"I don't have an Ouroboros tattoo anywhere, nor do I regenerate like Felicia does. I'm not a homunculus, thank god. But what about my reoccurring dream?" I ran all the facts that proved that I wasn't a homunculus through my head repeated. "Damn, I freaked out over a baseless possibility. Stupid!" I mentally scolded myself.

"Yamato! Where's Felicia?" Cynthia asked, startling me out of my daze.

"Ah! Oh… I don't know she ran out." I replied.

"Do you know where she went?" She questioned. I didn't respond, I was running the memory of her running out the door through my head repeatedly. It didn't make sense to me. Suddenly, I felt an intense burning on my cheek. It turned out the Cynthia had slapped me with quite a bit of force. "Where did she go? The military is looking for her." The lieutenant clarified.

"What? Why?" I asked, jumping to my feet. "Wait, how do you know this?"

"I have a friend with a tendency to be a loose cannon." She replied, pointing at the woman behind her. She stood at approximately 5'6, she seemed small for her height, lacking obvious muscles but I'm certain that's she's stronger than she looks. She had almond shaped, bright blue eyes wand straight, dark brown hair that ended just under her bust curling a little at the end. She was dressed in the standard military uniform. "This is Major Rosalia Nicola Amaro, the Sharp Edge Alchemist." She introduced the woman.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Yamato Kokaonüsse." I stated. "So why is the military after Felicia?" I asked the Major.

"The Führer has stated that she's a threat to society and has sent several State Alchemists to apprehend her. Seems a little overkill for a child." She stated.

"Appearances can be deceiving." I replied. I know firsthand how dangerous the homunculus can be. "Why is it that you're telling me this? What if I'm in league with your so-called 'enemy of the state?' Couldn't you be court-martialed for it?"

"She has a tendency to not follow orders that she doesn't like." Cynthia answered for her. I had to question Mustang's choice to instate someone with that kind of record.

"I'm going to find Felicia, now." I stated, beginning to leave.

"So what? Are you going to turn the military against you just to chase her?" Cynthia asked, causing me to stop in the doorway. "As much as I hate to admit it, if the Führer's after her, she's probably got one hell of a record."

"Next time we meet, it may be as enemies. See ya." I answered, shutting the door behind me.


"When's the next train?" I asked the man behind the counter at a train station in the northwestern quadrant of Central City. I had managed to sneak into the station without being grabbed by any military personnel. There was no noticeable change in the amount of soldiers about. Mustang probably wanted it to be low key, so I had to hurry; soon someone would begin to check the train stations and I don't want to lose my chance because I took too long.

"Not for a couple days." He answered, quietly. "You could take a train to West City, then the road should take you to Pendleton." Pendleton seemed like a long distance for her to run away to, but considering the military being after her, I don't blame her.

"It's the best option. When's the train departing?" I relented, passing him a few coins.

"In a couple hours." He stated, exchanging the coins with a ticket. I thanked him and immediately boarded. Once on board, I took the head off my puppet and removed the remnants of the transmutation circle on the inside of the torso. I then removed the iron ball from Liore, from my pocket and transmuted it into a needle. After removing the restriction symbol that I found was the least effective, and replaced it with a different symbol, whose purpose was to stabilize reactions.

"That should allow the transmutation to last longer, but I can't bind my soul to as many things at the same time as previously." I theorized aloud, not that anybody was there to hear. The drawback shouldn't affect me that much, considering the most I've split my soul at one time was a total of 3 parts, this was due to me now putting a larger portion of my soul into the transmutation but it would be a more stable occurrence. I ducked as a soldier passed by the window. "So they've finally began checking the train stations, eh?" I silently asked myself. The train began to move at its normally slow speed, as it began to leave the station on schedule. "It's a shame that Mustang didn't order the stopping of train schedules on time." I was practically beaming at my good luck, which of course probably led to what happened next. The train stopped. "Dammit!" I internally cursed. I made one major adjustment to the feet of my puppet using alchemy. It was a quick alteration but it would make all the difference. I then tested my adjustment to the circle by transmuting my soul into the puppet, causing it to unfold itself. I had to get out before I was caught. I jumped out the door, nearly plowing down a man. He towered over me at what I assume is 6'1, with an average build, short blonde hair and light blue eyes. There was a barely noticeable scar across the bridge of his nose and he was dressed in the standard military uniform.

