Armstrong, Rodney and Massena were inspecting the damage in the room where they had tried to freeze Envy. The explosives from the tank had caused more damage than anything Envy had done. A team of plumbers had arrived to replace the damaged piping and take out some of the extra modifications they had done in order to attempt the freezing.

"What is the situation with the water pipes?" asked Armstrong. She was sitting on the floor and spoke with some strain because the large wound in her thigh was rather painful. The wound had been tied up temporarily; since the doctor had patients with worse injuries, Armstrong had not even considered staying in the medical room. In addition, she had wanted to see what Envy had done to her Fort.

"That thing only broke the ones here and a few there, and they are a little bent along the way. The plumbers just told me that they'll replace first the broken and obviously bent ones, but they'll try to manipulate the less bent ones back into shape," replied Massena.

"And the ventilation shafts?"

"They seem to be more torn here, but I think they're repairable too, sir. Most of the ventilation people are in the ventilation centre of this section since that thing trashed two of the machines there."

"How did it get there in the first place?"

"I heard someone say that it must have moved through the ventilation shafts. In the ventilation centre, there was some kind of hole in one of the shafts that didn't look like it had been done violently, but rather by cutting."

"How the hell did it even fit there?"

"Well, I guess it just changed its shape, sir."

"Yes, but it shouldn't be able to become that small!"

Massena could not reply anything to that, so she stayed quiet.

"Where is Shrike?" asked Armstrong after a moment. "Is he also working in the ventilation centre? He should come here to both fix these ventilation shafts and remove the modification he made to the structures. I suspect he could also use his alchemy to utilise the rubble so that we don't have to use so many new parts to rebuild all this."

Massena sighed. "He was in there but left some time ago. Then he had some kind of emotional collapse due to seeing that monster get blown up. He should be in the medical room now, sir."

"What?" asked Armstrong in an incredulous tone.

"Apparently that shapeshifter was Envy, and Shrike was together with her, and he's upset because of that. Even if this was a rather extraordinary circumstance, I have never seen such unprofessional conduct from an officer."

"I can't believe how unsurprised I am to hear this."

"I'll probably demote him once I get back to my papers," said Massena, mostly to herself.

"Wait until he seems stable enough and ask him to explain himself first," commented Armstrong.

"Hmh. Yes, sir." She was quiet for a moment. "Sometimes I do wonder why you chose to hire him. He just isn't fit to be a soldier."

"He's trustworthy and good enough at his job, like everyone else."

"But then why promote him at all, sir? He could take care of the ventilation machinery while being a private. Or even a civilian."

"This far he's earned his promotions and I saw no reason not to promote him even despite his character. "

"But what good is it having such a... well, milksop, excuse my vocabulary, have a high rank?"

"The added responsibility of having a higher rank makes him want to improve more. As I've recently discovered, I know he hates fighting but he has a willingness to solve problems without violence or war. The rest of us know how to war, so I'm hoping he will grow strong enough to tell us when not to war. I only resent the fact that he's so slow at it."

"I fear you'll have to wait too long, sir," said Massena. "I'm not going to be extra lenient with him just because he isn't a good soldier."

"Nor should you. What do you think about using alchemy in the Fort?"

"I don't like alchemy. It creates more problems than it solves, and the whole practice creates too power-hungry people who don't care for others."

"Would you describe Shrike as too power-hungry?"

Massena scoffed. "No, sir. I have to admit that he's one person for whom alchemy actually fits. It lets him cheat his way out of proper practice and work but lets him do something that he's even marginally good at. It might end up being his metier. His personality is suitable for alchemy since he's realistic and altruistic enough to not use it for things other than the common good and he won't be reckless with it."

"Good."

Now that she had seen most of the damages, Armstrong finally decided to go to the medical room to have the doctor take care of her thigh. She got up and Rodney helped her to get there.

First, Armstrong went into the recovery room to talk to Shrike. Shrike was lying on a bed and looked beaten and not entirely focused.

"Shrike, attention."

