Disclaimer: FMA; the only manga to ever make me cry. And it did so not once, not twice, not three times… but four plus. I wish I owned it, but I only own my mind and my OCs.


Chapter Two

Everything Is Connected

"Invisible threads are the strongest ties."

- Friedrich Nietzsche


I let Alphonse be the one to call Mustang. After all this time, the new General and I tended to not see quite eye to eye. Even if our 'shouting matches' were less argument and more me yelling and him with that shit-eating grin on his face. Though that damn condescending demeanor was all but gone from the man - I guess he finally considered me his equal - Mustang could never stop finding reasons to push my buttons. Thankfully, after Grumman became Führer and Mustang's elevation to General, he stopped trying to egg me into coming back to the military... and after we last saw each other, he stopped making fun of my height.

I smirked, remembering with a bit of smugness that I was now technically the same height as the ex-Colonel.

"Roy?" Alphonse said, earning a raised eyebrow from me. Since when did Al call Mustang by his first name? "It's Al. The woman and Ed have woken up, and..." His eyes flickered to me, "Yeah, something like that. But, things have gotten a bit... complicated."

I tuned him out, not worried about what Al would say to Mustang. My eyes lazily scanned the room before finally resting on Winry and the girl. They sat by the couch closest to the living room window. Winry had an array of items on the couch cushion between them; a cup, some automail bolts, an apple, and a fork, among other things. I leaned my elbow on the table, cheek rested on my open palm, and watched her try and teach the girl the words for those things in Amestrian. She was smiling wide, all giggles and teeth, at the poor girl's attempts to comprehend what she was actually trying to get across.

"Brush," Winry held up a flat wooden comb.

The girl pointed at it, "Brush."

I couldn't resist, "Actually, Win, that's a comb."

Winry whipped around and glared. Yet, in front of her, the girl actually giggled. I blinked, surprised, before chuckling myself. Apparently, Winry's frustration was amusing, even if she couldn't tell what the mechanic was saying. One thing that this girl and I had in common. Then, the frown slipped from my lips. It would be nice to have something to call her other than girl.

I pushed off the dining room chair and sauntered across the entryway to the living room, hands in my pockets. Just as I passed the front door, I noticed the girl's unnerving eyes slid down to my left leg. There was a small hiccup in my step as my brow furrowed; I was wearing shoes and long slacks, so there was no way she could hear my automail. But then, as if noticing my discomfort, the girl whipped back to Winry with a large grin. Then, in front of both of us, the girl proceeded to point at each and every item in front of her and name them all, one after another, with perfect - albeit heavily accented - pronunciation.

Winry's mouth gaped open and her arms fell limp at the side, "I just spent... twenty minutes... struggling to get you to understand these words, and now you say it all perfectly?"

"Apple, spoon," the girl pointed to the last two items, then to Winry, "Winry." And finally her fingers pointed at me as I took up a seat on the floor a few feet away, leaning my back against the coffee table, "Edward."

"Maybe she's just trying to bond with ya, Winry," I grinned, "Wouldn't be surprised if she picked up those words pretty quick, and was just messing with you."

Winry's eyebrow twitched. Just as she was about to say something, the girl just added salt on the wound and said with, again, perfect diction - though I doubt she actually knew what she was saying - "Maybe she's just trying to bond with ya." Then the girl looked Winry dead in the face and repeated again with a smile, "Maybe she was just trying to bond with ya."

Then the blonde mechanic threw up her arms and stomped off to the kitchen, "I'm gonna go help grandma. You give it a go, Ed."

It was just the two of us in the living room now; Al was on the phone in the dining room, and the smells wafting from the kitchen told me that dinner would be done soon. So with a heavy, long-suffering groan, I pushed myself off the ground and took Winry's spot on the couch. But instead of holding up items and saying words, I tried my hand at grammar. So I pulled my ponytail to the side and pointed, "What's this?"

"Hair."

I nodded, then picked up the comb and pulled it through the ends of my hair, "And this?"

