Far underground in a cavernous room lined from floor to ceiling with pipes and tubes, which all originated from a chair positioned in the centre. A older man with golden shoulder length hair and beard sat on the chair, various tubes from the chair were connected along his back, holding him there. He sat, relaxed, reading from a ancient book. A figure walked into the room, pausing just some distance behind the chair.

"What have you found out about our guests?" he asked.

"Their travellers, they've come here to learn about homunculi. But I have no doubt that they know about the stone, and are possible looking for one." the shadowed figure said.

Another voice off to the side laughed, a bit of a higher pitched voice with a more harsher tinge to it said "Boy will they be in for a surprise, so do you want me to dispose of them?"

"No," the other said, "they are determined. I believe we can use one of them as a sacrifice when the time comes."

The second voice scoffed.

The older man closed the book he was reading, "If you believe we can use one of them, then so be it. Let the others know which one is to be kept alive, at the appropriate time kill the others."

"Yes Father."

:~:~:~:~:

5 days passed without much word from Sheska. The team couldn't find much to do beside sit around or explore the city. On the fifth day Liz made it downstairs and found Kate, Daimio and Forrester already down in the mess hall.

"So if I were to order you to get me a coffee what would happen?"

"The exact same thing that happened to the last Captain who asked me that."

"Which was?"

"Steaming hot coffee poured on his crotch." Forrester replied, taking a sip from her cup. Liz noted that Daimio then crossed his legs before saying, "And you weren't demoted for that?"

"Nope, in fact we became friends after that."

"What are they doing?" Liz asked Kate.

"Daimio is testing the boundary's. I almost feel like I should be taking notes." Kate replied.

"I'm not getting a coffee am I?"

"Not unless you don't get off your scarred ass and get it yourself." Daimio glared at her, "Hey remember what I said before, pucker face? Your head is bloating up again, not a good look on you handsome."

Abe came running into the mess hall, "Hey she's done writing."

The three looked at him in surprise before getting up and hurrying after him.

Once at the HQ they hurried to the room she was working in.

"Ta-da, Tim Marcoh's notes." Sheska said, indicating the pile of note pads behind her on the table.

"She actually did it." Edward said surprised.

"It makes sense why he left them here, imagine trying to move around with all this." Al said picking up a pad and looking through it.

"Are you sure all these are Marcoh's?" Johann asked, following Al's lead and picking up a pad.

"Without a doubt, Tim Marcoh's recipe book "1000 Meals for Daily Living"."

They all stared at her.

"A cooking book?" Liz said, picking one up and thinking back to the one she found in the first branch.

"A table spoon of sugar with a few drops of water..." Ross read out loud, Forrester looking over her shoulder, "Yup, looks like a recipe book to me."

"Hey what are you trying to pull? These can't be the right documents." Brosh said.

"But, I copied it down exactly as I remembered." Sheska said.

"Are you sure you copied everything down? Word for word?" Edward asked, going through one.

"Yes."

"Excellent, Sheska your brilliant." he wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to Ross, "Second Lieutenant Ross take my pin number, signature and the silver watch as ID. Go to the state alchemists office and withdraw the amount I wrote down there from my research grant for the year and give it to Sheska."

"Now out, out." Al said herding the officers out of the room.

The B.P.R.D team watched all this in confusion.

"What? Are we now cooking for a bake sale?" Daimio asked.

"No, alchemists have this tendency of writing all their research notes in code." Edward began to explain.

"Oh we know all about that, the alchemist that made Roger coded all his notes." Liz said.

"All we have to do is crack it."

"Should be easy sense it's disguised as a recipe book, after all some people say that alchemy originated in the kitchen."

:~:~:~:~:

A week passed, and the group was no farther in their investigation. The notes were about as hard to crack as the notes left with Roger. Through the week Kate and Abe took shifts as to who would stay and help with the Elrics and Johann.

A knock on the door caught everyone's attention, "Who could that be?" Kate half asked herself.

The door opened revealing Brosh and Sheska, "Hi, I heard you guys would be here."