Shrike startled and sat up suddenly. He saluted Armstrong without getting up and wondered where her wound had come from, but it was not his place to ask any questions about that.

"Go to the room where you attempted freezing Envy and remove the modifications. Help the others fix the structures. Then come back here."

Shrike almost said that his shift was already over, but stopped himself. "Yes, sir," he replied tiredly, got up and left.

Shrike retrieved his tools, went to the room and got to work. Even though he was not as efficient as he could have been, focusing on something else again made him feel a little better. He removed all the modifications he had made in order to attempt freezing Envy, managed to fix some of the panelling with alchemy and reused the rubble to make replacement parts. He got the structures in proper working order and told the next team to start working in the next room.

After that, he took his tools back to the maintenance office of mandatory machinery and returned to the medical room. Armstrong's leg had not been stitched yet, so he went to get something to eat. He took his time, and when he was done, Armstrong's operation was finished.

Armstrong was on a bed in the recovery room. She, Rodney and Shrike got into a nearby room to talk privately.

"So, do you have anything to add now that we've exposed Envy's betrayal and it's no longer a threat?"

"Threat? Uh, no, sir. I... I don't even understand any of this... Why did you have it killed?"

Armstrong started paraphrasing the reasons she had heard from Mustang over the telephone earlier that day. "It learned alchemy and created another homunculus. The threat in that is that if it knows alchemy, it can create Philosopher's Stones on its own. As I told you, Philosopher's Stones are made of living people, and Envy would definitely kill people to create more Stones. Even if it promised to not make Philosopher's Stones, that is too great a risk. And if it can create one homunculus, it can create an indefinite number of them, and so we would soon have an army of homunculi in our hands. I do not want to one day wake up to a horde of homunculi slaughtering us by the millions, and I'm pretty certain you and everyone else do not either. On top of all this, Envy kept everything secret, lied to me and even got you to withhold information from me! I do not tolerate that kind of activities."

Mustang had indeed claimed that Envy had created the homunculus, but Armstrong had considered the statement utterly ridiculous. She had not believed it until Shrike had confirmed that Envy could perform alchemy. She also had not been and still was not as adamant as Mustang about the reasoning behind Envy being dangerous. Nonetheless, Mustang's alleged findings had been enough to investigate, and once they had been confirmed true, she had had no choice but to do what Mustang had required and try to kill Envy.

Shrike looked concerned and scared. "How could it have created more Philosopher's Stones or those homunculi, sir? It just lost its ability to perform alchemy..."

"What?"

"Uh... Well, I knew it could do alchemy, but it lost that ability a bit over a month ago."

"What? Are you sure it didn't just lie to you?"

"I-I don't see why it would have lied, sir... Envy wasn't exactly happy about it and tried to hide it. It didn't tell me about that until I asked it to do alchemy and it couldn't come up with an excuse why it wouldn't want to do it."

"Why did it assumedly lose its alchemy?"

"It didn't know, but it said that it had to cut a part of its body off because it got squished under a rock and that that was the only thing it could think of that could have caused it."

Armstrong could well believe that Shrike believed Envy's words, but she did not believe that Envy would have suddenly become unable to perform alchemy. "Hmph. How long have you known that Envy could do alchemy?"

"Um... It told me about it in March, sir."

"March? LAST MARCH? How could it keep it a secret?! Why didn't you say anything to me?!"

Shrike was frightened. "U-uh, so-sorry, sir... I didn't know it was that important. I-I'm sorry, sir."

"How could you NOT know it was important? You're an alchemist yourself! You KNOW how dangerous alchemy can be!"

Shrike was quiet for a moment before he could speak again. "Envy was dangerous by itself, and so is anyone with a tank, sir..."

Armstrong stared at Shrike but had to admit that he had a point. "Alchemy is dangerous in a different way. As I said, it can create more Philosopher's Stones and homunculi now."

"S-sir... Why do you think Envy would have created an army or made Philosopher's Stones?"