Her brow furrowed and she started to chew on her bottom lip. I could almost see the gears working in her mind, eyes flickering between my hand, the comb, and my hair. Then, after what was probably a full minute, she said with a soft, uncertain air, "Comb... Edward comb hair?"

I rolled my eyes, "Edward combing hair."

"Edward combing hair," then that look of concentration crossed her face again. Just as I stopped combing, her mouth opened in a big, wide 'O' and her bright eyes snapped up to mine, "You combing hair! You combing... your hair?"

Maybe it wouldn't be as hard as I thought to teach her Amestrian. I handed her the comb and nodded, "You try."

She took it gingerly, looking hard at the dark wood, before pulling a length of her ridiculous hair over her shoulder and pulling the comb through the ends, "I combing hair?"

"I am combing hair."

"I am combing hair."

That was good enough for now. I tried to teach her a couple more sentences and verbs, but didn't get too far before Pinako's voice shouted from the kitchen, "Ed! Al! Dinner!"

I stood up and waved for the girl to follow me. She half trotted behind me before whipping passed in a blur of white to plop down on the chair closest to the window. It was only then that I realized how... tiny she was. With how much the girl bounced around, and with how she looked about Al's age, I didn't realized she was just that short. She only came up to the top of my shoulder, collarbone maybe. Had to be, what... 5'0"? If that?

After everyone was seated - I on the opposite end from the girl, Winry and Al on my right, and Pinako on my left - we dug in. Roast beef, garlic potatoes with butter, and salad. I grinned; Pinako and I might fight a fair bit, but between her and Winry they could cook up something amazing. And it did taste amazing. Even if Pinako put a bit of milk in the mashed potatoes. At least I couldn't taste that disgusting cow teet fluid among the spices and the butter.

The girl mumbled throughout the meal, pointing to stuff with one of the questions Winry taught her, "What that?" "What that?" "What that?" It was incessant, almost monotonous, save for the moment she got something pronounced perfectly and caught Winry smiling at her. Then her expressive eyes widened and she grinned.

I ignored them both and turned to Al, "What did Mustang say?"

"Right," Al set down his fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin, "If it's alright, Pinako, Mustang want's Colonel Armstrong to come and investigate Dr. Malcolm's house."

"The big, muscly fellow?" When Al nodded, Pinako did as well, "I don't see why not. As long as he doesn't mind sleeping on the couch. Though..." she rolled her eyes, "I doubt I could have told the new General no."

"You don't just tell Roy no," Al laughed, his eyes falling on me, "... unless your brother, that is. Sometimes I think you do everything you can to give him a hard time."

I crossed my arms and grumbled, "S'own fault, the prick." Across the table, the girl's fork clattered. Her face was screwed up with concentration as she tried to scoop up potatoes while holding the fork in her closed fist like a spear.

Al ignored me and kept going, "Roy said Mr. Armstrong would keep him up to speed about what we find out, and..." His eyes flickered to the girl as her fork once more failed to get any potato, "... decide if she needs to be taken into custody."

A cold sense settled over the table at that. My eyebrows shot up and I said in a half whisper - though I knew the girl couldn't understand us - "He doesn't think... that she...?"

"It's not out of the question," Al bit his lip, "That's what Roy said. The Gate could have... taken her memories as payment or something."

"That doesn't explain the blood, or the... body parts, or where the good doctor went off too," my brow furrowed, eyes flickering to the poor struggling girl, "... it almost seems like, whatever happened, she was the alchemic product, not the alchemist."

"But... but brother, that's impossible!" Al shook his head, "We both know that."

We did. We knew better than most. It was impossible to bring a human being back to life. The hubris would just destroy you in the end. For a second, like every time it was mentioned, I remembered those harrowing moments that took away any hope Al and I would ever have for a normal childhood... as normal as anyone could have had, when their father abandoned them and mothers died young. Yet... the girl looked nothing like the doctor's daughter; there had to be a ten year difference at least, despite this girl's short stature. Then again, that... thing we cobbled together as children didn't have the same eye or hair color as mom. For a cold, terrified moment - that was not without a thrill shooting through me; think of the possibilities! - I couldn't help but wonder. Was this girl the product of the world's first successful human transmutation?

