After taking a minute to think, Envy decided that he was going to take all of them hostage, so when they turned back, he could torment them. Well, that and he wanted answers.
He snatched up all three of the children and marched off, gesturing for Gluttony to follow them. It took him several seconds to realise that the dark haired one had fallen asleep and was drooling.
"Hey, Gluttony." He snapped, causing the other homunculous to pause in his attempts to eat a lamp post. "Carry this guy, but don't eat him. He's important."
"Okay." Gluttony sighed.
"Look, you can eat as much as you like when we get back to HQ." Envy groaned, but it made Gluttony grin and start walking faster.
Great, now the pipsqueak was hugging his arm and smiling. Envy was already wondering how long this was going to last. There was nothing useful about children. Maybe he'd be allowed to kill them after all.
Outside, Al had paused in complete shock. May, who was standing behind him was completely confused. What had just happened? It appeared that the plant had fallen over, Winry and Ed had broken apart to stare and the magically collapsing plant. Then there had been a flash of light and then it seemed that the homunculi had turned back to normal. Right, he could deal with that. He could fight the homunculi, and it'd be five on two, if everyone helped. Except something was wrong, because it appeared that Ed, Roy and Winry had turned into children.
By the time he finally processed that Envy had basically kidnapped the three, the homunculi had walked past them and were already disappearing.
With a cry of shock, he raced after them, unaware that May had followed him with a shriek. Al didn't know this, but they were halfway to the homunculi's HQ by the time he caught up.
"What do you think you're doing!" He yelled, making the homunculi.
"Kidnapping your friends. Duh." Envy said flatly.
"Why?" Al yelled, ready to fight.
"To turn them into evil minions." Envy explained the idea that he'd thought of two seconds ago proudly.
"What? You can't do that!" Al screamed, already imagining his brother as a mini Envy. The nightmares...
"Why not?" Envy grinned. It was actually a pretty good idea. It would really annoy Al, so why shouldn't he? Also, evil minions were awesome.
"Brother would never be your minion." Al said with great certainty. He did know Ed best after all.
"Really? But he loves me!" Envy smirked, gesturing to Ed, who was happily hugging Envy's arm. Winry had fallen asleep and looked peaceful, and she wasn't drooling, so Envy was fine with carrying her as well. Roy was snoring.
"That's unnatural. I'm sure once he realises who you are, he's gonna be really mad." Al shuddered.
"Well," Envy shrugged. "One way to find out. See you in a while."
And with that there was some kind of smoke bomb, which Al was fairly sure that neither of them had with them before, but it did allow them to escape.
When Wrath had come to his senses, there were two children crawling around. Even in their new forms, he recognised them as the group he had been following. Still, they certainly weren't children when he was following them, and he was fairly sure that there was an old man with them, but he wasn't there when he came to his senses.
Still, this whole even was pretty odd, so he decided to take the children to Father, to see if he knew anything about what was going on.
He was nearly at HQ when he saw Envy and Gluttony. They seemed to be arguing with Alphonse and a small girl in pink.
He could faintly here Envy protesting with a 'but he loves me!' and decided that it might be time to help them, if only so he could interogate Envy over his love life. The girl who was wearing a mask had a smoke bomb, for some reason, which was really unsafe but really useful, and as a child, she was hardly about to use them. Now all he had to do was brutally question Envy over his (lack of a) love life.
Envy sighed. He was now safely back at HQ, and the children were all still asleep. Gluttony had indeed managed not to eat Roy, but had already handed the kid back in order to go and find something to eat. Well, at least he had finally stopped drooling. Seriously, that kid was gross.
He was about to go to Father, when he was slammed into a wall. Wrath glared at him, and for extra effect, appeared to have taken his eyepatch off.
"Who loves you?" He snarled.
Envy paused in the mocking remark he was about to make. "Wait, what?"
"Who is your boyfriend?" Wrath asked again.
"The hell are you on?" Envy yelled. "I don't have a boyfriend!"
"Then who did you claim loves you?" Wrath asked darkly.
"What? Oh that, uh, this kid." Envy pointed to his arm, which Ed was still hugging. "My new evil minion."
"Your what?" Wrath raised an eyebrow.
"Evil minion. It'll be awesome!" Envy laughed.
"Why would you want a human as an evil minion?" Wrath asked. "They're pathetic and weak."
"And fun to mess around with." Envy added cheerfully. "Besides, the minions aren't supposed to be as awesome as their master, duh."
"Fair enough." Wrath shrugged. "If that's the case, evil minions sound cool."
"Exactly. Now we need to convince Father." Envy nodded, metally preparing for a battle. He knew it would be something like this: 'Can I keep them? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?'
Wrath sighed. He was never going to let Envy know that he had just spoken out loud. As they approached the room, he began to feel that something was wrong.
"Father isn't here." Lust sighed. It wasn't the fact that someone who never seemed to move was lacking from the one place that he always seemed to be that alarmed them. Or that the one being more powerful than them could be missing. No, it was the fact that she too was holding a child.
"So," Envy grinned brightly, "does this mean that we all get evil minions?"
Al sighed. May sighed. There had been absolutely no leads and Al was seriously begining to worry that his brother was going to be brainwashed into being a mini Envy. He really didn't want to imagine Ed with that hair style. He would look like a pineapple. Not to mention that the Colonel and Winry were also there. Al shuddered. What if there was a tribe of Envy's minions?
"We have to save my brother." Al decided. If there was a small army of Envy's followers, the world would end.
"Yeah." May agreed, and Xiao May nodded.
Just then, someone dropped down in front of them, causing Al to stand up suddenly to sheild May and the girl in question pulled out a set of knives.
"Sorry to disturb you, but have you seen a man in an eyepatch and two children?" He asked casually, as if he hadn't just jumped off a building.
May narrowed her eyes. "I know you. You're a bodygaurd of the Yao Clan."
The man stared. "And who are you. Let me guess, one of the Chang clan?"
May glared. "And what if I am?"
"Erm, no offence, but who are you?" Al asked, not really wanting the argument to go on for much longer.
"That doesn't matter. I have to find the young lord and my grandaughter." The old man snapped. "They were taken by somone who claimed to be immortal."
At the mention of the word 'immortal', May perked up, while Al's (metaphorical) heart sank.
"Then they were probably taken by the same group of people." Al sighed.
"Possibly." The old man admitted.
"Then we should team up." Al stated, feeling that this was only slightly better than searching alone. Any second now, he was going to see why...
"Do we have to pretend to tolerate each other?" May complained.
"Yes." Al didn't have the patience to deal with them.
"Fine." She sighed.
"I see." Lust muttered. "So that's why you want evil minions."
"Yeah." Envy nodded.
"Can we hang the kids from his hair, it'd be funny." Pride called from the corner.
"Yeah, he'd look like a badly decorated christmas tree!"
That was when Roy learned a new word. "Tree!"