest it to... well, someone. I didn't really think of suggesting it to my superiors before, I guess I was afraid they'd just reject it. That way I at least had hope."

Envy merely made a bored expression.

"Armstrong even said that if I can come up with a research topic that would benefit Fort Briggs especially, I could become a state alchemist. I'm nowhere near that good and I have no idea what I could research, but maybe some day I will."

"You're unusually talkative."

"I guess. I'm just really excited about this, it will probably wear off in a few days."

"Mmhm. That looks like a tear." Envy pointed at a pipe ahead. They walked to the spot and eyed the insulation.

"It isn't quite a tear yet."

"But if we don't fix it, it will just wear out more and then we'll need to fix it next year or something."

"Yeah... I guess it's better to just fix it now." Shrike took out the transmutation circle he used to fuse patches on pipes and then started searching for a patch in his bag.

"What do you exactly do when you fuse that thing on the pipe?"

"Oh, I just meld and blend both materials at the edges. They become a little like liquid, except not quite because they both should retain their structure. It's actually better than welding since welding heats the materials so much that they break down a little, though the fused part will be stronger. However, then the weak spot will be the material right next to the welded part. When I alchemically fuse them, it will be more uniform."

"Mmhm."

Shrike found a suitable patch and placed it on the pipe. Envy watched him fuse the patch and had an urge to tell him about its own alchemy skills. Shrike would probably be able to help it with its problems and explain things to it in a way that was not as horribly boring as reading a book. It sighed.

"Hm?" said Shrike.

"Eh, I just wish I could do that too," it said absent-mindedly.

"Umm. Well, are you completely sure about that you're unable to perform alchemy? Maybe you could try and see."

"I'm sure."

"Oh. Well, I... I can't help with that."

Envy glared at Shrike and wished that the man would be able to keep a secret, but that was hopeless. He would tell everything to Armstrong, if not right now without her having to even ask, then later when she asked the right way. Envy was fairly sure that even threatening him with death would not make him keep its secret. Even if he would not talk, Armstrong would notice that that he would not answer some questions and figure out that something was amiss eventually.

Shrike looked a little intimidated and headed out of the maintenance shaft. Envy followed him, cranky.

Envy kept on doing its small-scale alchemy experiments in the Fort and continued being cautious so as to not be found out. It read a couple more of Shrike's alchemy books while on its vacations. Shrike noticed that and asked it why it rather read the alchemy books and not the novels. He accepted its explanation of them being more interesting. However, Armstrong was not so understanding when Shrike mentioned Envy's reading habits to her.

Armstrong went to the library when it was time for Envy's reading session. It had at least five books open on the table at which it sat. Armstrong saw that the book it was reading at the moment was a biology book, but it had a newly acquired alchemy book open on the table as well.

Envy looked up at Armstrong just before she spoke.

"Why are you reading alchemy books?"

Envy stared at her in an irritated manner. "They're more interesting than a lot of other books."

"The knowledge in them is useless to you since you can't perform alchemy."

"Well, most of it sure, but there are also bits of information that explain some things about my abilities and those are the ones I'm more interested in. And the rest isn't completely boring either, unlike everything in that," it said and pointed at a book on the table that was about the history of Creta.

"Somehow I find that suspicious. Stop reading alchemy books. You can read novels instead."

"What, novels?" said Envy with a mildly disgusted impression. "I read a few that Shrike brought with him on the vacation. They're stupid and full of annoying human drama. Much like history books. The only good thing is that they can sometimes be kind of funny if a lot of people die in them." That earned a rather murderous look from Armstrong. Envy felt like it should take back what it had said and tried to sound sincere, even if a little reluctant, while speaking. "Sorry, okay, it's not funny if a lot of people die, fine? But alchemy books are still more interesting since I can find at least a few things in them that can be useful."

"That's too bad. Stop reading them. Get your ideas from that or somewhere else than alchemy." She pointed at the biology book Envy was holding.

"That is totally unfair!" it exclaimed and glared at her.

"You don't want Grumman and Mustang to get too suspicious, do you?"

Envy grimaced. "Are you reporting EVERYTHING I do to them?" She just stared at it quietly. "Can't you just not mention this one bit if you're so worried about them being suspicious?"

"Do you think it's so suspicious that I shouldn't tell about it to them?"

Envy faced a dead end. Now that Armstrong had brought it up, it was pretty obvious that at least Mustang would be way too untrusting to allow Envy to read about alchemy, and that was if he did not fly off his rocker right away. Envy picked up the alchemy book and waved it around. "Fine, FINE. I'll stop reading them to retain that blasted stupid prick's sanity. Which he doesn't have, by the way! I'm just going to be bored to death on my vacation now; no reading about anything even a little interesting, no going out on my own and what else! So thanks, thanks a lot, and screw you, SIR."

"Mind your tone," came Armstrong's extremely cold response.

Envy sighed so deeply that its breath turned the pages of the biology book that now lay in front of it. "I am SO bloody SORRY, sir," it said in an appropriately pleading tone while not looking one bit like it was apologising. Armstrong just glared at it even worse.

Envy fantasised about throwing the book at her. With its strength, it could well manage to kill her if it had a little luck and hit a proper spot on her head or neck. However, she was very fast for a human and would dodge it, unless Envy faked its throw first and only threw the book after she had dodged. It did not fulfil its fantasy and instead leaned its elbows on the table, put its hand on its face and spent a short moment reminding itself what would happen if it would not play nice.

