"He shot me. HE SHOT ME! That-that, skinny, white little-!" Ed seemed more angry than hurt. More than that, his pride had been wounded. Of course the bad guy would go behind his back and shoot him! Why hadn't he thought of that before? Ingra shushed him quietly as she inspected his shoulder. They were moving at a fairly slow pace, though not exactly a snail's crawl, towards the arena floor. The Armory was only a few yards away from their stop.

Ingra looked up, and just as she'd thought, Kade leaned over the edge and wildly began firing. However, he had a handgun with terrible aim, and Ed remedied their problem by creating a stone half-sphere around them.

"I hate guns," Ed muttered under his breath.

"It looks like it was a small caliber bullet. Your metal shoulder stopped most of the impact, but it's managed to burrow its way down into your back. It doesn't look like it's hit anything else," Ingra reported clinically. She looked over her shoulder at the ground nervously, rubbing her bald head.

Ed, meanwhile, was standing up. Now that the adrenaline was done coursing through his system from the initial wound, his shoulder hurt. He bit his lip as he craned his neck down, noting that the tug and pull of muscles felt unnatural and tensed. In fact, the entire thing felt like someone had shoved a very large poker through his back. He was lucky that his automail arm was the one affected, or else his flesh arm would be useless.

"Here, stand still," Ingra stated. She removed several knives from a pouch at her side. Ed skittered to the edge of the platform apprehensively, wondering if he could still jump down the last twenty feet. However, Ingra seemed to have good intentions. She threw the knives down on the ground in a star pattern before doing a second star.

"Alkahestry?" Ed asked, loosing his sudden apprehensiveness. Ingra nodded.

"Our group was required to be trained in alkahestry from a young age. It has many practical, medicinal applications," Ingra stated. Ed stepped into the circle cautiously. Ingra mirrored him.

"I thought you could only use alkahestry for minor wounds?" Ed asked. He didn't know what to expect. He definitely hoped it wouldn't hurt. At least, hurt any more than he already was. Ingra smirked at him.

"This is two hundred years of development, Edward Elric. This is real alkahestry." There was a bright crackle as arcs of light linked all of the knives, and Ed's face was backlit with the sparks of the star pattern. He was quite proud that he managed to contain his initial yelp of surprise. He'd seen alkahestry done before, just... not on himself.

Suddenly, he began to feel his back itch almost uncontrollably. It wasn't necessarily an unpleasant feeling, but at the same time it wasn't comfortable either. It felt like several thousand ants were crawling under his skin simultaneously, and there was an odd pressure moving through his skin towards the surface. It took him several moments to realize that it was the bullet.

Sufficiently freaked out, the blonde alchemist was very glad when the light show stopped, and he found his back no longer in pain. However, Ingra looked much much more tired, her face drawn and wan. Ed lunged forward as she suddenly teetered. She leaned on him for support, and Ed asked with a touch of concern, "Hey are you... uh, well, obviously, you're not okay, but..."

"I'll be fine," Ingra assured. "I haven't down a medicinal transfer in a really long time. I was almost afraid I'd forget how to tap into the Dragon's Pulse." Ed smiled a little before realizing that they'd reached their destination.

"Come on. We'd better hurry up. They won't wait forever."

"That airship has to leave, with or without them," a general stated. His short, cropped hair and pasty skin seemed to scream underworlder, but Mustang tried to forget that. These generals had won their stars in simulation combat, rather than actual raids. It irked her that generals with no real understanding of desert warfare were telling her what to do. Particularly this one, who'd been against the Underground Black Market Deal this entire time. He'd even tried to get Mustang fired from her post for circumventing the usual procedure of file everything in triplicate, submit to the right servers, wait a few months, and hope you get a 'we'll think about it'.

"We can't leave them there. They've already been there a month. Anything could've happened to them," Mustang said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. The war council room was a bland, regular office room with flags on the walls, old weaponry in shadowboxes, and a large table set in the middle. Several higher officers were fiddling with a variety of electronic devices, listening intently without giving the idea of respect, and some officers were watching with rapt attention. There were two commanders in the room including Mustang, but the generals outranked her.

"What? And tip the city off that they have rats running around in their Underground? All of that work you'd done would be for nothing," General King sighed. "I understand the need to get supplies quickly and I appreciate your initiative, but the lives of the citizens come before the group you've sent. We're already on a shortage of housing and food, and the sickbays are flooding from lack of meds and proper equipment."