Armstrong considered just sending Shrike away since he was being naïve and was not in a position to question her, but she figured that it was probably better to explain things to him so that he would understand what was going on – otherwise he would likely dwell on it too long just by himself or even feel too sympathetic toward Envy. "It would create Philosopher's Stones to extend its life and abilities, though I suspect that for Envy the best part of the Philosopher's Stone is that creating one kills humans. In addition, a Philosopher's Stone vastly increases an alchemist's abilities, surely you know of that. Even you might be able to freeze the entire Fort if you had one. As for an army, it would want to supplant and enslave humans because it hated us. This is obvious."

Shrike frowned. "But why... why did you even bring it here then, sir?"

"Because I thought it was unable to perform alchemy and because its abilities would have been very useful."

"Wh-what if it only made another homunculus to see whether it could? I mean, I did the same when I fixed the ventilation pipes and – –"

"You are being very naïve and annoyingly pedantic. And I wouldn't believe that for a second. Didn't you ever notice anything odd about its questions or alchemy skills?"

Shrike stared sadly at Armstrong. "What, like something about the making of the Philosopher's Stone or something? No, sir, nothing," he said absent-mindedly and did not bother to start explaining the very difficult questions it had asked, questions that he could not believe a beginning alchemist would know to ask. He did not even think they were related to it creating a homunculus, but to its oddly selective knowledge of alchemy. He looked down after a pause and a couple of tears fell down his face. "U-uh... if that's all, I'd just like to leave and..."

Armstrong glared at Shrike and felt frustrated. "You're obviously upset because you saw it get blown up. Didn't I tell you to not get too attached to it?"

"Uh... I just... didn't expect it to die, sir."

"I can't be sure that it really is dead."

"W-what? How can it – –"

"It regenerates and needs to be killed several times before it dies."

Shrike looked at Armstrong again and hope lighted up in his eyes. "S-so Envy is still alive?!"

Armstrong stared at Shrike. "That possibility exists. Does that concern you in any manner?"

Shrike frowned deeply and turned his eyes away again. "...I see."

Armstrong looked at Shrike in an odd manner. "If it is still alive, do you think that I should let it live?"

"Well, yes, sir."

"Then why did you agree to freeze it?"

"I... I didn't think about what I was doing, sir."

Armstrong refrained from slapping Shrike's face or her own and instead blinked heavily. At least he had not tried to think up any ridiculous excuse. For a short moment, she stared at him with piercing disappointment. Shrike felt extremely squirmy. "Why should I let it live?"

"Er... I don't... I mean, all it did was create one homunculus, if that's really even true. Maybe someone framed it? And besides, it can't perform alchemy now so it can't make another one, right? Why can't it have one homunculus friend? A-and I don't think it hates us THAT much, or maybe it would eventually grow to not hate us, I mean, I once asked whether it liked me, and it said that of all humans, it disliked me the least. That, uh, well, that wasn't what I wanted it to say but I think it was the truth."

"Stop hallucinating! It worked behind my back, betrayed my trust, studied alchemy against my direct order and attacked my soldiers. It is dangerous to humankind and hates us. If there is nothing it can't do and we can't control it, it needs to be eliminated."

"It didn't even kill anyone, sir!" shouted Shrike.

"Ramillies is in a coma, Pelayo is probably paralysed for the rest of his life and Junkers is in critical condition! The two others have at least a concussion and some broken bones. Maybe it didn't manage to kill them, but I can't fault it for the lack of attempt!"

Shrike looked distressed. "Because you attacked it! Do we always have to respond with increased violence, sir? Will we just go round and round forever in this stupid vicious circle? And if it specifically wanted to kill them, it woul– –"

"Silence!" Armstrong had had it with Shrike's whining. "Do not base your speculations on wishful thinking. Dismissed. The next time we speak, show me proper respect," she said. Her tone was so threatening that anyone could have heard the words "or else" added to the end.

"Y-yes, sir." Shrike was nearly panic-struck and walked out of the room on rather wobbly feet. He did not run only because he thought he would fall if he did.

