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CHAPTER 2:
THE PUPPET PRIEST
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Major Armstrong stood across from the desk in the office Roy had been loaned for the duration of Roy's stay in Central with wide, stunned eyes, shaking violently.
"I can't believe this," Major Armstrong said. "All I sought to do by enlisting in the military was to protect my fellow countrymen and countrywomen. Countless other soldiers have joined the military for the same reason. And you're telling me the Amestrian military was created to murder our fellows!?"
Hughes, standing on the right side of the office, had a composed expression, but Roy knew him well enough he could see the dismay and horror in Hughes' body language.
The guilt, too. Hughes had swallowed it as he swallowed his guilt about what he'd done in Ishval, so he could laugh with Gracia and Elicia and kid around and smile at them and joke around with them, but Roy could tell it was every amount as present as the guilt Roy felt, and he knew Hawkeye and Armstrong felt, at the discovery they hadn't just massacred their people in Ishval but had been assisting in setting up the means for the Fϋhrer to exterminate everyone inside Amestris.
As he often did, Roy found himself admiring how strong Hawkeye and Hughes were, and knowing he could never be as strong as they were. Roy had been able to tell Hawkeye had been carrying her guilt well since she'd heard Fullmetal's and Alphonse's revelations, and Hughes had swallowed his guilt again. Roy, on the other hand, knew his mask was more a façade than Hawkeye's and much more of one than Hughes', and internally Roy was much more ravaged, among other things.
"Likely, yes," Roy responded from where he sat in his chair behind his desk. "Unless one or both of you can see a reason for Freezer to have lied about this the Lieutenant and I can't." He looked at Hughes.
"I wish I could," Hughes spoke, "But I can't. The Freezer appears to be legit to me."
Major Armstrong clenched a hand into a fist so tight his nails drew blood from that palm.
"If the two of you would rather resign than work with me," the Flame Alchemist said, "I won't try to convince you not to."
"Are you kidding me?" Hughes asked. "I told you, I learned we have to earn the ability to raise a family with our spouses, so I'll do anything it takes to be the person who can. Furthermore, I'm even more determined to do that now that I have a daughter in addition to a lover. Even if people transmuted into a Stone don't die, Gracia and I can't raise Elicia or watch her grow up if we're inside a Philosopher's Stone, and I can't shield Gracia or be completed by her if we're inside one. So resigning is one of the last things I can do. If I did, I wouldn't be able to shield Elicia and Gracia, raise Elicia, make Gracia happy, or live a fulfilling life with them.
"Besides, this is the chance we've been waiting for. If I leave the military, I won't get to see the nation you create."
If Major Armstrong was surprised to have his beliefs Roy sought to become Fϋhrer confirmed, he didn't say anything about it. Rather, Armstrong said, "I have to be a part of this. You almost certainly were aware of this from the beginning, but when I disobeyed my orders in Ishval and was recalled to Central, I disobeyed them hoping I would be recalled. I sought to desert without becoming a deserter in name. The military's methods were atrocious, and I couldn't continue to support them."
He looked down at his hands. "But we all know I did the wrong thing, and I've known it since I fled. I've been ashamed of my cowardice every day since then. I should have stayed true to my beliefs, opposed the military, and tried my best to protect the Ishvalans and our soldiers, from each other and themselves. If I must face the military again, this time I have to fight them. I have to redeem myself for murdering all the Ishvalans and soldiers I killed, both the ones I actively slaughtered and the ones I abandoned."
Roy sighed heavily. He'd believed he'd receive the kind of answer he'd gotten from Hughes, and Roy had feared and hoped he'd get the answer he'd gotten from Major Armstrong.
He knew it was idiotic to want it, because that would mean wanting the people the Flame Alchemist was working with to take without giving anything back, but just once, he wished his friends and companions would sit back and let him protect them.
But that would probably never happen, and he'd be upset if it did.
"Are we bringing in the rest of the team?" Hawkeye, standing to his left, questioned.
"Not unless we need them," Roy replied. "I want to risk as few lives and careers as possible setting up and executing this coup." He turned his head to include all three of them, and assumed a tone of command. "While I'm on that topic, fight with me if you want to, but if it comes down to letting me take the fall so you can survive yourself, I want you to make it look like I'm the only one guilty and the three of you had no knowledge of why I was ordering you to do what you were doing." He ignored what Fullmetal had said about having no authority in this. If Hawkeye, Hughes, or Armstrong didn't bring it up, he wasn't going to abide by it. "That's a direct order. Is that clear?"
"Roy?" Hughes asked.
"Don't tell me to shut up, Hughes," Roy responded. "I'm not budging on this."
"Nor are we," Hughes said back, and looked at Hawkeye, who nodded. Major Armstrong crossed his arms.
"If we all live through this and you don't do as I command," Roy warned them, and he was serious, "I'll court-martial all three of you once I'm Fϋhrer."
"That would be an abuse of power," the Lieutenant rejoined. "I'd have to shoot you in the back."
"I wouldn't be abusing my power if I dishonorably discharged you for disobeying a superior officer," the Flame Alchemist replied.
"You would if you repay our loyalty by punishing us," Hughes returned.
That was true. Roy sighed heavily again, but smiled. "I'm a childish dreamer, not a tough, down-in-the-dirt soldier willing to do whatever it takes to lead his or her troops to victory. How did I inspire such loyalty?"
"It's because you're a dreamer," Hawkeye answered, "And not an amoral pragmatist."
A dreamer whose naïve dreams of bettering Amestris by enlisting had turned him into a mass murderer and led him to help the Fϋhrer erase it from the world. He lowered his eyes, unable to look at her or Hughes.
Hughes coughed, and Roy looked up at him.
"I'll get to work trying to find Doctor Marcoh," Hughes spoke, "And investigating the files the court martial office has, on the researchers who worked for him, and on Laboratory Five. I'll snoop around the outside of Laboratory Five, too, and see if there's anything to find without going inside. Furthermore, I'll look through all the information we have on Ishvalan refugees to try to discover if the Ishvalan alchemist McDougal talked about is still alive, and if the Ishvalan is, where he might be now. Believe it or not, I actually might have a lead on this one," Roy's eyebrow rose, "And I'll look into that in addition. Those are the reasons you recruited me into your revolutionary cabal, right?"
"That's correct," Roy responded.
"What about me?" Major Armstrong asked. "Why do you want–
"Oh. Okay. I'll dispatch one of my family's servants north with a warning for my sister. I should inform you, though, Olivier has despised me, if not hated me, since I deserted at Ishval. I'll send a servant Olivier knows I wouldn't be dispatching if the situation weren't dire, so she'll almost certainly read my letter, but I can't say whether she'll believe me."
"That will be a start," Roy replied.
"I can also assist you in locating Doctor Marcoh," Armstrong told him. "I've met him, and I can give you a picture of his appearance."
"Good to hear." Roy looked back at Hughes. "What's your possible lead on the Ishvalan?"
"Have you heard anything about a serial killer who has been murdering State Alchemists throughout the nation?" Hughes questioned.
Roy's eyes widened. "I haven't heard a word. You believe this murderer could be an Ishvalan?"
"The possibility didn't occur to me until you told us an alchemist from Ishval exists," Hughes responded, "But now I do. All we know about the killer is he's male, desert-skinned, has a large scar on his forehead, and his victims usually die from inexplicable head wounds. We call him 'Scar' because of the scar. But we don't know Scar's motives, what any of his methods or weapons are, or anything else about him. If Scar is an Ishvalan alchemist slaughtering with transmutations, though, that would explain why he's targeting State Alchemists, why we can't identify how he kills his victims, and it fits in with his desert skin. He may not be the alchemist who saved McDougal – we know the alchemist who saved McDougal had more reason than most Ishvalans to oppose the military, but we also know it may not make sense an Ishvalan alchemist would save a State Alchemist near the end of the war if he intended to kill them as part of the Ishvalan's means of fighting us after the war was over – but considering how the Ishvalan religion sees alchemy, there may very well be a connection between them."
The Flame Alchemist thought about a few ideas for luring Scar into targeting him and setting a trap for the male, but none of them appeared feasible, so he put the concept off for later.
What Roy was thinking must have showed on his face, for Hughes sighed and Hawkeye gave Roy an almost imperceptible nod, a pledge to back him up if he used himself as bait.
"It also looks to me like we need to uncover," Hughes spoke, knowing there was no reason to talk any further about the Ishvalan, "Or figure out, what the Fϋhrer wants this special Stone for. If the myths about the Philosopher's Stone are true, what transmutations could a much larger, special Stone allow a regular Stone can't enable?"
"Perhaps," Lieutenant Hawkeye offered, "If the myths are true, the myths aren't fully accurate. Perhaps a regular Stone is capable of nothing more than allowing an alchemist to break the Law of Equivalent Exchange, or to heal severe injuries, or both. Perhaps, if immortality can be accomplished, an alchemist requires a vastly larger Stone to transmute an immortal body, and that's what the Fϋhrer and High Command want a special Stone for."
Before the night preceding this day, Roy would have dismissed the concept immortality could be achieved as ludicrous. But before the night preceding this day, Roy would have dismissed the concept the government had founded Amestris and deceived its people for centuries for the purpose of transmuting a mythological alchemic catalyst as absurd.
"That might be it," Roy said.