The pasty general quipped, "If we wait any longer, your soldiers won't come back heroes. They'll come back as failures. Either way, they lose."

"But if we leave them there, there's a chance that they could be captured," Mustang pointed out rather bitterly.

"Well, I'm sure you've trained your men and women well enough that they can resist giving information," General Pasty sneered. He was not fond of Mustang, as she was an upstart who'd risen much too fast for his liking. The resemblance between herself and her ancestor was sometimes a bit striking. It seemed like all Mustangs ended up shooting stars.

Of course, not all shooting stars go up.

There was a tense silence. Mustang was backed into a corner. If she pressed that point, it would seem as if her soldiers weren't loyal enough to Oasis to keep their mouths shut under duress. But if she admitted their abilities at staying mum, it only gave them more reason to leave the team behind. He'd put her between a rock and a hard place.

"Um, sir, we have it on fairly good sources that the Patrons have a good grasp of mind-ravager technology. It wouldn't matter how good your soldiers are. As long as they have a spinal cord, they can pull any information they want with a lot of digging around in their gray matter," the other commander, Shen, stated. Mustang inwardly let loose a sigh of relief. At least he was on her side.

"What about this business with the mole?" General King asked. "How does that affect us? Can we really trust your team once they come back? For all we know, one of their number holds a tracker."

Mustang wanted to close her eyes and disappear. This was too much all at once. Those were some of her very good friends out there. She'd known Georgia since she was a teenager. Kojak had been her firearms and survival instructor. She'd practically grown up with Grayson. Zhang and Guun were good people, emissaries at that, and Richie was a sweet kid. Nirvana was a handful, and at least she could count on that stubborn bolthead to survive. Ed and Alice and the rest...? Could she condemn them to that punishment? Leave them in harm's way?

"Our teams have lost track of their biometric signals, yes. The city is too crowded and busy for us to actually get a lock on them accurately without tipping off the entire Underground to our digital presence. I think the incident with the Crash Coffin was just a fluke. We haven't had any problems thus far from what Grayson's told me. There is no mole," Mustang breathed. The other officers stared between them.

"What is our consensus?" Shen asked quietly. Mustang nearly bit her lip, a nervous habit. Shen wanted this over and done with, just so he could be practical enough to make contingency plans. She wished she could be just as decisive. She knew she couldn't put the lives of her friends and comrades above the entire bunker, but this didn't seem like a choice that needed to be made. They could wait a few days, couldn't they?

But if they waited... Patron could find out. And if Patron found out, they could declare war.

And if they declared outright war, they would rip them out of the ground kicking and screaming into the sunlight. Though Oasis's arsenals were some of the best on that side of the planet, they weren't ready to take on Patron City yet.

"All in favor of leaving them behind?" General King asked. Several hands went up. Not surprisingly, General Pasty was among them. She shot him nasty look.

"All in favor of waiting?" Several hands again went up. Shen raised his hand, and Mustang once again thanked the man silently for his loyalty. However, she could see it was a tie. General King would have to be the tiebreaker. The other generals were either too busy delegating different search parties in other parts of the world or in the hospital due to sheer age.

General King sat there with his hands clasped in front of his mouth, and he stared intently at the table. Mustang thought that King was a reasonable man with a lot of common sense, and unlike a lot of the generals, he had actually seen real warfare. His platoon had come under drone fire, and several of his friends were killed. He'd wandered the desert for nearly three days before a passing Han See tribe found him and took him back to Oasis.

"We'll stay four hours. If they don't show up, we leave. Does that sound fair?" King asked, looking around the room. Mustang's eyes tightened, but she understood. They had to have a compromise. She may not like it, but at least he'd given her team a chance. She sincerely hoped they'd make it.

It was clear that was the verdict. King nodded his gray head, and he stated, "Well, we'd better get busy. We're going to have a lot of paper work to fill out."

"Something tells me you were never the type to be punctual," Greed noted sardonically as Ed caught his breathe against a wall. Ingra was leaning against another slave as he gave her a cup of water to drink. Now that Ed could see her in good lighting, he noticed that, like Kade, she was incredibly skinny and frail looking. It was a wonder she'd managed to actually fight. Of course, the fighting style she used had been implemented by a likewise constitutionally frail woman.

"Shut up. We hit a few speed bumps," Ed panted. Very suddenly, Ed was tackled by a blue, purple, and brown blur, and he rocked backwards as he tried to regain his balance.

"You made it!" Alice squealed into his ear, and Ed winced, though his grimace was part-smile.

