Wierdo: *dances*

Ed: What is she doing now?

Al: She's celebrating getting a chapter up within a month of the last one.

Wierdo: Who's a beast? I'm a beast!

Ember: *walks in room* Okay.... *walks back out*

Ed: She still doesn't own Fullmetal Alchemist.

Wierdo: *stops dancing and glares at Ed* I'll give you the count of three...

Al: Why do you two always have to fight?

Ember felt the solid form of the wall she had been leaning against become, well – not there. She tumbled back as Leo and the Elder Ishbalan picked up Rick and got him away. Still on her back, she felt Al remove the material keeping her hands bound together with alchemy.

"Run," He said simply as he got into his fighting stance.

"Ok," Ember said. Picking herself up and running alongside her Ishbalan friends as the ass-hole-Boss-man began giving orders to attack Alphonse. That was when another wall was disintegrated and Scar stood there with a seriously POed look on his face.

AHBM just smiled and said, "You guys take the armored guy. I'll deal with him!" He lunged at Scar with a knife-type thing that Ember hadn't noticed before. With every move that the man made, Scar dodged and parried every blow without a flaw.

By this time the three not-so-good-at-fighting-themselves had made it with Rick to a nearby tree that they agreed to use as shelter from the violent people. Ember squatted down and looked around the trunk to watch what was going on.

She couldn't hear them over the sounds of battle, but she saw the same jerk-face suit of armor that attacked both her and Al while they were at lab-five run at Al with full force and intent to cause damage. She dug her nails into the defenseless bark as she watched them begin to spar. She would have watched all of the way through, but then one of the annoying soldiers from the house-hut-what-ever-it's-called started to fire at her.

She heard the shot first and, because she moved her head to see what had happened, the bullet made a little crater inside of the tree. The young man looked at her with wide, fearful eyes as hers were basically in the same position. Well, how would you feel if you were being shot at?

"Rot in hell, witch!" he yelled.

Ember only had a moment to close her eyes in fear of her own death, but nothing came. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself on top of the roof. Sitting next to her was a little girl in particular.

"Hey, Nina," Ember said as if meeting an old friend.

"Hello big sister!" The child said with a huge grin on her face.

"Um, Nina?"

"What, big sister?"

"How did I get on the roof?"

"I'm not allowed to tell," Nina said with slightly sad eyes. "But I wanna! Reeeaaaally bad, but it's a secret."

"Who can tell me?" Ember prodded.

"Dark grandpa can tell you!" The ghostly girl said as if the thought just came to her.

"He knows the secret? Do you talk to him?"

"No, he can't see me," she looked sad as she clicked her heals together. "But he's really smart and he knows a lots of things that even daddy didn't know! He can tell you! I can't say the word anyway."

Ember was about to open her mouth to say thanks for the help, but she became distracted by the sound of plenty of guns going off simultaneously along with a bazooka. It was different from before, it was more in unison. She looked in the direction of the sound and saw that a wall had been made in the middle of the battle field. As the guns kept firing, the wall began to have more and more holes form in it. Soon, she saw a blonde head behind that wall. Edward. She looked around the rest of the area populated by people and saw another blonde head, but this was a more platinum-blonde-ish color standing next to people with darkish looking skin. And that would be Winry and her new friends.

"Al, behind you!" Winry screamed and Ember looked in the direction of the Elrics and saw Evil-armor-machete guy attempt to do one of those 'final blow' attack things that they have in video games.

Ember immediately stood up in shock, which probably wasn't one of the best ideas in the world. Seeing as she also immediately lost her balance and began to slide down the roof of the building.

Just as Al delivered a blow that threw Barry back, he was hit by a flying, screaming-bloody-murder, Ember.

She sat up, "Alphonse Elric. You are really hard." She said, rubbing the top of her head. Oh, please, god don't let me get a concussion, I just got out of the hospital and I really don't want to go back.

"Are you OK?" Al asked with uncertainty.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good," relief filled his voice, and Ember flushed a little bit, but she wasn't sure why.