He hoped it was, because they were all aware of the same thing.
They'd try, but none of them had the slightest idea where to begin to investigate what even the Philosopher's Stone in its successful form couldn't realize.
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Ed walked up the path to the opening between the stone wall to the left of the path, relative to the direction he was facing, and the stone wall to the right of the opening into the Rockbells' front yard, a smile on his face as he looked at the blonde-haired, flesh and blood shape of his brother to his right. Edward's flesh right hand was intertwined with Al's flesh left hand, and Edward was savoring the warmth and feel of his brother's hand, and all the creases in it and rough calluses on it, as well as the feel of Ed's left leg's movements.
He still couldn't believe it was his brother's warmth he was feeling in and around his right hand, his brother's rough calluses, the creases in his brother's hand. Edward could feel them as distinctly as he could feel anything else around him, but he couldn't believe they belonged to Al, even days after they'd regained their bodies. But the smile on Al's face as he kept his eyes closed, immersing himself in the feel of the breeze blowing his hair, left no doubt this was real.
Granny was waiting for them with a smile of her own on her face. "Welcome back, Ed, Al!" she cried. "I see you've finally done it! Congratulations! Let's not spend too much time talking and preventing Winry from finding out. She's right this way."
Edward grinned. He'd been eagerly looking forward to her reaction to finding out they had their bodies back.
Granny led them inside, through the sitting room, up the stairs, and to the door to Winry's room. She opened it and gestured for the two of them to enter.
Ed walked inside, everything around him and inside him, every last drop of his blood, turned to freezing ice so cold it burned.
Before him, resting on the floor of Winry's room and taking up most of the empty space of her bedroom from floor to ceiling, lay an enormous partially translucent red globe.
He couldn't speak. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He couldn't process thought. All Edward genuinely knew was horror nothing in his life but what he'd felt the night of the failed human transmutation had transcended.
"Ed," Winry's disembodied voice sounded from the sphere, filled with unimaginable bitterness and agony and hatred. "Al. This figures. Everyone else in the nation loses their bodies and dies and becomes part of this thing," Edward saw blue light crackling and his ability to move returned to him with a violent jolt, and he spun to see Granny's body fall into pieces and disappear in blue currents, "But you get your bodies back. You let me die and condemned me to a form that can't even see or hear, never mind feel, but you regained your body. It's so revolting I wish I could retch on you until you suffocated in my throw up. I thought it wasn't possible for me to hate you any more after you sentenced me to this form, but I was wrong."
Every word was all-consuming agony, tearing away more of Edward as he looked at the Philosopher's Stone, but when his knees gave out and he fell, something violently seized his right arm and left leg and then they were automail again and the things holding them were Alphonse's armor hands and Al was armor again and ripped them off and let Ed fall onto his back. Al crushed the automail, then kicked Edward as hard as he could over and over at differing locations all over his body.
"How could you do this to her!?" Al screamed. "I hate you! I've hated you every second since you irrevocably destroyed my body! My dearest wish since then, until I learned what the Philosopher's Stone was, has been for you to lose your body and be trapped in a suit of armor too!" The pain of each kick wiped out most of the awareness Ed still had, but it was so infinitesimal it was almost nonexistent compared to the anguish surmounting thought inside him that grew with each word Al uttered, shattering more and more of Ed's whole existence into bits. "Then it was for you to be imprisoned in a Philosopher's Stone! I've hated you so much I know for certain I'd have thrown up every day I was around you if I had a body, so much I've been certain I'd retch anyway every time I called you 'Brother!' But condemning me to this body wasn't enough for you!? You had to murder Winry and take away her body and everyone else's as well!? I hate you even more now!"
And then she spoke.
Ed didn't know how he could see her through the all-consuming physical and emotional agony, but there she was, lying to the side of the Stone in a pool of spreading blood, more indefinably horrible than an infinite nightmare, darker than the most pitch black night endlessly beyond the void, violently retching blood.
"Why can't you fix any of us, Ed?" the thing that should have been their Mom asked from an upside down head. "I loved you and raised you and this is how you repay me? Al loved you and trusted you to take care of him and this is what you do to him? Winry loves you and gave you automail and supported you through your surgery and rehabilitation and this is how you repay her? Pinako loves you and raised you after I died the first time and this is how you repay her?"
Edward saw a wooden bench across from him, moving in time with his surroundings, and heard sounds. After an unknown period of time passed he became aware he was sitting in a train seat, Al sitting to his right and looking at him, the countryside rolling by beyond the train window in the pre-dawn light.
Al sighed and looked away, and Edward's heart ached at how helpless he knew his brother was feeling. But Ed didn't know if there was anything he could say, so he quietly looked out the window and watched the countryside pass.
Edward's sleep, when he could sleep in the first place, had been consumed with nightmares the word didn't touch every night since the Freezer had revealed what the Fϋhrer was doing. They were usually similar to the one he'd just had. He and Al would return to the Rockbell house, at times with one or both of his and Al's bodies restored, at times not, and be shown to Winry's room by Granny or Teacher or Sig or Mustang or Hawkeye or a combination of the five to see an enormous red globe on the floor of her room, a globe from which, in most of the nightmares of this type, Winry's voice would cry or otherwise speak in unimaginable anguish and beg Ed desperately to return her to life or to give her back a body, many times both, or tell him she hated him for sentencing her to become part of a Stone, or something similar. In most of the nightmares that weren't nightmares of this kind the body of whoever or whomever had shown Ed and Al to her room would be deconstructed around this time too. In a sizable minority of these nightmares, Ed would succeed at transmuting Winry's soul out of the Stone into a suit of armor, and then she'd scream at him she hated him for failing to save her and letting her die and condemning her to an unfeeling body and use her wrench to scrape her blood seal away, and the armor would collapse lifelessly in coursing blue. In almost all these nightmares defying the name, regardless of whether Al had an armor body or a human body, regardless of whether Winry cried or spoke a word, Al would turn and verbally and physically assault Ed, kicking him or punching him or attacking him another way or with a combination of methods and screaming at Edward he hated him even more now for murdering or permanently taking away Winry's and everyone else's bodies too and he'd hated Ed every second since Ed had taken away Alphonse's body. And in the worst of the nightmares surmounting expression of this type, as Al assaulted Edward mercilessly and screamed at him the thing that should have been their Mom would be lying by the Stone in a pool of spreading blood, violently retching blood and talking to Ed. At first Al had woken Edward when he'd shown evidence Ed was having a nightmare, but eventually Alphonse had stopped, the two of them having realized the only times Ed could sleep was when he was having nightmares.
Edward knew he was worrying Al sick at a time when his brother didn't need to be worried for Ed incomparably more than usual, but he extremely highly doubted his nightmares would stop if he found out Alphonse didn't hate him, and without the knowledge he could end Al's worries, after the past four nights, Edward was measurelessly more inexpressibly terrified of asking the question now.
Is there a point asking? Deep down, you know the answer. He hates you. How could he not hate you? Need I remind you of everything you've done to him again?
And now there's a very good chance you can't save him from it and heal him. Al's kind, but anyone would find it impossible not to hate you under these circumstances.
It was harder than usual to push away those thoughts.
But Ed didn't try to focus on the countryside to rid himself of them. He knew he wouldn't be able to remain more than barely aware of it for long. Even how different it now appeared couldn't keep him fully aware of it for more than short periods of time.
Because it was by far not the only thing that appeared different.
Everything was different now.
When, seven days ago, they'd purchased train tickets for Liore, he hadn't believed Colonel Mustang would summon them to his office in East City and order them to postpone their current assignment and accompany him to Central to bring down a fugitive. But that hadn't been anything unusual. When they'd arrived in Central a day later, Edward had run out of the Colonel's briefing about the fugitive before Mustang had finished, ignoring Alphonse's requests to stop, assuming this would be a run-of-the-mill mission and impatient to get it out of the way as fast as possible so they could be on their way chasing their best lead yet to the Philosopher's Stone with as little delay as possible.
He could never have imagined how drastically the 'run-of-the-mill mission' would turn his entire reality on its head again.
The priest who could supposedly work miracles probably was using a Philosopher's Stone to enact them, though whether it was an imperfect catalyst or the real thing remained to be found out.
Even if he wasn't, there were countless Philosopher's Stones underground below their feet.
But none of that might do them one bit of good.
As well, even if they could use the Stone, Ed didn't know how much it mattered when Winry and millions of other people might lose their bodies in a far worse way than Al had, and if they did, it might be even less likely those millions could be restored than Al could. Could even a Philosopher's Stone take apart another Philosopher's Stone?
It hurt so much Edward extremely highly doubted he could answer that question even if he tried any more than he could answer whether they could use the Stone, though, and it hurt too much to try. He was disgusted with himself he was doing such a lousy job of carrying this pain after this many days. He needed to be strong and tough in order to walk on his legs, and carrying his torment better than this was an essential part of that. But he wasn't willing to. Pain couldn't knock him off his legs, and it hurt so much.
He was so terrified, and worse.
Of what would happen to Al and Winry and Granny and the other people Ed cared about if he couldn't prevent the Fϋhrer from succeeding, of losing Al and Winry and Granny and the others he cared about too, of what might happen to Al even if they did, of this hideous reality, of the ability of the flow of matter and the alchemy he had faith in to fashion these atrocities, of the depravity humans could sink to, of everything.