"What, you thought I wouldn't? Have a little faith!" Ed ordered. Zhang tiredly stood by the weapons racks.

Everything had seemed to die down. Despite Kade's immense security measures, it had nothing against straight-up alchemy. After Nirvana had started to punch holes in the walls, the security personnel had decided that their lives were worth more than their paychecks and had hightailed it. Now it was just a clean-up job.

Very suddenly, there was a gunshot, and Greed's head abruptly exploded into a cloud of red mist. Ed's eyes widened with absolute surprise as blood splattered all over his face, along with several other things he didn't want to think about, and Alice screamed loudly. Ingra swayed with horror as Zhang shouted profanity. The source of the sound strode forwards with determination and murder in her eyes.

"You -"

BANG.

"-little-"

BANG.

"-MONSTER-"

BANG BANG BANG.

Each gunshot rang out, the bullets slamming into the body as slaves ducked and screamed, or immediately ran for cover. Georgia cocked her gun, and Ed stepped in front of her.

"WAIT WAIT! HE'S FRIENDLY! HE'S FRIENDLY!" Ed shouted in a panic. Georgia obviously wasn't going to listen though. An unnatural bloodlust was wafting off of her like a noxious cloud. Ed realized that she would gladly shoot straight through him if it meant getting at the homunculus he was guarding. Ed clapped his hands and brought up a wall just as Georgia set off another volley of slugs. These were real slugs, too, not the tranquilizer patch kind. She meant business.

Suddenly, the sound of gunfire stopped, and it was replaced by the sound of a body hitting the ground. A gun skittered past the wall, and Ed stared at it with a feeling of sick dread.

"Ed, it's safe now. Put the wall down."

Of course, the alchemist was quite hesitant. After a moment of tense silence, he lowered the wall. Behind him, he could hear Greed's head reforming again with sick squelches and wet slaps, the muscles and ligaments reattaching themselves. Ed's stomach roiled as he tried to wipe off the grime and blood off his face. On the other side, Georgia was prostrate on the ground, breathing shallowly as her eyes twitched behind her eyelids. Grayson's completely blank face stared down at her with what would have been beatitude - if not for the fact he was holding a rather bloody gun in his hand.

He must've hit her with the butt of the gun. Ed could see the knot growing on the back of Georgia's head. Grayson smiled at Ed rather sympathetically as the blond, usually bouncy librarian stated, "She'll have a headache for a while. She's programmed to go after homunculi. Call it installed hate."

"P-programmed-"

"Man, it's been a long time since I've had to regenerate. Dear Father, I'd forgotten how much that hurts," Greed complained from behind. Ingra helped him get up as the slaves backed away from the renegade homunculus. The slaves were obviously distrustful.

"Um, Mister Greed? Mister Greed. Excuse me, coming through, won't be a minute, ugh, be careful with that. That's disgusting." A person hustled their way through the crowd, and Greed's almost ever-present aide seemed to materialize at his side. The aide still had a spotless tablet in the crook of his arm, and he didn't look the least ruffled. Ed could've swore he'd seen the guy fighting his way through the security guards with the expertise of a lifelong martial artist, but he didn't even look winded. Ed swallowed. What was with everyone and their grandmother suddenly become epic fighters?! Ed was beginning to feel a little outclassed here!

"Edward Elric, I believe you'll be wanting this back," Ingra stated in his ear as Greed and his aide discussed something briefly. Ed blinked in surprise as something cold and metal was pushed into his hand. He lifted up the object, and a feeling of nostalgia washed over him as he rubbed his thumb over the familiar surface of his pocket watch. In a fit of affection, Ed gave a loving kiss to the watch, never having realized just how much he'd missed it.

"Thanks," Ed said emphatically, looking at Ingra with a smile. However, his smile very suddenly turned to a frown of concern as he noticed that Ingra was shaking heavily.

"Ingra, you're-"

"Alright, people, let's move it out. You know where you need to get going," Greed stated, moving people out of the holes. Ed watched as the people began streaming out at the homunculus' behest, several of them flat-out running into the streets. Doctors were removing or shorting out people's slave tats as they went out, and there was a gleaming car waiting in the streets below. Stairs trailed down the side of the building, and slaves gladly jumped down them two-by-two or four-by-four.

"We'll get all of your guys in my car," Greed said to Ed, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Alice chatter happily with her adopted brother, who was surrounded by a posse of suspiciously dark-skinned slaves half-dressed in indigo. In the back of his mind, Ed decided to take an educated guess and say they were part of his former tribe.