Armstrong looked after Shrike and sighed. The only good thing about the situation seemed to be that Shrike had actually managed to summon the courage to oppose her. She considered whether Shrike would defy her and try to somehow help Envy, but trusted his loyalty despite his feelings and his unsure and not-black-and-white way of thinking.

Now the Major General faced a very irritating decision. If she told Mustang that she had let Envy get away, he might be angry and determined enough to get her replaced, perhaps not immediately but at the least when he got himself promoted again.

She resented the man for cutting off in front of her as the next leader of the state. Of course, the future of the whole country had been more important, but still, Mustang had also been in the middle of it and had been spared from all the blame. Grumman was still the Führer and seemed to much prefer Mustang to be his follower rather than her. In addition, the highest power was now in the control of some clueless civilians and there was talk of eliminating the position of führer altogether. Armstrong opposed the idea vehemently, but almost none of the other high-ranks did.

She still had the Fort. She would not give it up.

Armstrong's next option was to say that she had killed Envy. That would be believable enough, but it would cause her trouble to no end if it turned out to be untrue and the others found out that Envy was still alive.

The third option was that she could inform that she had set Envy free. She did not even know herself why she would say that at first, and it took her some time to think of reasons, each of which was more or less ridiculous. If she said she had sent Envy to assassinate Mustang, everyone would know that there was something fishy going on, because if she really had done that, she would definitely not have said that. What if she had told Envy to leave, never come back and do what it wanted with its life? That sounded better already, but even she could not help rolling her eyes at that. Mustang would still label her as unable to perform her duties.

Armstrong thought that none of her options were good. On top of everything, she detested lying.

In the end, she decided not to lie, but left her own suspicions out of her report. Envy being dead seemed to be the most believable case, and it was plausible since homunculi left no body behind. Envy's death would be very difficult if not completely impossible to verify. Even her subordinates had seen Envy get blown up into nothingness, had found nothing in the vicinity and believed it was dead. Of course, there was the possibility that it truly was dead. Even if its assumed tiny lizard form had been still alive when it blew up, it would not survive the extreme cold. Such a tiny creature would immediately freeze and never melt in the Briggs Mountains.

Armstrong made the phone call as soon as she had decided what to say. She explained that she had killed Envy several times but it had managed to get outside the Fort, which was when they had shot it with a powerful explosive and it had disintegrated and not reappeared. That was reason enough to assume that Envy was dead. Naturally, Mustang had difficulty taking the news without any proof but eventually conceded since he could not prove anything to the contrary and he thought that Armstrong had no reason to lie.

Thus, Armstrong's immediate problem was solved, but now she really needed a plan to find out whether Envy was alive, a way to deal with it if it was and a way to keep the whole deal hidden if it came to that.

Armstrong cursed herself under her breath for letting Envy get away and spent time in her office with Major Rodney, pondering the best courses of action in the case that Envy was still alive.

The easiest option was to wait until Envy acted again, but the consequences of that might be catastrophic. If Envy had somehow grown patience – as its studying of alchemy suggested – it could go under the radar for a very long time and amass an army of homunculi. Of course, if Armstrong was the only one who would be able to defend the country, the tables would likely turn to her favour. However, in that case, many people would end up losing their lives, and even Armstrong was not so ambitious as to disregard the lives of the common people just like that. More of an issue was that Envy might actually wait until she and all who had known it would be dead.

The best way would be if she had some kind of way of following it, but tracking a shapeshifting creature would be next to impossible. The only thing that was always special about Envy was its weight, but it knew how to handle that carefully enough so as to not clue people in on that very easily. In addition, after the revelation that Envy had somehow moved through the ventilation shafts, Armstrong was not all that sure about its claim of having an immense weight either.