But the knowledge Al needed him gave Ed the strength to stay on his legs. Further, he'd been dealing with torment about Al for years now, and lack of sleep and nightmares that were worse than nightmares. With the awareness Al needed him giving Edward strength, the familiarity made walking on his legs even easier.
Torture and terror and everything else about Winry were different matters. It was something new, and the urge to call Winry so Edward could hear her voice, alive and vibrant and human and without an echo and there, was almost a physical thing by now. He would have done it by this point if he hadn't been scared he'd worry her by calling her for apparently no reason.
But Al needed him, so he was on his legs.
Something appeared over the horizon, and it took several seconds for its presence to break through Ed's thoughts and for his mind to register it was there and a steeple.
Edward turned to his brother, sitting on the train seat to his right.
"We're almost there," Edward said.
"I know," Al responded, voice quieter than usual, as it had been most of the time for the past days.
There was no need for Edward to lower his voice to a whisper. They'd chosen an empty train car, and Al had been staying alert for anyone's entry.
"It'll work out," Ed spoke, knowing the words wouldn't do any good but needing to say something. "It's truly possible to create a legend such as the Philosopher's Stone, so we can oust a corrupt government."
"Can you really believe we can stop them?" Alphonse asked. "This involves all of Amestris, and we're just children. How I'm reacting to what McDougal revealed proves that even more."
Ed didn't know if he was willing to admit to himself he didn't know if he could believe they could, so he queried, "How so?"
"Death is a part of the flow of matter in the universe," Alphonse replied, "And so we need to accept death. We need to accept the circulation of the One and the All as well. Teacher put a lot of effort into beating that into us, and we paid a terrible price for not learning that lesson. Yet in spite of all her words and all we've suffered because of our arrogance, I haven't grown the littlest amount. I've been trying over the past days, but no matter how hard I attempt to I can't accept the concept of death as horrid as what the Fϋhrer has planned, or it can be part of the cycle of nature. I can look at the Truth, but I can't accept it. The transmutation is possible, so that irrefutably proves it's part of the flow of reality, but even though that's utterly unarguable I can't accept that kind of death. I know death isn't a question of numbers, but millions upon millions… everyone in a nation… It's too severe an atrocity. Because of that, I can't accept death of this caliber is part of the cycle of existence, too. I'm still too immature to accept reality for what it is.
"I've known I haven't matured at all for a long time. My desire to be human once more is just as much a denial of the Truth. But I didn't think I was this infantile."
Edward's insides twisted violently, and he squeezed his eyes shut tightly, his face twisting in anguish limits couldn't encompass. Another thing tormenting his brother the elder Elric couldn't take away from Al. Another thing torturing Al about which Ed didn't know if there was anything that could be said. He knew all too well what Al was feeling, and due to Edward's inability to comfort his own tumult, he wasn't sure there was support for this.
But he couldn't just stay silent.
He opened his eyes and raised his hand to the top of Al's head, rubbing it. "I feel similar in many ways. I can't accept it myself. This is the Truth?" He'd address Al's perspective he hadn't grown because he wanted a regular body another time. "Innumerable people can be wiped from reality and turned into fuel through grade school alchemy, and something fully within nature's rules, rather than something pushing the boundaries of those laws? We're supposed to accept that and live with this as 'the way the world works?' We're supposed to accept something this gruesome as no more than a natural process? I can't begin to.
"Even after what McDougal spoke happened at Ishval, I still can't fully believe any alchemist, never mind common alchemists, would be willing to toy with one life. I can barely believe an alchemist has the capacity to toy with millions of lives. I'm fighting incredibly hard to accept the worst of what the military did in Ishval. I'm no better than you.
"I extremely highly doubt that's reassuring, but I understand how you feel." Edward smiled sadly.
"It helps to know you understand," Al responded, and Ed's chest loosened the slightest amount. Ed knew Al meant it. His brother wouldn't lie about something like that to comfort Edward.
"But if we can't move forward and accept the flow of nature," Al questioned, "Or the Truth of reality, even after everything, how can we defeat them and save each other and Winry and Granny? We're stuck-up brats." Ed cringed, but there was no way for him to argue Al was wrong about himself. "This is something so distant from a child's fantasy of grandeur not much can be farther. What can arrogant fools like us achieve striving against hardship this severe?"
Edward ignored his doubts.
"We're not so foolish we don't make an honest effort now," Edward responded. "As long as we abide by Equivalent Exchange, and nature's cycle, and genuinely give, it doesn't matter if we accept the flow. We can still succeed. We're not endeavoring to perform forbidden alchemy. We're attempting to stop people from performing forbidden alchemy. We have a meaningful chance."
Al didn't reply for several seconds, and then spoke, "I want to hope and believe you're right. But I don't know if I can. I believed and hoped I'd be able to get our bodies back for all these years, but now I know I was kidding myself." Ed's heart stopped, and he began shaking violently. "It doesn't matter if we can use the Stone or not, or if there's another way. The concept we can regain our bodies when Amestris is so deeply enmeshed in a web of death, and always has been, is a mad dream. You're never going to be totally flesh and blood again, and I'm never going to be able to sleep again, or cry again, or eat quiche again, or feel again, or be human again."
He was still having a nightmare. He had to be. The Philosopher's Stone was transmuted from human souls, and Amestris had been founded to construct a Philosopher's Stone, and there were thousands of regular Philosopher's Stones beneath them, and the military had committed genocide in Ishval, but it wasn't infinitely remotely possible he could be hearing those words from Al. Al was the last one out of the two of them who would say that. Al was the optimist, the one who often raised Edward's spirits when he was becoming discouraged and convinced him to keep trying. Ed could believe Al was taking the Freezer's revelations harder than Edward was, and had had his optimism indescribably shaken, but it was a betrayal of everything good in existence Al would be the first of them to lose all hope of them regaining their bodies.
Maybe Al didn't hate Ed, though why Alphonse wouldn't when he was certain his suffering was inescapable surpassed Edward's ability to comprehend, but Ed now hated himself incomparably more than he had since Mustang had shown them it was possible they could fix their mistake. It was Ed's fault Al had no hope now, every amount as much as it had been Ed's fault Al had had no hope before Mustang had given it to them.
For a moment, Ed was back in the wheelchair, hopeless himself for Al and himself.
But he forced himself not to lose awareness of where they were and what was going on. Ed couldn't afford to spend any time believing their dreams were hopeless when even Al had given in. Maybe it had all been for nothing, but they didn't know that for sure. It looked less likely he could give Al his body back now, but there still might be another shore on the other side of the river of mud. There was less hope now, perhaps far less hope, but things weren't hopeless.
"You can't be sure of that, Al," Edward responded. "Please see that. If I can see that, you know you can as well."
"I can," Alphonse replied. "But what are we doing, trusting in something that's no more than a possibility? We have no proof we can pull it off. All the evidence we have is against it."
"That's incorrect," Ed argued. "For the first time, we do have evidence for it. The Philosopher's Stone can be transmuted. One impossibility has been proven to be attainable, so that means we can't trust anything else we thought can't be done genuinely can't be done."
Again, Al didn't talk back for several seconds. Then Al responded, "Point."
He sounded as if he was attempting to convince himself for his brother's sake, but he was trying to convince himself, and that was enough to cause all the strength to leave Ed's body. He would have fallen against the back of the train seat if he hadn't needed to keep rubbing Al's head.
Al's effort didn't cause Edward to hate himself any less, however. Al should never have lost hope, and Ed had no guarantee his brother was going to succeed in regaining it.
"Then I'll try to believe we can save each other, Winry, and a whole country, too," Al continued, still sounding as if he was attempting to convince himself for Ed's sake.
"But you should try to believe the argument you made yourself, Brother."
Ed hoped nothing was showing on his face at Al's revelation he'd seen through Edward's avoidance of Alphonse's earlier question, but Edward doubted it.
Ed didn't talk, though.
.
"Thanks," Ed said to the café owner with the black mustache and the circular brown hat, taking his glass of orange juice and his plate.
"You're welcome," the male spoke back.
Above them on an overhang, a radio was broadcasting the voice of a person Edward assumed was the priest pawn giving a sermon, but he didn't spend any time listening to it. He doubted the sermon itself would tell him anything helpful.
He hoped he looked as relaxed as he was trying to act. There was no way to know who in Liore could be trusted.
He asked, "Who's the voice on the radio?"
The owner blinked and looked surprised. "Why would people like you want to know about Father Cornello? You're street performers or something similar, right?"
Ed sighed. He wasn't in the mood for this. "Nothing of the sort," his words were as cordial as he cared to make them. "We're travelers touring the East seeing the sights and searching for interesting happenings going on. But if you're going to insult us, we'll give someone else here our patronage."
The owner appeared apologetic. "I'm sorry," he said. "Save for Father Cornello, we don't meet many unusual people. But he is unusual. You've come to a good place to hear about interesting things. He's the true article when it comes to holy people; a messenger blessed by the Sun God he serves. Most priests or priestesses seeking to start new religions have no proof his or her God or Goddess or deities are real and work to win over the masses with teachings and faked miracles, but Father Cornello has demonstrated Leto is real so convincingly even the most skeptical person would have to admit a deity exists. Father Cornello performs genuine miracles in public. Almost all of us have seen him do it."