"Oh hi Sheska." Edward said, raising his head up from the book that had become his pillow.

"I would just like to thank you, with the money you gave me I was able to move my mother to e better hospital."

Edward waved his hand, "No need to thank me, I should be thanking you for these notes."

"Oh speaking of, how is your deciphering going?"

A gloomy look passed over everyones faces.

"Hows your job hunting coming along?" Al asked.

A gloomy look passed over Sheska's face.

Kate sighed, "Well I'm sure you'll find something, with that memory of yours."

The doors opened again, and Hughes strolled in "Yo!"

"Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, what are you doing here?" Al asked.

"The Major said you would be here decided to take a break from work and see how your all doing."

"We've been busy." Kate said, leaning back.

"These notes are proving to be incredibly tricky." Johann said, he was sitting at the back corner of the room.

"What about you, hows work?" Kate asked.

"It's been so swamped lately, there's been so many incidents lately, the Court-Martial office that I'm in charge of has been busy as hell. We haven't had time to close the Tucker chimera case...oh didn't mean to bring up a sore subject." he said looking to Edward.

"If your so busy, how did you manage to come here and visit?" Johann asked.

"I'm on break, man it was busy enough before the first branch burned down. I don't think I can take much more of this."

"What about the first branch?" Edward asked.

"The first branch was close to the Court-Martial offices, so we used it to store all our files. So with it burned down we lost a great deal of our records.

The group looked at Hughes, then turned and looked at Sheska.

"Huh, what?"

"Well you could."
"She could what?" Hughes asked.

Edward then explained Sheska's talent.

"Well...um...when I worked there I did read through some of the records stored back there, and I do remember them." she said.

Hughes jumped up, "You do? Well then I think I have a job for you!"

He grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her out of the room, talking all the way about cases that were coming up that he needed files on.

Kate looked at Edward, "He reminds me of a kidnapper."

A few more days passed, Ross walked in looked at Brosh "It's closing time, time to get them."

"Man, they've been at it for quiet awhile now."

"GOD DAMNIT!"

The two jumped and bolted into the room, "What happened?"

Everyone in the room had a sad looked about them, Kate was rubbing her temples, Abe just stared at the one book, and Edward punch the one he had.

"Uh, are you guys fighting?"

"No, that's not it." Al said, looking down.

"Are you frustrated about not deciphering it?" Ross asked.

"No, we deciphered it." Johann said, carefully closing some of the opened texts and piling them.

"Them isn't that a good thing?" Brosh asked.

"No, there's nothing good about it damnit!" Edward yelled, "This is really the work of the devil isn't it? Damnit Marcoh, what were you doing?"

Brosh and Ross both looked confused, "What is it?"

"The main ingredient to a philosophers stone is a living human." Edward said.

"Maybe we would of been better off not knowing at all." Abe said, shaking his head.

"Worst part is, it's not just one human. To make a stone you would need multiple human lives." Edward said.

"I can't believe something like this was conducted within the military." Brosh said.

"We have to tell someone." Ross said.

"No wait, Lieutenant Ross, Brosh I would like the both of you to forget what you have just heard here. Please." Edward said.

:~:~:~:~:

Off in the East Colonel Mustang was conducting a search for Scar. They had received a lead that he had caused a explosion near a sewer outlet. A blood stained shirt was found among the debris.

Only thing was, was that no once noticed the two figures watching.

One was a woman, wearing a long black off the shoulders dress that showed off her chest and black gloves. On her chest was a tattoo of a winged snake eating it's tail, creating a circle with it's body. The other was a much shorter incredibly over weight man. He stood beside her with his index finger in his mouth.

"I didn't get to eat him Lust." he said, his voice sounded child like.

The woman, Lust, sighed, "There there, I'm sure you will get him next time. In his present condition he wont be going to far."

She looked west, "I'll be going back to central, I have to inform Father of our progress."

((Short chapter is short. I just wanted to get out at least one more before leaving for my weekend away. Also wanted to at least get some Lust and Gluttony in here, along with Father :P

There might be another...LONGER one out soonish.))