From the look on Al's face, he was thinking the same, and we both stared at the girl and her fruitless attempts to scoop mashed potatoes in the silliest way possible. After another minute, I stood up and crossed the table, feeling sorry for the girl. She looked up at me with those big eyes as I plucked the fork from her hand. Laying it across her palm, I placed her thumb over it, positioning the rest of her fingers around the fork until satisfied. She looked down at her hand, then at me, then as her hand again.

I stepped back, gesturing, "Well?"

The girl turned to her plate and successfully scooped up a fork-full of mashed potatoes. Before I could get back to my seat, a tiny and thin hand gripped my left sleeve. She looked up at me, saying something in that soft, almost melodic language of hers. I smiled lopsidedly, "Thank you. In Amestris, we say 'thank you'."

"Thank you."

I peeled her hand from me and went to sit down, mumbling back, "You're welcome."

It was then that I noticed the others had fallen silent, and I had three pairs of eyes on me. The girl was focused solely on her food now, so I grunted at the rest of them, "... What?"

"That was... nice of you, Ed," Winry said.

My eyebrow twitched, "I can be nice, Win."

She just shrugged and went back to her food, the other two following a second later. After a few moments, I looked up to see that the girl's plate was completely empty. A heaping plate of food, gone before I was even halfway through mine. And everyone made fun of me for my eating habits...

After another two plates of food - of which she finished both just as the rest of us finished one - the girl leaned back with a satiated smile. At this point, Winry eyed the girl with mock-suspicion, "Where does she put it all? She's tiny."

Pinako chuckled, eyeing me, "Reminds me of a certain boy while he was recovering from automail surgery. Almost ate us out of house and home, he did, until wandering off to the military with his brother!"

I groaned, "Don't you start, hag."

"Pipsqueak."

That earned the old woman a glare, "I tower over you, midget!"

"Only now that you aren't eating for two. You know, you never pitched in for food around here."

"I fixed your damn roof last week! And I help Win forge automail!"

"You've gotta pay rent somehow, I guess. It's not like I could get you to get a-"

Completely oblivious to our 'playful' arguing, the girl pointed outside, "What's that?"

There was nothing there but trees, grass, and wildflowers, so Winry said, "What's what?"

She pointed again, more insistent, "What's that?"

She kept pointing, more insistent, but it was impossible to understand what she was trying to point at. Then the girl made a triangular motion with her hands, and drew down her left to form a cylinder.

"... tree?" I guessed.

Her eyes brightened, "Tree. Tree!"

Pinako sighed and gathered up her plates. Al rose to help her, leaving Winry and I alone as the girl started assaulting us both with that same question as she pointed at things outside the dark window. It would be easier to see what she was trying to point at had both of us not been unconscious for the better part of the day. Tree, grass, flower, she wanted to know them all. Then her gaze went higher, up into the sky, as she pointed at the little pinpricks of light high above us.

"Light. What's that?"

"A star," Winry said as she stood to bus her own plate. She eyed mine, "Want me to take that for you?" I grunted. She took that as a yes and grabbed my plate on the way around the table. As she passed, I caught the scent of cinnamon. The same way she always smelled...

"What's that?"

The girl snapped me back to reality, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw Winry sweep passed Alphonse as he came back in. I squared my shoulders and walked around the table to see what she was pointing at. It was a bit more obvious what she was trying to learn now, especially after she made a big circle with her hands, "That's the moon."

"Moon," There was something confused in her features. Confusion and... realization? Her thin arms swept a lock of her stupidly long hair over her shoulder, pointing at it, "White. Moon white, hair white." Then, a long finger pointed at herself, just above the collarbone, "Moon?"

Was she... trying to say her name was... Moon? I couldn't help but laugh. She must have caught on that it was hard for us to figure out what to actually call her.

"No, that's the moon," I pointed at the largest object in the sky.

Behind me, Alphonse laughed, "Maybe she wants to be called moon, brother."

As if she could understand him, the girl nodded vigorously. But I rolled my eyes before fixing my younger brother with a half exasperated look, "Moon? Really? She's had all day to think of something, and she settles on 'Moon'? What, because her hair is white like it?"