Ed gave a skeptical expression. "Really? What kinds of things are these supposed 'miracles' that make you sure these ones aren't a magician's tricks too?"
A male with short unruly brown hair standing in the square walked over. "Among other things, he can cause statues to spring up from the ground and change their shape, create giant flowers out of regular-sized flowers in his bare hands, heal the injuries of animals in seconds just by touching the animals, turn wooden furniture into marble, produce feasts fit for nobles out of crumbs, and create water out of steel." Those sounded like things a Philosopher's Stone was capable of, and Edward violently shoved down another powerful surge of desire, disgusted with himself again. How could he still feel this way!? "We've never seen him enact other miracles he's told us he can perform, but because we've seen his miracles with our own eyes, we believe him when he says Leto bestows eternal life upon the souls of the faithful and Father Cornello himself can resurrect the dead."
That was one of the last things Ed needed to hear at a time like this. Al and he were in enough pain; they didn't need to deal with someone who thought he could bring the dead back to life, or was lying about being able to, now. Nor did they need to deal with the awareness of what they knew better than at any time before now the townsfolk of Liore were going to feel when their hopes their dead loved ones could be returned to them were wrecked.
He pushed away his memories, thoughts, and emotions as best he could and tried to keep all evidence of them from his body and face, but something of this must have shown, for the café owner questioned, "What's wrong?" Ed swore silently. "Did you lose someone important to you you want Father Cornello to return to you?"
"That's none of your business," Edward answered. "But I would like to learn more about this. When is Father Cornello scheduled to perform his next public miracles?"
"In around a half-hour," the figure with the unruly brown hair replied. "Do you want to see him do it?"
"That's our intention," Edward responded. "Let's go, Al. Be careful when you stand up. If you don't watch it you'll knock the radio off the overhang."
Al's head shifted as if he was regaining awareness of the reality around him, and Ed's insides twisted violently. "Right."
.
The supposed 'Father Cornello' was a large, bald person in a mostly black suit with a white scarf draped over his shoulders and falling to his waist, and he was smiling out at the large crowd of cheering citizens of Liore gathered in the square before the church.
But none of this prevented Ed, standing on a box at the back of the crowd, from seeing the partially translucent red marble on the ring on the purported priest's right hand. Edward's heart rate picked up, and he snarled. It didn't matter they might soon have an imperfect or successful Philosopher's Stone in their possession! What mattered was that it was composed of human souls, so they might not be able to use it! There was nothing to anticipate!
"Do you see it, Brother?" Al asked in a whisper.
"Yes," Ed responded in a whisper. "That leaves one question. Does Cornello know he's using alchemy and manipulating the citizens here, or does he believe he can perform miracles himself and resurrect dead people himself?"
Pink flowers were falling over the square and the front of the church where Cornello and the people working for him stood. Cornello caught one in his left hand, dropped it in his right, and raised his hands together with the flower within them. There was a burst of red light, and when it cleared the white stone statue behind Cornello Ed assumed to be of Leto was holding a large pink and yellow flower and a series of white protrusions extended from the flower to in front of Cornello, another large, but smaller, pink and yellow flower attached to the protrusions in front of the supposed priest. The supposed priest's hands were spread to his sides.
Whatever doubts Ed had left the marble was a Philosopher's Stone vanished, and Edward took deep breath after deep breath, trying to calm his heart down.
"What next?" Alphonse questioned.
"What else?" Edward asked back. "We're going to meet this 'priest' and his servants ourselves."
.
The church's nave was large, and a large statue of Leto stood at the back, behind a stone altar.
In front of that altar, a girl in a white dress with long black hair that was red in the front knelt, praying, but as with the sermon on the radio, for the same reason, Ed didn't listen to her prayer or prayers, and thought about his idea again, looking for flaws in it he wasn't yet aware of.
He and Al walked forward, and Ed waited until they were standing closer to her to talk. Soon they were standing a distance behind her, and Edward commented, "So this is the divine Leto."
As he spoke, the girl turned to the side and looked at them, revealing she had purple eyes and all of the front of her hair was red.
She rose and turned to face them fully, and as she did, she spoke, "Yes, it is. Are you interested in Leto?"
"I'm sorry, but we're not." He still wasn't sure this was the best approach, but he could think of no better way to try to find out about Cornello's culpability from Cornello or his servants without exposing how much Edward knew. He didn't know this girl was a servant, but she might be, so she was a good place to begin. "Furthermore, you're going to find this hard to believe, but Father Cornello shouldn't be interested in Leto himself." The girl frowned confusedly. "We're alchemists, and we're here with a warning for him. We assume he found the stone he keeps on his ring and he thinks it was given to him by Leto so he could work miracles and spread Leto's teachings to the world, but it's not a medium for performing miracles. It's an alchemic catalyst, and if he keeps playing fast and loose with it like he's doing, he's going to get himself or the people around him hurt or killed."
The girl's eyes widened, a multitude of feelings flickering through her eyes, but nothing showed that told Edward whether or not he could trust her. Then she glared. "That's arrogant." But there was a fear and a desperation present in her voice Ed recognized right away, and his stomach twisted violently. She might be in on one or more plots, but she truly believed Cornello could enact miracles, and whether she was a dupe and a deceiver or just a dupe, Edward now knew why she was. "Who in the world do you think you are to walk in here and say something like that out of the blue?"
Ed pushed back the memories of blinding agony and blood and loss and horror that couldn't be conveyed by words and clamped down on the anguish defying anguish and the rest. He didn't want to put anyone through what he and Alphonse had experienced years ago and were experiencing presently, or talk about this now, but if he didn't, this girl would continue to travel down the same path he had.
And would meet the same fate, one that might very well be irreversible.
He had to save her, however much it would anguish her and Al and tormented him.
He suppressed the urge to squeeze his eyes shut extremely tightly, and he prevented his face from twisting. He was all too aware right now of how much this would hurt her, and much of what was within him told him that there was absolutely no way he could do this now that he knew what it was like to lose what he trusted in, and now that he knew what the lives of others genuinely were, that it would be cruel beyond measure and he knew just how cruel beyond measure it would be. But none of that changed anything. It would be immeasurably cruel, but she needed to face the truth, for her own sake.
Hating himself even more now, he responded.
"Someone acquainted with the old myth of the person who flew too close to the Sun." He looked up at the statue of Leto. "Are you aware of what happened to him? His wings melted away and he fell broken back to the ground. If Cornello keeps this up, that's how he'll end up. Maybe not if he sticks to the transmutations he's been working, but if he tries to resurrect someone dead, he'll plummet."
"That's no proof he isn't performing miracles," the girl rejoined. "Maybe he'd suffer if he was an alchemist, but you have no proof he isn't everything he thinks he is."
"Neither you nor he have proof he is everything he thinks he is," Edward said. "Alchemy, on the other hand, has plenty of proof he's a fake. There's something you ought to know. Alchemists are scientists. We don't believe in unprovable concepts such as Creators or Gods. We obey the physical laws that govern reality, and seek the truth."
He was unable to stop himself from shuddering violently saying that. How could he continue to pursue the truth, when the deaths of uncountable millions was an ordinary wave within the flow of the One and All?
But he had to. He shouldn't even be asking this question. The Truth defined reality, and to turn away from it was to turn away from everything that was real, not just portions of it, and life itself.
In addition, searching for the Truth was what it meant to be an alchemist. To betray that would be to betray his very identity. He couldn't accept the Truth now, but he would, somehow, and he'd keep searching for it as long as he lived.
He started, becoming aware his act had fallen apart, but not even the faintest trace of suspicion showed on the girl's face. The girl didn't know one way or the other whether Cornello was culpable, or was too good at hiding it for him to be able to learn anything from her.
This discussion would get him nowhere.
But it was about far more than investigating Cornello now.
"The proper application of science, in a sense, gives us the power to be Gods ourselves," Edward went on, and the girl's jaw dropped. His stomach twisted, for he now knew just how true that was, and how wrong it was alchemy gave them such an indescribable capacity to shape people's lives. He no longer wanted to believe they were Gods; now that he knew how much power alchemy had to bring about suffering and how willing alchemists were to use it that way, he couldn't believe alchemists practiced something marvelous. He couldn't accept they didn't, but nor could he believe it. But it was inescapable; alchemy functioned in accordance with the Truth, and the Truth was the answer to everything. For worse or for better, they were akin to Gods in an extremely remote way. "We'd know if Cornello was enacting miracles or performing alchemy. Cornello and you wouldn't."
"Now you're being even more arrogant!" the girl cried, further angry now. "You're making yourself out to be equal with God! Get over yourself! You aren't all-powerful! I'm not going to believe the warning of someone who makes boasts like that!"
Edward sighed. "I said 'in a sense.' I didn't say we can do anything. Flying too close to the Sun, remember. Additionally, history has known more than its fair share of unscrupulous alchemists; you have no idea how far from infallible we are. But alchemists study science, and science teaches us provable truth. That makes us more like Gods than anything can be. Cornello's an unwitting fraud; or maybe witting, but I doubt it. If he knew he was a fake he wouldn't be proselytizing; he'd be using his catalyst to con money out of simpletons." He wished he could warn the girl Cornello might be a willing fake, but he had to keep up his lie. "I don't know who you lost," the girl's eyes widened at the revelation he knew she was hoping Cornello could restore someone she loved to her, "And I wish you could get him or her back, but I have to give you the bad news; you can't."