"Is that safe?" Ed asked.

"Hey, not like I'm hiding what I am. I can help whoever I want, right? I'm my own man. Who knows - maybe I'll hitch a ride with you guys in a crate or something," Greed said. Ed winced. He had a hard time believing Oasis would let him in on good faith.

Suddenly, Ed felt something grab his shoulder, and he had enough time to turn and see Ingra fall for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day. She was shaking uncontrollably (this seemed to be a perpetual habit!), her teeth chattering as she sweated profusely.

"Uh-oh," Greed stated. Understatement of the year, Ed thought to himself as he knelt next to her. Grayson strayed over from his spot next to Georgia, only giving clinical interest. The sheer calm of the usually hyper librarian gave Ed chills. Something in him had changed.

"She's going through withdrawals. Her body is craving shock," he said, as simple as if saying that she had a nose. There was no urgency, only a cat-like curiosity of cold fascination. Ed tried to hold her down, but her body was jerking too much.

"What do we do?" Ed asked seriously. Greed looked at a loss as a crowd started to form around the downed woman.

"Wait for it to pass," Grayson said. "It'll take her body a week or two to pass the drug through her system. Of course, by then she'll have died from dehydration and fever. Her brain will pickle inside of her head from seizures by the time she's done." Ed stared at Grayson, his eyes narrowing. The blonde, unkempt historian had absolutely no concern in his voice. Ed finally stood up, poking a finger at Grayson's chest.

"What is wrong with you?! Don't you even care?! You said yourself she could die, and you're acting as if she's just some... some robot or something!" Ed shouted at him. There was a commotion through the crowd as someone pushed past. Nirvana burst through along with Kojak, and her eyes widened.

"Clottie!" Ed frowned. Clottie? What sort of name was Clottie? No wonder she'd been so quiet about her real name. And if that was just the nickname, he'd hate to hear the whole thing.

"Kojak, she's alive. Oh my god, it really is her... WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, BOLTHEAD?! DO SOMETHING!" Nirvana screeched at Ed in a panic, loud enough to actually make the blonde take a step backwards.

"Hey! I was doing that before you got here thank you!" Ed shouted back before Kojak separated them both.

"Give the girl some air to breath, sheesh. Y'all stinkin' up the place with your yellin' and bad halitosis. Ain't doin' nothing," Kojak said as he bent down and picked up the jerking girl gently.

"Big guy's got a point. And besides, we need to get out of here. No telling how long Kade will wait. I take it you encountered his, uh, alter egos?" Greed asked. Ed's eyes widened.

"You knew about that and you didn't tell me?!"

"I didn't think it'd be important. So sue me."

"He nearly KILLED me!" Ed shouted indignantly. Greed treated this fact with flippant disinterest.

"But you're still here, right? You're fine."

Imal suddenly entered the conversation with a band of his fellows. He looked a little uncertain, intruding on their little powwow.

"We should leave. Some of the slaves are saying that Kade's pulling out his last resort right now. We should do this elsewhere," Imal suggested, as business-like as the most stolid of warriors.

Which was a little incongruous with the fact that he was carrying his little sister on his back, who was happily nuzzling his neck with much affection. The love was practically palpable. The brother-sister bond was giving people diabetes as they stood there.

They stood there for a moment, staring, before they all began to evacuate from the building awkwardly.

"You think he'll follow?" Ed huffed as he ran down the stairs two-by-two. Nirvana followed, clinking with every step as her armor clanked together. Their footsteps matched for every step, the two of them heading down at a breakneck pace just behind Greed, who was leading.

"Who, Kade? Yeah, probably. Nothing we can't handle, right?" Nirvana huffed back. There was a sudden explosion from behind, and the two of them made identical faces of despair and dejection. Chunks of concrete and steel rained down around them as people screamed in fear. They were still almost fifty feet off the ground, halfway down the staircase.

"Nothing we can't handle?" Ed asked. Nirvana winced.

"Roger that. No sign of Team Black. Lift off sequence is plugged in at four o' clock Patron Standard Time, in forty-five minutes and counting," the pilot said into the speakers. A secure line to Oasis crackled as the message was double encrypted, sent, and received. The pilot waited, checking his array of instruments. His myriad of screens showed the outside surroundings of the ship.