Al shrugged, "If it's what she wants to be called."

Winry slipped back in behind him, "Well, what about Luna then? That means moon, doesn't it?"

I shrugged, "Hell of a lot better than 'Moon'. I swear..." I moved around Al, intent on leaving, but found myself stopping at the foot of the stairs.

Winry had taken my spot next to the girl, that soft and radiant smile on the mechanic's face. She pointed at the moon, then at the girl, "Luna? It means moon."

"Luna," the girl said slowly, as if tasting and savoring the world. Her head cocked to the left, then the right, then left again. After a minute, she nodded with that big, goofy grin I'd seen all day - after we calmed her down, of course - and she pointed at herself, "Luna!" Then, each of us in turn, as if cementing the name as her own like ours belonged to us, "Alphonse, Winry, Edward..." And, lastly, at herself again, "Luna."

Winry laughed and I broke eye contact from the scene. As I descended the steps, intent on going to bed - even though I'd technically slept the better part of the day, I was exhausted - I heard her say, "Well then. Hello, Luna. I'm Winry."


A few days later, Armstrong arrived on the train. Alphonse and I took Luna with us to meet him, on Winry's insistence. Her excuse was that the girl hadn't left the house since being brought in. While that was technically true, it wasn't like I wanted to babysit a girl who could barely speak a word of Amestrian and had this annoying tendency of wandering off in some random direction if I so much as took my eyes off her for one second...

As I rubbed the bump on the back of my head a comment like that had gotten me - courtesy of one of Winry's damn wrenches - my eyes stayed locked on Luna at the train station. There were a few people milling about, probably waiting for the train to Eastern Command or the one that Armstrong was on, which would go further west towards the desert. Luna stood with her hands clasped in front of her, wearing one of Winry's old dresses, head cocked to the side a bit as the strangest of expressions kept crossing her too-pale face. Like she was having some sort of inner conversation with herself; she would giggle, mutter in that language of hers, then look almost perturbed, then her gaze would rapidly look at anything and everything, before finally settling on something with either a soft smile or a wary frown. I tried to ignore it, but after the tenth time or so I pulled my hands from my pockets and waved a hand in front of her face.

"What's up?"

Luna blinked owlishly, head tilting towards the other shoulder. After a second, she pointed up, "Sky."

Behind me, Alphonse laughed. I shot him a glare, which only caused him to laugh harder. Of course the girl would take everything so damn literally when she barely knew a hint of Amestrian grammar. I stuffed my hands back in my pockets and turned to the train, fully intent on ignoring Luna until Armstrong's train arrived. I could see it in the distance, just poking over the hills and far off trees that surrounded Resembool.

As it slowly began to pull into the station, there was a slight tug on the back of my vest right at my waist. I yelped and jumped away, whipping around to see a confused Luna standing there, eyes slightly wide and hand still outstretched from where she'd grabbed me. Heat rushing to my face, I barked out, "Warn a guy before you go grabbin' him!"

"Color," she said, either not understanding me or my reaction going completely over her head, "Color here. No color... no color... ahh..." Luna's brow furrowed, and her head tilted to the side again. She brought up both hands in front of her chest, palms forward and thumbs touching. Her wrists twisted, pivoting her hands so her thumbs turned in towards her. Luna repeated the gesture a half dozen times, "No color." Then, she pointed all around us, "Color." Again she made that move with her hands, "White, black, grey." And once again, gesturing all around us, "Color."

"... I have no idea what you're trying to get at," I deadpanned.

"Could it be... a door?" Al said, looking thoroughly engrossed in the bizarre girl's hand gestures, "Looks kind of like a door swinging open."

I watched as she repeated the motions again. Just as it dawned on me - was she talking about the inside of the Gate? - a loud thump and a too-thick, inhumanly muscled arm snatched me about the waist and lifted me straight into the air.

"Edward Elric! It has been some time since I have had the privilege of your company!" The bloisterous, booming voice of one Alex Louis Armstrong rang way too loud right in my ear.