Another way would be to draw it out into the open somehow. She got the idea that she could send a team of soldiers as bait and see if Envy would attack them, but that would risk the soldiers' lives in a rather unnecessary manner. The idea might not even work and Armstrong could not be sure where Envy was in the first place. She then thought about Shrike and wondered whether Envy was interested in what happened to him. She felt just Shrike might be worth risking, and he was the most likely person to draw Envy out. But if Shrike did manage to connect with Envy, what could he do? Alone, he could do nothing to it. At the most, he could be able to lead it into a trap. And even that would probably succeed only if Shrike was not told about the intent to lure Envy into a trap.

Armstrong did not yet decide anything. Among other things, she wanted Shrike to have at least some knowledge of the attempt to draw Envy out, and she needed to figure out how much she could tell him without him being able to unknowingly warn Envy.

Two days later, Shrike had just gotten the last cup of coffee from a coffeemaker, had started brewing a new pot and was now watching the machine as it bubbled. Massena came into the lounge and walked up behind him. She poured herself a mugful from another coffeemaker and then turned at Shrike.

"Shrike, over here."

Shrike startled slightly and turned to see Massena starting walk away. He got up and for a short moment, felt anxious about having to delegate the coffee-making to someone else. "Can someone watch the coffee for me, please?" he said at the closest group of soldiers who were playing a card game.

"Sure," said one of them.

"Thanks," replied Shrike, took his coffee mug and went after Massena. He followed her to her room.

Massena sat on a chair in front of her workdesk. "Sit down," she said and waved at the second chair in her room.

Shrike closed the door and sat down. "Er... You want to talk about what happened the day before yesterday, right, sir? I-I'm sorry that I said that... that I was so impolite."

"You better be. The important thing is that you care about your inexcusable and utterly unprofessional behaviour yourself."

"Uh, sir... s-speaking of 'unprofessional'..."

"You mean the way I talked to you in that corridor? You're right, but consider it this way: Starting to suddenly cry like that is what children do. You do come off childish otherwise too. So I tried to provoke you like I would a child. Well, a preteen I guess, my little brother always threw a fit when I talked to him like that. You didn't fall for it, which is good as far as I'm concerned."

"O-oh."

"Either way, what I want to talk about is why you suddenly collapsed and became unfit to perform your duties. How is that even possible? I do understand that it's a big deal to lose a loved one and that it was shocking to find out that she was an enemy and such a freak, but it shouldn't render you incapable of doing anything."

"I... I've thought about that but I can't really give a good explanation. I'm sorry, sir. I just couldn't have imagined something like that ever happening... I guess I really thought it was impossible even though that doesn't make sense because of course that could happen. I mean, Envy um... d-dying... or that uh, other stuff... B-but I was already off duty, and then I calmed down in the recovery room and afterwards I went to fix that room next to the outdoor air processing centre."

"I can understand the monster thing, but you couldn't imagine her dying?" asked Massena confusedly. "Almost everybody in this nation has lost a family member or friend in a war. 25 of us died in Central. Do you really claim that you didn't know any of them? Two of them were from my unit, you must have known them!"

"Well, yes... but... They just... went there and didn't come back. My father does that kind of stuff all the time, though he hasn't managed to get himself killed yet. And I, well, I've never actually lost anyone. I was too young to remember it when my mother died. Also... I mean, I hadn't even dated anyone before this, sir."

"WHAT? Are you serious?" Massena stared at Shrike as if he were a fifteen-year-old rebelling against his parents.

Shrike, then again, seemed very serious but also confused. He stared back at Massena with wide, child-like eyes. "Did I say something wrong, sir?" he asked cautiously.

"Exactly how old were you again? 24? You can't be even that young, you were here when I came here seven years ago."

"...28 now, sir. 29 in a couple of months."

Massena just stared at him with her mouth open. If Shrike had not felt so incredibly inconvenienced, he would have been amused at her expression. "And you've... never dated... anyone?"

"...No."

Massena had an extremely peculiar expression on her face and Shrike wished he could interpret it somehow, but since he was unable to, he just stared at her sullenly. "And your first girlfriend turned out to be some kind of monster." Shrike looked away. "Right, fine. I get it. That collapse of yours was immature and you can be lucky we only had to fight against that one enemy and the situation was over, or you might have died. Still, I'm not so heartless as to punish or demote you because of the first time you make that kind of mistake, especially since you were technically off duty and didn't endanger anyone else with that little display. And because, seriously, that monster. Just make sure that the next time that... something like that happens, you're prepared enough to keep going."