Envy straightened itself, removed its hand from its face and looked at Armstrong again. It stared at her seriously and spoke reluctantly. "Sorry." It held out the alchemy book, expecting her to not take the book away but to be rude at it.

Armstrong looked down her nose at the book. "Take that to its place." Having said that, she turned around and left.

Its expectations filled, Envy slammed the book annoyedly to a corner of the table and looked after Armstrong with a very sour expression on its face. At least it believed it had managed to make her act rudely, even if it was obvious that taking books away was not her job at all.

Armstrong was quite sure that she had managed to intimidate Envy to stop reading about alchemy. Nonetheless, even though she was still certain that it was unable to perform alchemy, she could not help being suspicious of it because other people could perform alchemy for it if it forced them in one way or another. Therefore, she had the Fort, Envy's room and Shrike's room searched thoroughly to make sure it really was not trying to construct suspicious transmutation circles anywhere. The searchers found Envy's "journal" that seemed to contain mostly complaining about humans, childish notes about the anatomy of animals, instructions for ventilation machine maintenance and statistics about foodstuffs. Armstrong thought the book was fishy and took it for analysis.

Envy noticed rather soon that the book was gone. It thought that if it did not bring up the theft, Armstrong might think that it was being secretive and trying to cover up for something, so it loudly declared its displeasure about the book being missing. Linke knew nothing of it, so Envy went straight to Armstrong. She directly admitted that she had taken the book to be studied just because it was suspicious. Envy did not have much to say to that, but of course it still expressed its annoyance. It acquired a new empty book from the supplies office.

Armstrong had difficulty in finding experts who would know what to look for in Envy's book. She could not trust the impartiality of the few alchemists who were familiar with the Philosopher's Stone because they were Edward Elric, Mustang and their friends who she figured had every reason to get rid of Envy in any way possible. In the end, she settled for a few less qualified alchemists and Alphonse Elric, who she trusted to be level-headed enough.

According to the analyses, the book seemed to have light references to alchemy, and Alphonse found some links to human ingredients. He did not find any suggestion of transmutation circles, but he suggested giving the book to a ventilation expert to check that the writings on that subject were not suspicious. Armstrong did as he advised.

The ventilation expert found more faults in the writings and complained that there were elementary mistakes typical of a beginner. He requested that the writer should be educated more and even offered corrections to the writings. However, he too came to the conclusion that there was nothing particularly suspicious besides the fact that the writer had learned while doing rather than by starting from theory.

When Armstrong was done with analysing Envy's writings, she summoned it to her to give the book back.

Envy took the book with a crabby face. "Are we done here?" it asked.

"Now that you ask, not quite. Your writings have some connections to alchemy and rather detailed information about the composition of the human body. Why?"

"When all you have is a hammer, you're going to see a lot of nails, you know. Amazingly enough, that goes not only for you trying to see in whatever's mine an intent to design some transmutation circle for creating a Philosopher's Stone or something, right, but also for me in writing in a so-called suspicious way because my abilities work in a way similar to alchemy! Didn't I already mention this to you? And yes, I write about human physiology because that's what I need to know and change when I shapeshift. Did you even notice the animal parts in the writings? In case you didn't know, I have been reading about animals to make myself better than just an awesome superhuman. It's working pretty well."

Armstrong stared at Envy with a displeased expression. For the first time, Envy felt uncomfortable enough to realise its uneasiness without getting any straightforward threats or particularly murderous looks. It would never admit being anxious because of some human things, so it chose to ridicule Armstrong instead. "Are we done with this farce? Stop seeing bad suspicious alchemy everywhere already. If you're so worried, start studying alchemy yourself so you can see that it was all for nothing."

"Do not talk to me like that."

"Well sorry, SIR!" said Envy with its face twisted. "Even you must realise that I'm annoyed since you took my stuff and then accuse me of being suspicious or whatever."

Armstrong continued her staring. "Don't push your luck. Your vacations are suspended for two months."

Envy became aggravated. "But– –!"

"Do you want a longer suspension?" Envy stared intensely at Armstrong, a troublesomely fractious expression on its face. "You can go. And don't make me regret letting you get away with this."

Envy frowned even more and left, barely managing to not stomp massive dents onto the floor. It was incredibly displeased. Armstrong was definitely unhappy about Envy's intentions.

Since Envy did not want to screw up its chance to continue being moderately safe in Fort Briggs, it started being even warier about Armstrong and did its best to not draw her attention. Though it kept practising alchemy, it mostly did thought practises and read more about natural sciences. It thought it probably needed to understand science more fundamentally in order to perform alchemy better. While it still did some alchemical experiments, it was very careful with them. For now, studying things related to alchemy was interesting enough even without unnecessary risks. It was also more heedful of the topics it wrote about in its journal.

Weeks passed. While Envy still played nicely, it was irritable and often complained that it was surly because it did not get to go on its vacation at all. Shrike bore its complaints for six weeks, but then even he started getting too tired of them. He still did nothing about the issue because the suspension of Envy's vacations would end in two weeks, and so he tried to just avoid it. Envy noticed his avoidance and questioned him about that. Surprisingly enough for Shrike, Envy seemed a little confused when he explained his unwillingness to continuously listen to it complain. It then said it would try to cut its grumbling, and did so.

During the two months, Armstrong observed Envy and asked about its doings from the people with whom it spent the most time. She received congruent responses that Envy was annoyed and kept complaining but was otherwise mostly the same as before and did not do anything noticeably peculiar. She also could not find evidence of transmutation circles in the Fort. Since Envy's behaviour became less suspicious, when the two months were up, she lifted the suspension and allowed it to go on vacation again.