I winced and tried to pull away, despite knowing just how futile it was to get out of the Strong Arm Alchemist's grasp, "Let me go, Colonel!"

"There is no need for formalities!" The wind was knocked from my lungs as Armstrong held me tighter, "You are no longer FullMetal, therefore I am no longer Colonel to you, my boy! It is Alex to you!"

"Let me g-"

He dropped me. Unceremoniously dropped me, stepping over my slumped form to pull my brother into an equally bone crushing hug. Next to me, Luna giggled, so I shot her a glare as I pushed myself up, smacking the dirt from me knees as I did so. After more gushing and boisterous posturing, Armstrong let Al go and turned to Luna with an expression somehow both weary and with a wide, friendly smile.

"And you must be our little mystery woman!" Luna took a step back, nervous smile on her face and both hands held up with the palms facing Armstrong. As if that would stop him if he wanted to give her a bone crushing hug too. But Armstrong didn't, merely holding out a hand for her to shake, "Colonel Alex Louis Armstrong, the Strong Arm Alchemist, at your service!"

Luna stared at his hand. Just stared at it, face completely blank of expression. Slowly, her brow furrowed, and she looked up at me almost pleadingly. I stifled a groan; of course she didn't know what a handshake was. I took her hand and placed it in his, "Handshake." Then to Armstrong, added, "She doesn't remember anything about... anything, really. Picking up Amestrian really quick, though."

Armstrong gave her hand a firm shake, his massive hand looking like it would crush her thin, tiny arm. When he let go, I didn't miss her wince and shake out her hand. I'd been on the receiving end of many an Armstrong handshake and hug; both Al and I sent her sympathetic smiles. After he gathered up his one bag, the four of us set out back towards the Rockbell's. As we walked, Al and I filled in Armstrong in everything Mustang either hadn't told him, or what had changed in the last few days; we'd come up with a name to call her by, she was picking up Amestrian uncommonly quickly, and that we still couldn't place her native language, native writing system - it looked somewhat hieroglyphic - or her strange, lilting accent.

By the time we neared the house, Armstrong asked Luna a few questions of his own. He couldn't get a thing more out of her than we could; between the language barrier and her lack of memories, it was just like running around in circles. Always back to the start, with no extra knowledge for the effort.

"Have you searched the house again?" Armstrong asked as we entered the house and Al gestured for him to set down his suitcase by the couch, "No sign of the doctor at all?"

"Just went in there once, to see if there was any pictures or papers or anything that would tell us who Luna is," Alphonse said, "Didn't come up with anything, though."

I leaned against the front door, arms crossed, "He can't be her daughter; she has to be at least twice the girl's age, and looks completely different in hair and eye color as well as physical build. Can't be the mother for the same reason, except Luna is probably about half the mother's age."

"Could she have been an alchemic sacrifice?" Armstrong said, pulling his trademark spiked knuckles from his suitcase and fitting them on before standing back up again.

I shook my head, "Not if she's this whole. She'd have had to lose something in the transaction, even if Truth took the doctor's body alongside it." My eyes caught Alphonse's and I winced. I couldn't help it, "Everyone caught up in a human transmutation reaction has to lose something. Whether they're the primary alchemist in the reaction or not."

If Armstrong noticed the sudden uncomfortable silence between Al and I, he didn't show it, "Then let us investigate the site of the transmutation! We shall find out the truth, Elric brothers, or my name isn't-!"

"ED! AL!" Winry shouted, a second later poking her head out of her workshop down the hall, "You're back!"

Leave it to Winry to be the only one loud enough to actually cut Armstrong off, "Obviously."

"I need to tune up your automail Ed," Winry stepped out of the workshop, wearing the same jumpsuit and tub top as always, peeling off her grease-stained gloves as she went, "I've got a new chrome alloy I want to use for some of the outer shell."

My eyes narrowed, "I'm not your guinea pig, Winry."

She smiled the kind of cold smile that told me I really had no choice in this, "Well, since you don't pay me for tune-ups anymore, the least you can do, Edward, is let little old me try out a new trick or three. Or I could charge you next time you jam it up. Extra."