"...I, um, yes, sir. I'll try, sir..."

"Good." Massena seemed more relaxed and sipped her coffee. "Well, as long as you're here, do you have anything else to talk about?" She brought the mug to her lips again and then stared at it.

Shrike also sipped his coffee that was not quite warm any longer. His mind was blank. "No, sir, I can't think of any now at least."

"Well, if you do, come talk then. I know some men say talking about their problems is useless, but generally, if you actually think about things and can't solve them yourself, then it's a good idea to talk about them too. And I can see you benefit from talking, even if it was inconvenient."

"Yes, sir." Shrike got up and left. He felt annoyed because him having dated no one before should not have been such a big thing.

Yet another two days later, Armstrong had contemplated her options. Since she believed Envy was still alive, she devised a good enough plan to draw Envy out and lure it into a trap. She summoned Shrike to hear her plan.

"You know most of the people believe that we managed to kill Envy, but I'm still suspicious of that. Therefore, I want to try to lure it out, and you're probably the best way to do that at the moment. You need to go to North City and make yourself known somehow, that should draw its attention to you and when it finds you, you can talk to it. If that doesn't work, repeat the same first in Central and then in East City, since those are the most likely places Envy would be in. I believe it would try to find the other homunculus, and Envy will probably think that Mustang is holding it in Central or East."

Shrike stared at Armstrong. Armstrong waited until Shrike had managed to absorb the information. "Make myself known, sir?"

"I don't care how you do that, but I recommend you don't do anything illegal."

"B-but how would I...?"

"I don't know. Try your alchemy, I would guess that is the easiest way. Put out a burning building or something. I'm sure you know that they still have problems with faulty heating systems that start fires. Or maybe you can melt the dock area."

"O-oh..." Shrike seemed very contemplative for a moment. "Um, if Envy contacts me, what then?"

"Then you will at some point lead it to a specific alley where we can capture it. After that, we can talk with it."

"Talk, sir? But you tried to kill it. I don't think it would fall for that..."

"Then don't tell about that to it. Figure out some other way to get it there. Come up with that way on your own. Of course you need to also be able to inform us when that is going to happen, approximately. We can't wait there every day."

"What do I do in North City once I get there? I don't think I can be around in public practising goodwill all the time, sir."

"Hm... I'll arrange it so that you'll be temporarily transferred to North City for lighter duties so that you could study alchemy."

Shrike was pleased and nodded.

"Do you have a place of residence in North City?"

"Yes, sir, but it's on the other side of the city than headquarters."

"Well, travelling that distance often ought to give you opportunities for some gratuitous displays of alchemy."

"Um, maybe... But then I'd rather not have everyone know where I live. If I make myself known like that, some people are bound to follow me around and bother me, and that might even prevent Envy from contacting me..."

"Stay at headquarters then."

"So... I'll go to North City, do something with alchemy so that people will notice me..."

"Try to get on the radio and in the newspapers."

Shrike became pale and felt light-headed.

"I can guess you aren't one who would enjoy publicity, but once you're done with this, you can just come back to Briggs and nobody will bother you."

"Y-yes, sir... And then, once Envy finds me, I'll try to meet it in that alley... and then you can capture it. How long should I wait for Envy?"

"Hm... a month."

"Yes, sir."

"Here is the information you'll need." Armstrong gave Shrike a sheet of paper that listed the phone numbers and addresses Shrike might need. "When will you be ready to leave?"

"Um, I can leave now, but tomorrow would be better because I still have a three-hour shift in the evening, sir."

"Fine, leave tomorrow when the supply truck is leaving. Dismissed. Telephone if you run into trouble."

"Yes, sir."

The next day, Shrike packed most of his things and books and left on a supply truck.