Then, a bright light illuminated, well, everything, and everyone looked where it was coming from. It soon dimmed, and standing in the middle of the lights source was Scar. He was standing with his arm held above his head and it seemed like electricity was flowing into his hand. AHBM stood nearby with his mouth agape. Scar ran at him and grabbed his shirt and held him in the air and the familiar red sparks encircled the area around his hand and the Boss-man flew back. Blood ran from his nose and from his mouth.

"Looks like the guy I've heard so much about can fail to kill someone if he's weak enough," He said to himself. "Somebody, shoot him! Shoot him now!" but he stopped short as he saw that all of his men were now in a cage that Ed must have made while everyone was distracted.

"Give it up," the dirty-blonde said. "You're the only one left."

At this point Al was helping Ember to the tree, seeing as she was still a little rattled after her crash-landing.

"Who the hell are you?" BM said.

"A dog of the military, just like you," The youth said, anger and defiance plastered on his face.

The man's face was full of shock. "A State Alchemist? That can't be!"

"That's a surprise," said a voice that Ember recognized. The sound of it sent chills down her spine after her previous encounter with it, even though she had seen its owner several times tonight. Alphonse set her on the ground next to Winry and looked at Barry the Chopper. "Let me thank you," the voice went on, "for making me look like this!" As Barry began to charge at Ed, Al used his unearthly, suit of armor skills to run very fast in front of his brother. However, before the crazy serial killer could reach either one of the Elrics, Scar intervened, using his destructive alchemy, or whatever you are supposed to call it to cut the armor in half. The torso went flying and landed on the Boss-man.

They all stared as the armor held fast to the man as he yelled for him to get off. There were strange sparks of electricity encircling the two of them and BM took off the back-pack thing and Barry fell on the ground as the man ran for the hills. It seemed that the pack was where he had gotten his knives from. The armor lied on the metal box-with-straps and held several of the sharp and pointy things in his hand.

In a blast, hundreds of the things went flying in all directions. Everyone ducked and miraculously no one was hit. Or at least, that's what Ember thought until she saw Rick fall over. There was one of the knives sticking out of his chest and his head rested on his older brother's lap. Now everyone crowded around the boy. All except for Scar who crushed the remains of Barry the Chopper.

Slowly, the boy's eye's opened and all those surrounding him sighed in relief. He reached inside of his shirt and pulled out the locket. There was a dent in it that Ember supposed was from the knife hitting it.

"Mom saved me," Rick said to his brother. Ember smiled to herself. Then the locket opened. Inside was a picture of a pretty dark-complexioned woman with smaller versions of Leo and Rick and little pills.

The old man held up one of the pills and 'hm-mmm' ed to himself, "This is eye medicine."

"Medicine?"

"Yes," The old man explained that their mother suffered from an eye disease and that she would never tell them so that they wouldn't have to worry about her.

"She didn't abandon us," Leo said to himself, he was on the verge of tears and Rick smiled as he watched his brother finally forgive their mother.

*~*~*~~*~*~*

Ember stood with Winry, Ed, and Al on the dock as they said their good-byes to the Ishbalan people. Ed questioned Scar about the philosopher's stone and the boat began to leave. Ember just waved with a big, dorky smile on her face and thought back to her previous discussion with her elder friend.

My child, I believe you to be something of an anomaly…
What is it?
There are old legends that tell of people such as yourself… they say that you come from a distant land, maybe even world…
What's that supposed to mean?
The only way that I can describe it is: think of one of the people I believe you call Homunculus and give them a soul. That is what you are; so to speak… in the legends your people are good and end up saving many lives with their mysterious gifts. Use them well, I trust you…

She sighed. No pressure or anything.

As they walked away Ed and Al began to reminisce about their childhood. Mainly, their fights as children. Finally, Edward came to a realization. "Hey! I never won!"

They all burst out laughing. Then, Ember stopped and looked very seriously between the three Amestrians, "My question is, when am I going to get out of these annoying scrubs? They don't keep me warm worth crap and the pants keep trying to fall down!" The laughter resumed.