I groaned. Winry wouldn't charge me; I knew that. But that didn't make the threat any less real, especially with that thick, hardened steel wrench currently held like a knife in one of her calloused hands, "Later, Winry, we're going back to that house to check it out."

She crossed her arms, one hip cocked out and face drawn down in a pout. It was... cute. Did she not realize how cute she looked when frustrated? "Oh, fine then! But you're not taking Luna; she's always excited to see me work, unlike some people, aren't you Luna?"

The girl in question merely blinked, not understanding a word being said. But she saw the wrench in Winry's hand, and the mechanic's suit she wore, and knew what that meant. A flurry of that strange language gushed forth from her, earning a look from Armstrong. But she either didn't care or realize, and soon vanished behind the workshop door after Winry.

"That... was no language I have ever heard."

"That's what we told Must-"

"Such beauty! It is like the song of a swan, high and sweet yet fluttering like a spring wind!" For a second, I thought he might rip his shirt off as he loved to do so often - sometimes I thought new shirts was all his research budget went to, since I'd never seen him actually doing alchemic research - but Armstrong restrained himself. I could almost hear the seams of the poor garment strain from the effort of containing his currently flexing muscles though.

We left a minute later, out the back door and towards where the forest met the lake a little ways behind the Rockbell home. Back into the trees towards the little brick cottage in the woods. Winry told us that the doctor and his family were recent transplants to Resembool, moving in after the old man who lived here previously died. Evidently the doctor was his son or something. I remembered him; the stereotypical good-natured grandpa sort that Pinako had over for cards sometimes. Armstrong went in first, with Alphonse and I right behind, and I wondered idly what the old man would think of his house now. All the business about this was hush-hush, with Mustang informing the others at the doctor's clinic a very short version of what happened; one that left out Luna and everything to do with alchemy. The story was a robbery gone wrong, and that a State Alchemist had been dispatched to investigate, so no one was to go near the house.

Until we rounded the corner towards the basement, I though no one had tried.

Then, a flurry of movement at the bottom of the stairs. Armstrong yelled, dashing down the stairs three at a time with Al and I right behind him. Yet, as we burst through to the destroyed basement, whoever it was had vanished.

"Come out!" Armstrong called into the half-dark room. Some light filtered in from the colossal hole that went straight through the building, but only echoes and darkness replied.

Al strode passed the Colonel, looking around with bewildered eyes, "There's no other exits... how...?"

My brow furrowed, "I don't like this..."

We searched the whole house top to bottom and found no trace of whoever it was. A wild notion - did they somehow jump out the hole to the ceiling and run from there? - crossed my mind, but I squashed it. That was ridiculous. No human could make a three story jump straight up. So we returned to the basement and all the blood and decay that entailed. The grime had long since dried, but my nose still wrinkled at the acrid, iron smell of it. This was dozens of times worse than when Al and I tried to bring back mom. The smell was so thick in the air you could taste it.

Al gagged from one corner of the room, "This is... so gross."

"Yeah," I winced, shooting him a glance before going back to the circle. I was trying to sketch any symbols and bits of the alchemic array that still stood, while Armstrong looked for any sign of the doctor or... anything, really. Another retch and I half turned to Al, "You okay there?"

"Yeah... it's just," Al swallowed noisily, "I mean, we've seen stuff like this before, brother. Well, not this much of it, but yeah... this is the first time I've ever smelt it."

I nearly dropped my pencil. He was right, of course he was. Even in the short years since Al regained his body at the cost of my Gate, some things just... surprised us. All our time in the military, all the missions we underwent and the things we'd seen... through none of it could Al actually sense anything. And now here he was, flesh and bone again, with all the sensations that entailed and I took for granted back then.

So I chuckled, "Well, that's what happens when you aren't a suit of armor anymore, Al."

"Thanks," Al's tone was so deadpan that I almost chuckled again.

But then I saw it. At the edges of what I could only assume was the circle, just to the right of Al's feet, was a symbol. I knew that symbol, and as my eyes followed the lines from it, I saw others. Circles and lines, triangles and jagged archaic symbols making criss-cross patterns across the floor. In some areas it was obscured by blood, and in others fallen books or scattered limbs, but it was unmistakable.