"Stop!" he shouted as a spear levitated in front of me, blocking my path. To say I was dumbfounded would be an understatement. As far as I could tell this man was using telekinesis or something. My puppet leapt at him from the train, which the man at first tried to stop before giving up and ducking underneath the metal construct. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Freed Steinbeck. Stand down, Yamato."

"So you know my name, huh?" I asked, the lieutenant colonel. "I'm sorry sir, but I won't be standing down. I've got somewhere important to be, and I cannot let you get in my way." I stated, keeping my panic hidden. There was something incredibly unsettling about this man, and it wasn't just the telekinesis.

"You don't have to worry about the girl; the military can protect you, if you cooperate." He spoke. It was kind of offensive, the military thinking that Felicia was holding me hostage.

"You seem to misunderstand my reasons." I said as my puppet made another jump at him. He simply stepped out of the way, letting it run to my side. I then grabbed the spear and pushed it aside, running from the man. "He couldn't use the 'telekinesis' to stop my puppet. Oh… I get it, it's a magnetic field. That's why he couldn't stop it. It's a Titanium Aluminide based alloy, which isn't affected by magnets. Thank god for advancements in Automail and geez some of these State Alchemists are a force to be reckoned with, and… I just shook the beehive." I internally spoke. I looked back to see him in pursuit with several metal weapons hovering around him. "Oh… crap!" I shouted, "Wall!" I watched as a wall erupted from the ground behind my puppet as we left the building, blocking the entrance. I ran down the sidewalk, pushing people out of my path, until I was at the border of the city. I stopped and took advantage of my current lack of pursuer, and began to work on another creation with the help of my puppet, which now weld a transmutation circle on the bottom of each paw. It was a metal horse, extremely simplistic with few details, being built with speed in mind and not combat. I grabbed my puppet, undid the transmutation, and folded it up, before placing it on my back as though it were a child's book bag.

"A horse was a bad idea." I stated, barely keeping myself on the metal steed. "Should have gone with something easier to ride." I continued to complain with only myself to hear. In all truth I needed something to do while I waited. After figuring out how to keep a semblance of balance, I began to run over what I knew about the Philosopher's Stone, mainly the previous occurrence with Felicia. "So if I'm not a homunculus, how did I know what the inside of a Philosopher's Stone looked like? All the screaming, could they have been human? Of course not, alchemy isn't capable of putting souls in… never mind." I mused. "Assuming that that is truly the main ingredient, it makes a bit of sense. Felicia taught me this kind of alchemy in order to give me a head start on making her human. And the screams are that of people… creepy. It may also explain Felicia's remorse at being a homunculus, because other than the whole 'I am made from countless human souls' thing, it would be kind of cool to be a homunculus but that's kind of a deal breaker, nobody would be that cruel. I wonder if there are any compounds that may cause hallucinations as an ingredient. It's possible… maybe something extremely difficult to get ahold of. I don't know of any off the top of my head, bio alchemy has never been something I've exceeded at. I should check my book for… and I left my book back with Cynthia. Loud angry shouting!"

I stopped to rest and stretch my legs for a bit, while I replayed the memory with as much detail as I could. I remembered it all, I'm not certain if that's a bad thing in this case, but I might need some counselling down the road. Unfortunately there was a lack of any information of obvious help. I mentally scolded myself for forgetting my book, retrieving it will be all the more difficult. That would prove to be nearly impossible now that I'm… a fugitive. The weight of what I've just done had finally began to sink in. "Mother's going to kill me." I predicted.