The girl forced a laugh, to hide he was disturbing her. "For all your words, I see you still haven't provided any of the proof you praise. If you believe in provable concepts, why can't you provide any yourself? Or could it be you're the fraud?"
"Do the words 'the Law of Equivalent Exchange' mean anything to you, Miss…?" Before he gave her a real reason to fear, he wanted to at least extend her the courtesy of learning her name.
"Rose," she told him evenly. "Rose Thomas."
"Rose, then," Ed reached into his right cloak pocket and removed his alchemy book. "Do you know anything about the Law of Equivalent Exchange?"
"I know very little about alchemy," Rose answered, "So no."
"According to the Law of Equivalent Exchange," Ed spoke, "Nothing can be obtained without first giving something of equal value. You can't create something out of nothing. There is, though, one way to break this law." He flipped to a page in the alchemy book and turned it to face her. "Look at this."
Now fear and worry appeared on Rose's face, along with a pain too deep for her face to be showing all of it, and Ed clenched his teeth. But she must have believed there was no reason to be afraid, for she walked forward and read out loud.
"'"The Red Tincture." "The Fifth Element." "The Divine Elixir." "The celestial stone that destroyed the city of Xerxes in a single night." There are many names for the substance known as the Philosopher's Stone, and many myths about its appearance. A number of the myths state it's a stone, others a liquid, others a semi-liquid. But all agree on two things. The Stone is a catalyst whereby an alchemist can transmute without feeding an equal amount of matter into the process to the matter the alchemist wishes to gain,'" Rose's voice became a little unsteady as she read this, "'And the Stone is red.'"
Then she smiled in relief. "'The Stone is believed to have miraculous healing powers.' You must not remember your research very well. So what if Father Cornello has the Stone? Alchemy can bring the dead back to life if you have it."
Ed flipped to another page, a list of ingredients.
"What's this?" Rose inquired.
"It tells us the complete chemical makeup of the human body for the average adult," Edward told her. "It's been calculated down to the last microgram. But to this day there hasn't yet been a record of an alchemist performing a successful human transmutation. There's always been something missing from each transmutation, something modern science hasn't yet uncovered. The Philosopher's Stone can't succeed in transmuting something when the alchemist doesn't know what the ingredients are. The process of transmutation is understanding, deconstruction, and reconstruction. And if the Philosopher's Stone can't do it, the transmutation will probably still operate under Equivalent Exchange. The Stone probably can't break the law if it doesn't know how."
Worry reappeared on Rose's face, but she said, "It must be difficult to gather the chemicals that comprise a human. Alchemists must not have been able to access the missing ingredient or ingredients, but I'm sure plenty of them discovered what it is. Even if they haven't, Father Cornello is a recipient of divine revelation. I'm sure Leto told Father Cornello what secular alchemists haven't learned."
Edward laughed harshly. "You couldn't be more wrong. All those ingredients can be purchased at the nearest convenience store for spare change. As it turns out, humans are pretty cheap."
Ed's stomach heaved violently at speaking those words. That was probably how the Fϋhrer and the government saw the citizens of Amestris, he realized, and how the government had seen them for centuries. As nothing more than cheap convenience store compounds.
And Ed thought of humans as compounds one could purchase for spare change at a convenience store as well. What, then, made him any different from–
He scowled furiously. No. He wasn't like them the most infinitesimal amount.
"It has nothing to do with an alchemist's ability to access the ingredients," he spoke. "We genuinely don't know."
"Leto does," Rose said back. "Leto is omniscient."
Edward wished he could tell her, whether Cornello was lying or being lied to, Leto was a fiction, but that wasn't an option. So he questioned, "Do you really want Cornello to risk paying the price for being wrong about Leto's existence? Do you want to risk paying that price? Show her, Al." He'd prefer to show Rose his automail, but they'd be at less of a disadvantage if Cornello knew Al had no flesh and blood body than if he knew about Edward's automail. "Show her what happens when you fly too close to the Sun."
Rose's eyes widened, and she gazed at them, now transfixed, terror and horror and countless other emotions passing over her face.
"We're sorry," Al spoke. "We wish we didn't have to shatter your hopes. But we don't want to see you end up like I have."
He took his helmet off, and bent his armor so Rose could see there was nothing inside of it.
Her eyes remained locked on Al.
"When we were younger," Al told her, and she started violently as his voice came from the armor's torso, "Our mother died. Brother got the idea of performing a human transmutation to bring her back, and we tried it. But the transmutation failed, and in exchange for attempting to create a body, mind, and soul, I lost my body and mind. All that exists in this suit of armor is a soul. There's more to the story than that, but this should give you an idea of what you and Cornello are dabbling in."
Rose didn't say anything for several seconds, her eyes still locked on Al. Then she shook her head, then shook it again, repeatedly, rapidly, desperately, and Ed's heart ached.
"No!" she cried. "It doesn't give me an idea! You don't know for sure he has the Stone! They might be miracles! Cornello might truly be able to perform miracles! He has to be!"
Rose started shaking violently.
"Can you sit back and let him risk his body because you don't want to believe he might be wrong?" Al asked gently. "We're sorry. We know what you're feeling, more than you can imagine. We went through it ourselves. If we could, we'd attempt to find a way to show you the truth less harshly. But we have to ask this of you. Cornello is endangering himself, and perhaps others, and it may be even worse. He might know he can't perform miracles, and might be lying to you all and using you for an unknown reason. We've got to meet with him. Please, could you take us to him?"
Edward didn't know how much time passed as she stood there, shaking violently. But he let time pass wordlessly, feeling totally sick, wishing with everything he was he could tell her he knew, as well, what it was like to have his trust in the thing he believed in torn apart. He hoped dearly Cornello was no more than a dupe himself. Edward was aware, too, how much it would further hurt Rose if she found out he had been deceiving her all this time and was willingly using her.
Finally Rose opened her mouth. "I don't work here," her voice was so unsteady and flooding over with so much agony Ed wanted to retch. "But Father Cornello knows me. He'll grant us an audience. Who should I tell him you are?"
"Introduce me as Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist," Edward replied, and if she recognized the name "Elric" or his title, she was too upset to show it, "And Al as Alphonse Elric."
She nodded, and walked toward a wooden double door to her left, opened it, and walked through it.
"Artin." Her voice was steadier now.
A male's voice questioned, "What's wrong?"
"Hopefully you'll never need to know," she responded. "Could you please inform Father Cornello an alchemist known as the Fullmetal Alchemist, named Edward Elric, and his brother, Alphonse Elric, are here wishing to speak with him about an urgent matter?"
"Sure."
.
A male in white opened one of the two double doors into a darkened chamber, and the male in the mostly black suit Rose had named "Cray" led them into a large torch-lit room with a floor and walls a shade of lighter brown. Edward looked at the two white-clothed male guards standing inside the double doors as they entered without turning his eyes, marking their positions. If Cornello was culpable, this would be a good time for an ambush.
"The Father is right this way," Cray informed them. Rose was walking in next to them, and Ed kept his eyes on her. If she was in on any plotting and they were ambushed, she was also a threat. "You must address him with the reverence befitting a messenger of Leto."
"Don't trouble yourself reminding us of that," Edward smiled. "I know."
"The Father is a very busy person," Cray replied, "So much that even a State Alchemist wouldn't usually be able to gain an audience with him. But if Rose says the matter is urgent, he believes her." The door closed behind them and Ed looked back warily. "That's why we can't allow you to leave this cathedral alive."
Rose's eyes widened, and Ed whirled back at Cray to see the servant pointing a gun at Al, and then two spears were thrust diagonally down before him and Al.
Fury erupted through Edward at Cray's and the guards' actions, and he snarled. This told them whether Cornello was culpable, and that meant Rose was being used by Cornello even if she was a willing participant in any of his plots.
"What are you doing!?" Rose cried, and her shock sounded real, but Edward remained wary of her. "They're here with a warning for Father Cornello! They're not a threat!"
"Yes, they are," Cray responded. "They're agents of the Amestrian military, sent to prevent the Father from spreading his teachings because the military fears the doctrines of Leto will one day become a threat to them."
The desperate, guiltless hope that appeared in Rose's eyes held so much within it familiar to Edward he could tell she had no knowledge Cornello was a willing fraud, and that was the final straw.
"You just wish," Edward snarled, and grabbed the spear before him, bending forward and hurling the guard behind him into Cray before the guard could release the spear with enough force to send the two of them crashing to the floor, Cray's head colliding with the stone and his eyes rolling up in his head, his gun sliding across the stone to Rose's feet. Before the guard could rise Ed was on him, smashing the wooden end of the spear into the back of the guard's head with far more force than necessary to knock him out, though not enough to risk his death. Edward whirled on the other guard, but Al had already punched him back into the wall behind him hard enough to knock him unconscious like the other two were.
"What… what is this?" Rose shrank away from them, a different fear in her eyes now. "What are you two doing?"
"A better question would be what Cornello's doing," Ed responded. "He does know he's a fake. There's no other reason for him to have attacked us."
Rose's eyes went wide, but then she glared. "You're going too far now. He'd never do that. I don't care what's wrong with Alphonse, I can't trust you two."