"Al. Armstrong," I fought to keep my voice calm as I stood. When did my legs become shaky? They both looked at me - though Armstrong didn't notice, I could see the worry on Al's face. - and I gritted my teeth, "One of you make a torch. A couple, around the room. Get some light around the perimeter so we can see it all."

"Brother?"

"Just do it," I barked, feeling cold as ice all of a sudden. It was still hard to see here, save for the center of the room where some morning light spilled in. This couldn't wait for noon, when the light would be directly over the house and we could see the whole room, "Light up the whole room. I think I saw what this is."

Armstrong hesitated, but Al kicked into action with a short nod. He clapped his hands together, blue lights sparking between them as he forced them into the concrete foundations of the basement. Energy crackled along the wall, pulling sharp sconces out of the concrete along the perimeter. Each flickered to life, powered by the organic compounds in the soil on the other side. I didn't have time to be impressed, because the basement was thrown into stark relief all around us.

My mind tried to block out the gore, now revealed in all its horrific glory without alchemic mists or darkness to hide them. Enough gore to be the bodies of three, maybe four, people was strewn around. Seeing it so clearly now, Alphonse retched and dashed to the corner of the room. I felt my own stomach heave, and for a cold second thought I might join him. But I swallowed back the bile and tried to focus closer, following those lines again.

"By the Gate..." Behind me came Armstrong's breathless voice. Gone was his usual bravado, and as I paced the room to follow the lines, I caught a glimpse of his ashen face, "This is..."

"Here," I pointed at the opposite edge. Another circle, more symbols, "The symbol for a Crest of Blood."

I heard Al gasp behind me, "And there's one here, and here too."

"A circle forming a pentagram, with each point containing four symboled circles, five smaller circles forming a reverse pentagram further in, ending in a last circle in the center," I turned towards the center, tracing the lines with my eyes, "And on top of that, another circle. This one has a hexagram inside with every other point forming a reverse triangle, each line bisected by a circle." Every so often, I could make out a word or letter of the text in this second circle. But I didn't need them to know exactly what it was saying. Yet... "And on top of that, a third. Around the outer rim of both circles, see?" I pointed around the edge at the two lines that formed a perimeter to the whole circle. Blood obscured the text, but even if it didn't, I couldn't read it. The strange hieroglyphic writing was just like that kind Luna wrote in, "Seven points on the edge, forming lines that bisect the entire circle straight to the center where..."

My eyes fell on the center of the transmutation circle. It was entirely obscured by blood. I remembered that as the spot where we found Luna. My eyes flickered to the other parts of the circle. It was carved into concrete floor of the basement itself. So if only... I shrugged off my jacket and knelt at the center of the circle.

"Edward, what are you-"

"We've got the see the center of it."

Even though a cold stone had settled deep in the pit of my stomach, I pressed on. Swallowing back bile, I rubbed at the center of the circle until enough blood and flesh was wiped away to see the symbol. There were three, all entwined together into one larger symbol. A circular serpent eating it's tail, flanked by small wings. In the center of the circle it made was not a hexagram, but a crescent moon shape cradling the same symbol I'd seen so many times. The staff of Flamel, encircled and winged by its own serpent.

"That... that looks like a Homunculus Ouroboros!" Al knelt down at the other side of the symbol, "And... and that's...!"

My eyes widened, breath shallow, as my gaze swept once more over the symbol on the floor. It would take time to clean the room to confirm it for sure, but I was positive. Beneath us was the nationwide transmutation circle superimposed by a human transmutation circle and all encompassed by a third, entwined circle that I'd never seen before. And at the center of it, right in the spot where we'd found Luna, was something akin to the ouroboros I knew so well, encompassing a moon and Teacher's most prized symbol.


Author's Note: Whelp, that's what y'all get for... um... five years of no updates! Tee-hee... the muse strikes at random times, doesn't she? Well, I hope to do more eventually, just to keep the writer juices flowing while editing my original novel!