I was abruptly awoken by a screeching sound in my ear. I shot up off the ground, banging my head against the leg of my equestrian based puppet. Apparently my puppet believe it to be funny to let out a bloodcurdling scream in my ear in order to wake me up. That portion of my soul apparently has no idea how horrible it is to receive a human scream from a horse, due mainly in part to the fact that the transmutation hadn't worn off yet. It had been 3 days since I had first bound my soul to that particular construct, and it's still going strong. Not bad for taking an estimated guess. I grabbed my wolf puppet and climbed back onto the horse. We were not too far from Pendleton and hopefully we were ahead of the military. The horse took off and this time I had managed to avoid plummeting off the side of the metal steed. At least during the long trip on this accursed mount, I managed to learn somewhat how to ride a horse. I'll say it now, never again will I ride a horse, ever.

I was glad to have finally arrived at the border town that was my destination, hopefully. Deciding against using the metal stallion any longer, I promptly destroyed it and returned my soul to myself. Upon entering the town, it was apparent that it was once a site of a battle that wasn't all too recent. It seemed to be in a slower recovery stage than Liore, albeit that was back when I was a small child, so I might be wrong. I did a quick look about to see if the homunculus, whom I was searching for, was nearby. With no luck in that, I put down my wolf puppet and brought it to life. We then split up, each one of me taking a half of the town in hopes of speeding up our search. I got to see a lot of the shops that made up the shopping district that I had unknowingly chosen to search. I made certain to check the alleyways, seeing how last time something had gotten to her, that is where I'd found her. Other than great deals on squash, I didn't find anything.

"I found her." Spoke a voice, causing me to spin around to face it. It was my wolf puppet, standing on the roof of a nearby building.

"Lead the way." I requested, secretly wondering how it managed to get on the rooftop. It leapt off the roof, landing with a metallic clank. It took off running down multiple alleyways, as I gave chase. We passed a few people along the way, some of which gave rude comments at being cut off, while others just watched as we sped past. I barely kept myself from falling on my face when Felicia came into sight, and I had to stop within a short distance to avoid running her down. The homunculus had been sitting in an alley with her back against the wall, apparently having not noticed my near wipeout. I took a deep breath before speaking. "Hey Felicia, I've been looking for you." I informed her, as I placed myself right beside her.

"Why would you look for a monster like me?" she asked bluntly.

"A monster? I hardly think that you qualify as a monster." I replied. She laughed bitterly, rising to her feet. Red lightning flicked from her body, as a larger version of her skeletal system formed around her skin. Her arms had two arm bones, one in front and one on the opposite side, which were connected by rib-like bands. The same pattern occurred for her legs and face, which took the appearance of a skull that had been turned into a mask and the bands were what held it on. Her torso gained external ribs and bands that ran horizontal around her, meeting at the vertebra that came into existence right over her spine. It had many openings between the bands that it didn't protect.

"You still feel that way about me, now, huh?" She questioned.

"Of course I do." I stated, giving her a smile that was intended to be as reassuring as possible. "I've known you long enough to know that you aren't a monster. If I were so easily swayed, I wouldn't have put my future on the line to see you. I have the sense of loyalty ironically similar to that of a dog." I added, trying to lighten the tone.

"And misplaced at that." I turned to see the same State Alchemist who tried to stop me in Central.

"Hello… err what's your name again? Fred, was it?" I asked. A brief fight was hardly enough time for me to remember him very well. Although the magnetism thing was hard to forget.

"It's Lieutenant Colonel Freed Steinbeck." He answered, sounding a little offended that I'd forgotten his name. His gaze went straight to Felicia. "Now I understand why Mustang sent us after her. I suppose that now I have to bring in both her and her mutt." He called me a mutt. I guess, I did walk into that one.

"Hey Felicia, I think it's best if we left. Let's get rid of this guy and go. Don't kill him though, the last thing we want is Mustang to have another reason to kill us." I whispered to her.