Footsteps sounded from the other end of the chamber, and Ed turned to see Cornello walk out of the shadows on a raised walkway. "What's happening down here?" he questioned.
Edward didn't waste any time. He clapped his hands, slammed them to the floor, and transmuted a pole in currents of blue. Then he charged forward, intending to vault up to the raised walkway and punch Cornello to a bloody wreck.
Cornello's eyes widened and he walked backwards quickly, pulling a lever in the wall behind him. Ed skidded to a halt, and double wooden doors in the side of the chamber opened. From the darkness beyond them, a large animal with glowing red eyes walked out, the doors closing behind it. It had the head, forelegs, and front torso of a lion, a scaly back torso, upper back legs, and tail, and bird's talons for lower back legs and feet. Transmutation markings showed around its eyes and on the right side of its brow.
Edward swore as the beast's eyes stopped glowing, revealing eyes with golden irises and slitted pupils. "A Chimera."
"So you know of these," Cornello's voice came from the walkway. "I created this one myself. I haven't had many successes at performing miracles on living beings past healing injuries yet, but I have had a small amount. This is one of them. I'd keep your distance from me if I were you. This thing has claws that can slice through iron. Do something rash and you'll regret it."
Edward didn't want to admit it, but he was very slightly impressed. He knew very little about how Chimera alchemy worked, or what it could do, and he'd never seen a Chimera this multifaceted before. It was comprised of at least four different animals; the back torso and upper back legs, and the tail, were covered with scales of different colors. Furthermore, if its claws could cut iron, that meant its brute strength or the sharpness of its claws, or both, had been altered beyond what anything in nature could achieve. Chimera alchemy could apparently effect biological changes superior to anything he'd thought alchemy could do with animals.
Hope rose. If Chimera alchemy could do this with animals, maybe its transmutations could work on more than just non-human animals. Maybe it could reconstruct human bodies.
They'd never studied Chimera alchemy before. If the Philosopher's Stone was a dead end, perhaps Chimera alchemy held the key to them regaining their bodies.
But Edward let nothing of these thoughts and feelings show. He sneered derisively. "This thing is no miracle. Even a novice alchemist could identify this as the result of a transmutation. Its transmutation markings are in plain sight!"
Ed jolted violently.
Transmutation markings.
Why hadn't he thought of that right away!?
"You're inexperienced, and your modus operandi makes you ill equipped to play this game as well."
Remembering the Colonel was right about him made Edward's mood even worse, but he took a deep breath, and then another and another, and continued to breathe in and out deeply, attempting to calm down. He should have thought of what the transmutation markings meant as soon as he saw them. Following his emotions was preventing him from helping anyone, and he had acknowledged to himself he needed to change his ways.
All right. The transmutation markings had a good chance of convincing Rose Cornello was a fake, but how could he convince the rest of Liore? He couldn't reveal his and Al's secrets to the city, or show them the Chimera.
But he could set things up so they heard what they needed to.
He walked back to Al, keeping his eyes on Cornello and the Chimera.
"Al," he whispered. "This church has a bell, and it must have a broadcasting room from which Cornello delivers his radio sermons."
Al understood before Ed had finished his second sentence.
"Are you sure you can take Cornello alone?" Alphonse asked in a whisper. "He has a Philosopher's Stone."
Edward snorted. "A second-rate alchemist so inept he leaves transmutation markings on biological matter? He won't even brush me."
"I'll take your word for it," Al replied. Then he turned and ran for the doors they'd entered through.
"I didn't dismiss you!" Cornello shouted, and the Chimera turned and ran after Al.
Ed intercepted it, elbowing it in the side of the furry part of its torso with his automail arm and sending it staggering to the side. Then he twisted in front of it, pushed his automail arm into its mouth, and dug his feet into the floor. The Chimera tried to bite down on his arm and shifted to bowl him over, but when the arm didn't give a confused expression came to its face and it didn't charge him.
"What!?" Cornello cried.
Edward heard the doors to the room open and close, and wrenched the Chimera's head up, then yanked his arm out of its maw and spun on his right foot into a kick with his automail foot. The Chimera went flying a short distance back and to the side and landed on its side, unconscious.
Cornello smiled unpleasantly. "So that's it. That's why you're known as the 'Fullmetal Alchemist.'"
"Got it in one," Ed spoke back, and walked in the direction of the Chimera. "Don't worry, however. I'll keep my distance. You've made it blindingly obvious I don't need to advise you to quit your charade with the Stone." Cornello frowned at Edward's revelation he knew Cornello had the Philosopher's Stone. "There's someone else I need to save."
Cornello didn't say anything in return, probably using the reprieve Ed had given him to think about what to do now.
He wrapped his arms around the Chimera and pulled, dragging it in the direction of Rose, who was watching what was taking place with wide eyes, a mixture of feelings on her expression. He positioned the Chimera's visage before Rose, and said, "Look at these," gesturing to the transmutation markings. "Cornello spoke it himself, he created this. Further, these marks are what set aside most alchemically transmuted matter from unaltered matter."
"Please," Rose rejoined. "Stop it."
Edward took out his alchemy textbook again and flipped to one of the pages at the front of the book, then showed it to her. "These are pictures of basic transmutations."
Her eyes flew wide, and absolute horror appeared on her face. She jerked violently away from the book as if it had burnt her, whipping her head away from it, and squeezed her eyes closed extremely tightly and began to shake violently again. "No!" But she didn't fall to her knees as Edward had thought she would, and he found himself incredibly impressed. Rose was much stronger than she'd acted thus far. "No!"
She dug her nails into her forehead, pressing her hands against her face, and kept shaking without words for several seconds, but then she opened her eyes and Ed's eyes went wide as she whirled on Cornello. "Why!?" she yelled. "How could you do this!? What do you have to gain from deceiving an entire town!? You could run scams all over Amestris and be lining your pockets with gold!? What would possess you to cause you to go this far!?"
Cornello glared at Ed for exposing him to her, then shook his head, pretending to be disappointed in her. "How can you not see it, child? Why con gold from idiots when I can appoint myself master of every bank in this state? You don't see the potential of having a throng of the blindly faithful who are utterly convinced their God will grant them eternal life or restore them to this one. I can turn them into an army of soldiers unafraid of death, and launch a suicide coup that is sure to succeed because my minions will fight the military without any regard for their safety. That's why."
Ed ground his teeth and fisted his hands so tightly the nails of his left hand drew blood through his glove. After what the Colonel had assumed, nothing Cornello had revealed had surprised Ed, but every word he'd spoken must have shredded Rose further. He took more deep breaths, everything within him screaming at him to fly at Cornello and beat him into a mass of blood.
Then Cornello smiled gently. "But what does it matter what my motives are, or whether I perform alchemy or miracles? The result is the same. I found the Philosopher's Stone, the legendary alchemic catalyst that can break the laws of nature. You have no God to bequeath you eternal life, but I can still give Cain back to you. Nor do you know you will die when I launch my holy war. For all you know you'll survive, and live out the rest of your life in peace, reunited with Cain and married to him. Is this what is genuinely in your heart, dear Rose? To turn your back on your chance at happiness?"
That should have done it. That Cornello was still trying to use Rose even though it meant she'd be willingly breaking her legs knowing what it meant and turning on her friends and fellow townsfolk should have sent him rocketing at Cornello and punching him in the face unrestrainedly.
But a beaten up Cornello couldn't expose himself, and then Liore would become another Ishval and Amestris would be that much closer to a lifeless wasteland. Too much was at stake for him to follow his emotions like he usually did.
"You're still lying to me," Rose's voice was incredibly unsteady, but she wasn't yelling now, and Ed was impressed further still. "Edward told me. There's been a missing ingredient in every attempt at human transmutation. Trying to transmute a human also comes with too heavy a price, and price I'd likely still have to pay because you can't use the Stone successfully without knowing the ingredient. Cain is…" Her voice broke. "…Lost."
"You can't say that for sure," Cornello argued, tone reasonable, coaxing, akin to the tone of a parent trying to convince a child not to do something stupid. "I alone control the Philosopher's Stone, so all I need is to discover that ingredient or ingredients and then I can bring him back." Rose lost the ability to breathe, and Edward struggled to breathe himself. She couldn't be seriously considering…
"No one else even has a chance of resurrecting your beloved," Cornello continued. "I'm your sole chance at rising above your despair. Knowing that, will you truly throw me away? I'm willing to welcome you back with open arms any time, child. All I require is your vow not to reveal what you have learned here to anyone else, and for you to pick up that gun and shoot the Fullmetal Alchemist."
Rose recoiled violently, eyes flying down to the gun at her feet in more horror, and Ed bared his teeth at Cornello. So that was the bastard's game.
But then, to Edward's horror, the violently shaking Rose bent toward the gun.
"No, Rose!" he cried. "Don't do it! There's a microscopic possibility he can pull it off, but Al and I haven't told you the full price yet! Al lost his body, mind, and soul when we tried the human transmutation! His soul is inside a suit of armor now because I gave my right arm to recover it!" Rose's eyes widened another time, and Edward yanked his cloak off and then ripped off the black shirt under it, exposing his automail arm. "I lost my left leg in the initial transmutation too!" He ripped off his left pants leg, exposing the automail there as well. "Transmute your boyfriend and you may lose everything, or lose less than Al did but become disfigured! And you'll lose them for what!? The barest thread of a chance Cornello can succeed! He has no better resources to learn the missing ingredients from than any other alchemist!"