His airship was an amazing work of engineering, one from the Briggs' divisions large arsenal of decommissioned war ships. These days, it was used for cargo hauling. This haul would go straight to the Briggs base where it would be shipped through a slew of different channels back to the Oasis bunker. Within two days, everything that had been bought and shipped would be available for consumer use. The pilot, in the meantime, just had to sit back and wait for the team to come in at the deadline. And if they didn't - well, tough noodles.

"Confirmed. Team Black absent from loading pads. Lift off sequence should commence as normal," the control tower back at Briggs answered. To Patron city, Briggs was a well known port to Drachma that doubled as Oasis' second base-of-commands. Oasis was no secret to Patron City - they just chose to officially ignore the nuisance in the desert so long as it was convenient. After the devastation of Oasis Prime back in the fifties, Oasis had yet to muster any sort of counterattack. As it stood, Patron City turned inwards just as its rival did. If anything, the two were in a stalemate, with the Oasis bunker's location remaining secret while Patron City's defenses stood unparalleled by any in the world.

The bored pilot began to play a laser finger-cradle game when something caught his eye. He leaned forwards as a black, unmarked car pulled up on to the loading pads. The massive concrete pad was one of hundreds layered one above the other in a cubbyhole grid. Getting car clearance must've taken some real clout.

And, just like that, the large car stopped right by the loading bay doors, screeching to a stop on its brakes. He leaned forwards, staring at the screen with a little amazement as a homunculus stepped out of the front passenger seat.

The pilot cursed to himself, preparing to gun the engines and get out of Prime, but the homunculus put his hands up and backed away from the airship. He took a deep breath, his heart racing as the car doors opened. From the sleek vehicle, Team Black stepped out with their hands high as well, save for two unconscious members being carried by the rest of the group. There was a crackle as a transmission feed asked for clearance.

"Clearance accepted on report of military passcode," the pilot muttered back to the ship, and it relayed the information. A code suddenly came through, and it was declared clean. The pilot gave a shuddery sigh.

"State your business," he said, hoping he sounded as confident as he wished he could be.

"Team Black, requesting boarding permission. Fifteen friendlies are present. One incapacitated. One of Team Black is pre-programmed. Over?"

The pilot deliberated. Finally, he called base.

"Sir, I have Team Black here at the loading pad."

"That's excellent. What's the problem?"

"They have fifteen friendlies present, along with their actual team. One of the friendlies... is a homunculus."

There was silence at the other end. The pilot ran a hand nervously through his hair. This was going to be fun.

"Why aren't they letting us in?" Ed asked. Nirvana sighed through her nose, nervously looking at Imal's newfound... friends.

"Look, bolts for brains, put two and two together. Homunculi are our enemy. One claims he's a friend. Do the math. No offense, big guy," Nirvana said coolly, nodding towards Greed.

"No offense taken," Greed answered.

All of them were standing on the hot tarmac, shadows from the other loading pads drifting over their heads as they moved into alignment. There wasn't enough room for all of them to stay stationary and let the ships move, so they had to be continually shifting. This one was stationary because of its close launch time.

"This ain't good, though. The longer we wait..." Kojak muttered.

"The easier it is for Kade to find us," Richie nervously finished. Ed almost jumped at the sound of Richie's voice. He hadn't heard the Rockwell kid in months. He hadn't even talked on the way back from Kade's arena. Thaddeus went around the car, his face drawn. He was splattered with blood from so many wounded, and he looked like a butcher for babies from the look in his eyes. Ed's father stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder, giving him a sympathetic look. No doubt, the both of them had worked together healing the wounded.

"We're not going, are we?" he stated, more fact than question. No one said anything.

Kojak's wrist flashed a red light from his answering device. He raised it to his mouth, putting it on speaker.

"Yes?"

"Only Team Black is allowed clearance. All other friendlies stay in the city," the voice said. Nirvana looked at Thaddeus with alarm as Ed shot a glance at Clottie. She was still in spasms, and if they left her she would most certainly succumb and die without help. Zhang and Guun, finally reunited, stared at the homunculus that had been so hopeful of an alliance. Well... hopeful might be a strong word.

"Well, there went that shot in the dark. Looks like we missed our mark," Greed's aide said, playing with his tablet with quick swipes of his finger, seeming as if he didn't have a care at all.

The loading pad suddenly rocked as something very, very large landed on top of it. Everyone groaned as they turned around to look at the giant creature that had climbed up on the pad somehow. It was nearly forty feet tall, made completely out of burnished stainless steel. Every curve was vicious, the behemoth shaped like a massive mix between a panther and an octopus. It had four legs on each side, lean electronic muscle tensing with each step. It had no tail, just a whip of iron cords that swayed back and forth. And, of course, in the cockpit was a very skinny, emaciated corpse of a man with white hair and massive, crazed blue eyes.