"Yeah, well, I'm only fighting for myself. I couldn't care any less about what happens to you." She snapped. While I was informing Felicia about our opponent, he took the liberty of preparing several weapons, mainly spears and swords, from the ground and after we'd finished our exchange, he sent a few of them down the narrow alley. I put up a wall, but not fast enough as a spear had gotten through and would have embedded itself in my head had Felicia not stopped it with her hand. The bones that cover her body in this form appear to be much stronger than the ones that she normally creates, which were as strong as an average human's.

"Thanks for that." I expressed my gratitude to her.

"Don't think anything of it." She responded, breaking the head of the spear off with ease. I stood by the right side of the wall and, placing my hand up against it, I deconstructed it. Half the wall exploded into a cloud of smoke, leaving only the half with the broken spear left standing. Taking advantage of the cover, I quickly transmuted a serpent from the ground that launched itself towards the Steinbeck, who jumped on top of it as it smashed its face into the ground. My wolf puppet jumped up onto the serpent aiming for Freed. He hit it with an upwards strike from a sword he was controlling with a magnetic field. Using the force from the strike, the puppet did a complete flip, and ran towards Steinbeck at full speed. As Freed side-stepped the charge, the puppet attempted to catch his legs with its tail, only to have Freed stop the attempt short by jamming the sword into one of the many tail joints. The back right foot of my puppet began to glow, as a snake shot out of the ground and tore the sword free of the tail. The puppet then jumped off the large serpent, ducking underneath.

A shadow appeared on the Lieutenant Colonel's face, as Felicia, who'd climbed a building before leaping into the air, descended upon him. In retaliation, several metal weapons launched themselves at her, most of which just bounced off her defenses. A spear managed to get through an opening, embedding itself right over her left lung and stopping her advancement towards Freed, although gravity did bring her back to the ground. I clapped my hands together before transmuting several snakes from the ground, which spread out and attempted to strike Steinbeck and the area around him. The weapons blocked every single snake mid-strike, none of them could advance against the metal weapons. I was surprised; I hadn't expected that amount of force from just a magnetic field. Several spears shot over my transmuted serpents, aiming themselves right for me. I managed to jump to the side, taking a deep gash in side.

"Damn it, he's got such control over such a strong magnetic force." I commented. I had no idea how this guy managed to perform such transmutations, but I did know a couple things about his alchemy: 1; he can only affect metals that magnets work on, and 2; he can't keep it up forever. It's been proven by alchemic researchers that even the 'mythical' Philosopher's Stone would be affected by Equivalent Exchange, so this guy can't be an exception. I saw Felicia rip the spear out of chest, before giving it an experimental toss in her hand and throwing it back at a breakneck speed. At the last second, it turned, missing its target before orbiting around him and flying back to Felicia, who slapped it downwards causing it to become embedded in the ground. "Projectiles appear ineffective." I silently stated, before remembering out last encounter in the train station, where I escaped when I transmuted a wall to block the entrance. "What about a barrier? It worked last time." I reasoned with myself. I then got an idea. I snapped out of my internal discussion to see Felicia engaged in hand-to-hand combat with at least 2 floating swords and a floating spear. "Felicia, get back!" I shouted as my puppet took its position on the opposite side of Freed. The homunculus sped past me. Then, through the use of alchemy, the ground rose up like a tidal wave. This occurred on both sides of the alley, eventually the two waves connected and formed a large dome shaped prison.

"Why a barrier? If he's an alchemist, can't he just destroy it?" Felicia asked. My puppet climbed over the top of the prison, before jumping off the top and landing beside me. I knelt down besides the barrier and began to transmute an arm out of the ground next to the dome.

"He won't be able to cut through this barrier with his weapons, and he won't be able to deconstruct it if I keep changing the barrier's composition." I replied, checking the transmutation circle in the palm of the arm's hand. I bound a portion of my soul into it, and watched it slap the barrier, the lightning that occurs during the use of alchemy flying off the construct. "Now, let's go. If he's here I'm betting there's more. The military wouldn't send just one guy." I suggested getting to my feet.

"I never said that I'd let you come with me! Just go home." She snapped.