Rose was standing up straight now, the gun in both her hands, but she wasn't pointing it at him.
Seconds passed.
Then Ed's legs weakened as, bit by bit, it lowered.
"Come now, Rose," Cornello chided gently. "A bare thread of a chance is better than nothing. Are you honestly attempting to tell me what you really want is to return to your hopeless existence, parentless and loveless, because you might lose yourself to try to regain what's important to you? Are you truly attempting to tell me you believe it's not worth risking your life or wholeness, when there is a glimmer of light you can pursue that might enable you to reclaim joy in your life? That's what you dearly wish for in the depths of your heart, Rose? A forsaken life in despair, not contentment and happiness with the one you love? I don't believe that. I believe you feel, if a gossamer thread is flickering before you, you should reach out and seize it, whatever the likelihood it's an illusion, for it's always worth taking any chance if that's what you have to do to attain happiness. Or am I wrong?"
The gun stopped lowering.
Edward ground his teeth so hard he was certain they would chip. He wished he could get Rose away from Cornello. Away from his manipulative tongue she might be able to see what he was genuinely asking of her, and make the smart choice. But he couldn't pick her up and run. He needed to remain with Cornello until Al set up the broadcasting contraption and he could fool Cornello into exposing himself.
There was nothing for it. Ed hadn't even told Al how he felt about this, but Edward was going to have to show Rose a part of his heart he'd never opened to anyone else. Worse, he was going to have to inflict a more grievous injury on her than any she'd taken today yet.
He hated himself. Was he any different from the Fϋhrer and High Command, when Ed could do this to someone?
He was out of options, however. This was the only way left to save her, even though he didn't know what, precisely, he'd be saving now.
"There's one other thing I haven't told you, Rose," Ed did his best to make his own voice gentle. He had to do everything he could to lessen this blow. "The human transmutation will almost certainly fail, but it will succeed in a fashion. Cain will be brought back," Rose's eyes flew wide, "But he'll be brought back in a misshapen form that will almost certainly have no ability to survive, and seconds later, he'll almost certainly die again, in agony." One of Rose's hands flew to an open mouth, the other still holding the gun, and she gazed at him, transfixed again, this time in complete horror. "That's right. By attempting to give her back her life, I murdered my mother with my own two hands. If Cornello brings Cain back, the same thing will almost certainly happen to him. He'll almost certainly die again, seconds later, in terrible pain. Do you want to risk that?"
The gun clattered to the floor, and Rose fell to her knees after it, head lowered. Ed waited several seconds, but Rose made no motion towards it. Rather, she began bawling, hysterically, uncontrollably, body wracked by the force of her crying.
Ed sighed heavily, suddenly feeling more exhausted than he could recall feeling before in his life. For the first time he was aware of how much he ached all over. He was certain he'd reached her, but, although she was stronger than he'd thought, the revelation she'd been helping Cornello almost certainly murder the boy she loved might turn out to be too much for her on top of everything else.
He was revolting.
But there was no time for this. He clapped his hands, touched the floor, and transmuted a rock dome with small holes for air to seep through that weren't large enough for bullets to penetrate up around Rose in a wash of blue.
He faced Cornello.
"Come down here and fight me yourself, you maggot," he spoke, so exhausted he no longer wished to punch Cornello over and over, but Edward's voice burning with fury. "I'm about to show you how outclassed you really are."
.
Al pressed his hands to the floor in front of the transmutation circle, and blue shone, altering the cables into a microphone.
He was almost done.
He started drawing another transmutation circle on the wall separating the hallway, now strewn with unconscious bodies, from the room where Brother was confronting Cornello.
He was still surprised Brother had come up with this plan so quickly. Brother didn't charge heedlessly into trouble as often as people criticized him for, but it was unusual for him to plan things out first. His typical approach to trouble was to plunge in and then adapt to whatever came his way. Coming up with the idea of acting like they believed Cornello didn't know what he was getting into hadn't surprised Alphonse; they'd been doing nothing but investigating then.
This was a different matter.
Alphonse believed in his brother, but part of him hadn't thought Brother would take Mustang's advice and use his brain more. Part of him hadn't been able to believe that was Brother.
But Al had known better, and he was sickened transcending sickness this much of him was surprised. Al could never have seen his brother fighting for the welfare of the nation, but Brother was still Brother. When it was brought to his attention other people were suffering in particular ways or particularly badly, he took it very seriously. He didn't know he thought this way, but he believed bearing burdens meant other people's burdens were his and his alone to bear as well as his own; he'd been that way since as far back as Alphonse could remember, and from multiple ways his brother had spoken and acted during times he had assisted others over the past around three years, Alphonse had been able to tell how they'd spent the majority of that time out for themselves looking for a way to get their bodies back hadn't altered that part of Brother. No part of Al should be surprised Brother was willing to change. That a portion of Alphonse was when he knew better was an unforgivable betrayal of his faith in Brother.
But a portion of Al was surprised. He'd believed his brother was an immature child when it came to confronting hardship for years, for reasons similar to Mustang's; such an immature child his brother might not be able to alter himself.
Brother clearly wasn't that much of an immature child, though. He was an immature child, but he was rising to this new, unbelievable challenge despite how tremendous it was.
Alphonse, however, was even more infantile than he'd discovered he was after the Freezer had told them what shape the country was in.
That was part of why Al was so sickened surpassing thought. He'd seen Brother as more of an immature child than he genuinely was, while Alphonse hadn't had the barest concept of how childish he really was.
There was no question Brother was as terrified surpassing terror for Al as Al was for his Brother, and as terrified for Winry and of the ghastly reality McDougal had exposed to them as Alphonse was, but in spite of that and the scale of the adversity they were facing and everything else, his brother was changing in ways Alphonse hadn't been sure Brother was capable of.
What had Alphonse done, on the other hand?
He'd given up. He needed to be strong to walk on his legs, but he'd lost all the hope he'd had of them regaining their bodies because of the size and depth of the danger Amestris was in, and the more he thought about it, the more he saw how disgustingly stupid he'd been.
Brother was right. They didn't know they couldn't get their bodies back with Amestris in these straits, and they now had the best evidence yet they could get them back. Yet, like a child crying over a lost ice cream cone, Alphonse had let something wholly unrelated to their quest crush him.
How could he have believed he wasn't even as infantile as he'd found out he was after McDougal's revelations?
He didn't know. What he did know was he felt incomparably more undeserving of Brother sacrificing his right arm for him than Al had at any time before. Because Alphonse now knew his brother had given his arm for a sibling who hadn't lived up to Brother's capabilities by an immeasurable amount, and who had failed to believe in him.
He finished the transmutation circle and pressed his head to the wall, waiting until he heard the sound of a wall rising in the chamber, and then touched the circle with his palms.
In more blue light, a hole formed in the wall, and Al slid the microphone through it, then flicked the switch further back along the wire connected to it to "On."
"I'm done on my end, Brother," Alphonse whispered. "It's up to you now."
.
Cornello laughed. "A 'maggot,' am I? When I own the Philosopher's Stone? How humorous." He picked up a cane in his right hand from where it rested against a pillar of the walkway's railing, and pressed it into his left palm. Red coursed over it, and it shifted into a multi-barreled machine gun. He pointed it at Ed. "Surrender now and perhaps I'll give you a position as a jester when I make this country my own."
"The only clown in this room is you!" Edward shot back, and clapped his hands and placed his left hand against the back of his automail wrist. Deciding to show Cornello what a real alchemist could do, he didn't transmute his usual sword out of his automail arm. As opposed to that, in coursing blue currents, he transmuted much of the automail arm itself into a large blade with holes in the center, saw points on its inner edge, bladed wings in the front of the blade and at its back ends, and pictures of tongues of flame to the right and left of the holes. Ed could feel from the weight of his automail arm pulling against his shoulder the sword was unwieldy, but he doubted he needed a practical sword to defeat a second-rate fraud like this.
"No transmutation circle again," Cornello said. "You State Alchemists have unusual abilities of your own."
"I didn't learn how to do this by becoming a State Alchemist," Ed shifted the blade into a ready position. "How about we say this is what comes from knowing the difference between lies and the truth?"
"How about you never say anything again!?" Cornello retorted. "I don't know how much the military knows about my actions, but they won't be learning a thing from you!" Edward suppressed the urge to snort. Apparently Cornello was an ambitious dupe. If he only knew.
"I'm not here because I was assigned to come here by the military," he maintained his act. "My brother and I came here of our own good will to warn you not to fool with the Stone. Further, I'll confess, we were hoping you'd lend it to us. But you've really gotten on my bad side, so I'm going to make you regret it."
"Oh, really?" Cornello questioned. "How do you intend to do that, when I can do…" He opened fire, sending a hail of bullets tracking along the floor towards Ed "…This!?"
Ed had yet to believe 'this' was 'anything worrisome,' and he extremely highly doubted he would. Edward had been correct; Cornello was a second-rate clown.
He clapped his left hand to where his right hand had become part of his blade and touched the floor with his left hand and that part of the sword yet another time, sending up another rock wall and blocking the storm of bullets as Cornello finished turning the machine gun in his direction and they once again reached his position.