"I will do no such thing. They've already deemed me a traitor, so that is out of the question. Besides, you are my friend. So, if they're after you, they're after me as well. I'm following you, whether you like it or not." I replied, trying out the reassuring smile again, which so far has failed to succeed.

"Fine then, do as you wish. Just don't blame me if you get killed." She relented, her skeletal armor being to disappear.


"So where is it that we're going?" I asked Felicia, as I walked next to her down the road, not even a 30 minute walk out of the southern border of Pendleton. This road passed through one other city, before it could reach West City.

"Fotcett is our destination. As much as I hate it, I'll need his help to become human again." She practically hissed when mentioned this person. I adjusted my wolf puppet on my shoulders, for some reason I like carrying the metal puppet on my back, its weight was actually pretty comforting.

"So we should-" I was stopped midsentence as Felicia exploded in flames next to me. "What the-" I was once again interrupted, but this time it was the sound of several guns being readied that had silenced me.

"I'll say this only once, give yourselves up. If you resist, we'll open fire." I turned to see Mustang himself was speaking, Hawkeye, who lives up to her name in terms of accuracy with a gun, at his side. Of all people the Führer himself had come to take us in. It wouldn't have been anywhere near as intimidating had it been someone like Grumman. But this wasn't Grumman, this was the Hero of Ishval, the man who helped to lead eastern and northern forces against the coup led against Bradley, this was a human weapon. In all truth, we stood no chance against just Mustang, much less him plus countless troops that had begun to surround us. "Felicia, I hate to request this of you," I began, causing her to leer at me suspiciously, as the flames burned out and her flesh grew back. "I need you to protect me for just a moment. I have a feeling that what I'm about to do counts as a hostile action." I didn't give her anytime to protest, I ducked down, sliding on my gloves. I clapped my hands together and slammed them onto the ground. Felicia was over me, keeping the projectiles from getting to me before the transmutation finished. I felt the occasional shot bounce of the metal puppet turned shield, making me glad to have opted to carry it.

"Can you hurry it up?" Felicia asked, her face way too close to the back of my head.

"It's a large reaction give it some time." I requested, catching sight of a jet of flames shooting past. For whatever reason, the flames had just missed, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Then, not a moment too soon, the transmutation effects became apparent. The world then grew mostly dark, as we were surrounded by a giant dome with a hole in the roof and on each side, and with another dome on top of it, allowing light to get in from the cracks between the two. I watched as red lightning emanated from Felicia, centered mostly on her upper back.

"What now, genius?" she asked, in an obviously sarcastic tone.

"I dig an escape tunnel, but first-" I didn't feel the need to explain other than gesture towards the dome. She caught what onto what I meant pretty quickly, but was understandably skeptical about my plan's effectiveness. After all, the amount of my soul that I'd have to transfer would be fairly substantial, and I'd be right on the boundary of accidentally putting in too much and dragging the rest of my soul into it. I took a deep breath and hoped for the best, before transmuting my soul into the giant suit of armor that I'd created around us. I nearly collapsed immediately afterwards, black spots filling my vision. I'd somehow gotten it to work, but I've barely got half my soul left in me. I placed my hand against the side of the armor, in an attempt to balance myself. I could easily feel the armor come to life, with any luck it'll keep them busy for long enough that we'd be able to escape. I could barely see anything, but I heard Felicia walking, the sound of something crumbling, and a curse escape from Felicia.

"Come on, you don't have to dig a tunnel, there's already one underneath us… apparently. Just get up and walk goddammit." She requested, pulling my arm in an upwards motion with more than enough force to dislocate my shoulder.

"How do you know?" I asked, trying to fight off the feeling that I'm about to faint.

"When you used road for materials, the roof became thin enough that I nearly fell through it." She stated, giving up on forcing me to walk and instead leaving me to do it myself. Sure enough, there were two human sized holes in the ground. "Come on, let's get a move on." She requested, jumping down the hole. I forced myself to my feet and over to the hole she jumped down. I took a deep breath and jumped into the darkness. That's how I began my life on the run from the military.