Ed had no idea how long they'd been engaged in this dance, but he knew Hawkeye would be exasperated past measure by now at how amateurish Cornello was with a gun. As Edward had assumed might be the case, Cornello had little combat skill. He frequently wasted bullets by firing them into the floor or the walls as he moved or turned his machine gun when he should have been waiting until the gun was aimed at Ed to fire, and he made no attempt to use the staircases and railings connected to the walkway ensemble he was on for cover or ambushes. He wasn't a complete idiot; he often fired through the spaces between the metal walls to discourage Ed from coming out from behind them, and most of the time when Edward drew near to the walkway ensemble Cornello laid down sweeps of covering fire before it to try to keep Ed from getting close enough to reach him.
Ed could have ascended to Cornello's position shortly after the battle had begun, however. His reflexes and the speed at which he shifted his gun to where Edward was were too slow. The main reason this was still going on was because Ed was stalling for time.
He raced out from behind the wall, charged the walkway, and then clapped and slapped the floor as Cornello turned the machine gun in his direction, transmuting up another wall to cover the opening between two rock walls to its left and right in more coursing blue and blocking the firearm's bullets.
Red shone to the sides of and above the walls, and Edward knew Cornello had transmuted more bullets for his machine gun for the third time. He hadn't needed to reload it as often as Edward had believed the false priest would; the machine gun had proven it was no ordinary model numerous minutes ago.
Edward ran out from behind this wall and at the walkway, then clapped and touched the floor, sending up rock in blue currents before Cornello could point his machine gun in that direction. As Ed did, he heard the back wall of the room separating behind him over the roar of gunfire and the sound of the ascending wall, and smirked unpleasantly.
Playtime was done.
He waited a number of seconds to give Al time to move the microphone into the chamber and turn the transmuted equipment on, and then shouted up to Cornello, "You still haven't given up!? You're not going to catch me, and you're not going to luck out and need to reload when I'm not in a position to exploit that opening every time! Once you stop to transmute another store, it's over!"
Cornello stopped firing and snarled, worry present clearly on his face, but cried, "Empty bravado! I wield the Philosopher's Stone, and you're bound by the Law of Equivalent Exchange!"
"Stop kidding me," Edward scoffed. "You don't have the skill or talent to wield the Stone correctly and you know it! If you did, you wouldn't be lying to your faithful! You'd be using it to assassinate the top officials of the government yourself!"
"You underestimate me," Cornello rejoined. "I could assassinate the Fϋhrer and High Command on my own. But I see no reason to risk my life when I have a legion of clueless followers who have willingly enslaved themselves to my every whim, and will die for me at a single word. Why endanger myself when I can sacrifice an army of people who can pay the price of revolt in my place?"
"Because you promised them the teachings of Leto would improve their lives," Ed responded. "The promises you made them must mean at least a little to you."
Cornello laughed. "They mean nothing whatsoever to me! They're not one milligram more than a means to trick them into dying for me! I'm never going to waste my time making brainless twits like them happy, and I'm never going to risk harming myself trying to resurrect one of them if he or she dies when I almost certainly won't succeed! Additionally, even if I wanted to, I couldn't fulfill them! Leto is a figment of their imaginations! He can't bestow eternal life on them or give them any of the things I pretended he could!"
Ed grinned. "Thanks for coming clean and telling them all that." He walked out from behind the transmuted wall and pointed at the microphone resting in the front of the chamber with a finger.
Cornello looked at the microphone for a number of seconds, motionless, and then his eyes widened and his mouth fell open.
Ed stopped letting time pass. He ran at the walkway while Cornello was distracted, jumped up, grabbed onto the pillars of the railing, and flipped up over it into a two-footed kick that connected with Cornello's face and sent him staggering back into the wall. Edward landed and sliced down with his unwieldy sword, slashing Cornello's machine gun into two pieces.
Cornello seized the back piece in his left hand, red crackled over it and it shifted, but, before Edward could strike the fake priest in the face with Edward's left hand and knock him out, red light burst from whatever was forming, and when it vanished dark metal with mostly light metal rods and light metal cables attached to a light metal shape was merged with Cornello's right arm.
But new hatred of himself was ripping through him along with, among other feelings, revulsion and relief. He was relieved Cornello hadn't been killed by the rebound, but it was Ed's fault Cornello had been taken by the rebound. He should have thought a rebound could be caused if an imperfect Stone stopped working when it was amplifying a transmutation!
There was Intense relief and powerful disappointment too. Intense relief the Stone was imperfect and in the process of collapsing, so he wouldn't have to take it with him and deal with all the feelings that would cause, and powerful disappointment that meant he couldn't use this Stone to regain their bodies for certain.
"A rebound," Ed spoke, keeping his voice low so the microphone wouldn't pick it up. "Looks like your Stone's as fake as you are." Red coursed out from the marble on Cornello's ring. "The Philosopher's Stone shouldn't cause one of those when you were doing a regular transmutation."
"That's im–"
Cornello cut himself off as red currents crackled out from him, and as Edward looked on, Cornello's eyes glowed red and he began to grow in size, his clothes stretching and then ripping off, save for the upper portion of his black pants, that enlarged with him.
Edward didn't know whether to be revolted or impressed. He'd never heard of uncontrolled alchemic energies having this catastrophic an effect on the body of the alchemist who had failed to transmute. Even breaking down, the Philosopher's Stone was obviously what the legends said it was.
The metal mass merged with Cornello's right arm grew with him, and in a number of seconds the male was so large his fist was the majority of Edward's height. He stopped growing then and his eyes stopped glowing, revealing themselves to now be an iris-less red in eyes sunken and darkly shadowed, and took a step forward, his foot smashing through the floor when it came down.
"You're the fake," Cornello snarled furiously and quietly. "No false Stone could do this! You're the one dabbling in things you should be keeping your nose out of! What happened to you years ago clearly taught you nothing! Now, once more, you're going to pay the price!"
"You don't have a clue at all, do you!?" Ed laughed quietly. "A rebound is when you fail at a transmutation, and it goes out of control and ravages the body of the person who transmuted! You didn't discover the Stone can do more than you thought it could! You won't even have the Stone much longer; it's falling apart! This charade is over, and I'm going to end it now!"
Cornello swung his metal-merged arm at him, but Edward backflipped to the side of his body and clapped as he descended, then touched the floor of the walkway. A gigantic amount of the stone walkways and staircases behind Ed shifted, and then a gigantic statue of Leto the same color as the stairs and the floors surged up out of the floor and stairs of the walkways, facing out at the chamber and already swinging its left fist at Cornello. The fist collided with his body and threw him against the staircases to his left, and the force of the impact with Cornello's body when it was being transmuted in a wild fashion into an unnatural state must have been too much for the imperfect Stone. More red coursed from Cornello, his body shrinking back to its natural size as the transmutation ended, and the Stone turned a dull red, fell from his ring, and cracked and broke apart into pieces that dissipated into the air.
Cornello gazed down at where the Stone had been in horror.
"How about you never spew lies from your mouth again?" Edward threw Cornello's earlier words back in his face and slugged him with his left fist, and Cornello dropped.
Ed staggered, his exhaustion returning full force, and barely kept his knees from giving out. Then he clapped and reverted his automail arm in a wash of blue, then turned and partially staggered, partially walked down one of the staircases back to the floor proper, and called, "We're done, Al!"
The front doors opened, and Alphonse walked in.
Ed paid him little attention, though, and walked over to the microphone. He crushed it with his automail foot, then walked over to the dome Rose was inside. He clapped again and touched the dome, sending it into the floor in more blue.
Rose didn't look up at him, just kept crying, though it was no longer uncontrollable or hysterical, and Ed knelt before her. "I'm sorry," he said gently. "But there was no other way."
Rose didn't respond, or look up at him, and Ed closed his eyes.
He opened them. "For what it's worth," he spoke, "We understand more than what it's like to believe deceptions, and to learn the dead can't be brought back to life. We've recently learned the alchemy we believe in isn't what we thought it was. It does teach us the truth, but there are truths it teaches we didn't know it had to tell us, and we don't know how to move forward from them. So we know a lot of what you're going through now. You're not alone, Rose."
Rose didn't respond, or look up at him.
"But there's something we do know," he went on. "We don't know how to move forward, so I have no comfort to offer you about that, but we do know we can keep going. We have strong legs, and we can walk on them. You do, too. You have something left."
Rose didn't respond, or look up at him.
Ed sighed heavily. "When" not 'if' "we learn how to move forward, we'll find you. We'll do whatever we can to make this up to you."
Rose didn't respond, or look up at him.
Edward sighed again.
"Can you," he wanted to ask 'are you willing to,' but that would mean being cruel to her again, and he no longer had any reason not to avoid that as much as he could now, "leave here by yourself?" he questioned. "Furthermore, are you willing to in around the next few minutes? If the Chimera or any of the humans here wake up, you'll be in danger. Could you please answer these questions? I need to know whether I need to carry you out of here."
Rose nodded, twice, but she didn't look up at him or stop crying.
Edward sagged, and for several seconds his arm and leg felt too weak for him to stand.
Then he got up and walked in the direction of the entrance to the chamber. He couldn't think of anything more to say to Rose. "Let's go, Al."
The sooner they left this town, the better.
.
"He's been lying to you, Rose."-Edward Elric
FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD:
Episode 3: CITY OF HERESY