"See? What'd I say?" Richie stated dejectedly, and Ed had to snort. Technically, Kojak had -

The monster attacked, and all of them bolted around the ship, trying to put distance between them and the giant monster piloted by the crazy idiot.

"Any bright ideas?" Ed asked, watching the mayhem around him. Clottie (he couldn't hardly think of her that way - it was such a dumb name) and Georgia were being carted by Imal's tribe mates. They'd sort of grouped up, Ed sticking with Nirvana, Hohenheim, Thad, and Kojak, Alice hanging on to Imal and his group, Richie teaming with Grayson, Guun, and Zhang. Greed, of course, was with his aide, standing there not twenty feet away without any fear.

The thing began to advance forward and straight into a blast of exhaust as the engines very suddenly fired up.

"Well, considering it just got a face full of fire, let's have a little fun tripping it up. All those legs gotta be hard to control," Nirvana said. She smirked at Ed, and there seemed to be a sudden spark between the two, a kinship. Ed smirked as well, not losing a moment as he ran back towards the monster. Both teenagers ran between the feet of the thrashing monster, Ed clapping his hands and skimming them across the ground while Nirvana drew on her hands with Sharpie, creating the same effect.

Massive waves of tarmac washed up against its legs, immobilizing it as it tried to stomp them to death, its tails whipping back and forth. The ship was also firing back, launching incendiary sticky-fire rounds. Globs of melting metal dripped off of it as the fire raced across its hide. However, it still put up a fight, firing its own assortment of guns. Only the decommissioned warship's armor saved those taking refuge near it from turning into Swiss cheese. Greed had the boon of his Ultimate Shield, climbing up the creature and ripping out wiring.

"Nirvana, how much can you bend the laws of physics?!" Ed shouted over the roar of gunfire and artillery. Nirvana turned a single leg of the monstrosity into a weak lattice of wires. The entire thing crushed in on itself as Nirvana skittered away.

"Depends on what you want!" Nirvana shouted. "I can't get hang an elephant off a cliff using a hair tie!"

Ed scoffed.

"Nah, I just want to be able to get up there!" He pointed above his head to the cockpit of the monster. Nirvana nodded, eyeing the distance.

"Alright, I'll see what I can do!"

As Nirvana and Ed raced away, Greed skidded back, kicking up a ton of gravel. He cracked his neck, chuckling to himself. It had been a long time since he'd been in an actual firefight. He actually missed the bloodlust that came with warfare. He'd grown so bored, the ennui killing him while he sat up in his ivory tower. No one dared to fight homunculi - which wasn't entirely a good thing. He was getting a little rusty, apparently. He'd already let himself be bathed in sticky-fire once (and that had hurt more than he remembered). Luckily, sticky-fire didn't exactly 'stick' very well to his Ultimate Shield.

Greed stretched out a little, eyeing the behemoth struggling in a mire of tarmac tentacles and wire protrusions. Ed and Nirvana had done their best to slow it up. It was missing two legs, and another one was about to go down as the wiring and electronic muscle began to unravel. He could take a breather, right?

The homunculus was suddenly showered in a hail of bullets - from behind. He ducked, shielding himself with an arm as the bullets tried to burrow their way under his skin. He realized that these were sleeper slugs, mechanized bullets designed for high impact and modified to drill underneath the target once they'd reached their destination. Slowly, he could feel his Ultimate Shield being eaten away at, chip by chip. He hissed instinctively as he searched for the source of the pinning fire.

Unsurprisingly, Georgia was the one firing. The short-haired soldier was advancing with determination, her eyes dilated to the point that her irises looked black. The soldier was not herself. Her programming had kicked in. Greed was stuck at an impasse. If he stood there and took the damage, the bullets would reach his inner core, and then nothing would stop them from reaching his Stone. He couldn't attack, though, either - she was an ally.

Greed's aide, however, had no such qualms. Without a second thought, the aide tackled the smaller woman to the ground, wrapping his legs around her neck and choking her as he tried to disarm her. Thaddeus and Kojak ran over to subdue their haywire comrade as Greed plucked each bullet out from his carbon shield.

"I owe you one!" Greed shouted to his aide, and the man raised a thumbs up. If Greed could smile, he would've. The monster suddenly pulled free of its restraints, and Greed was back to work again. He bounded up the foreleg of the creature, but he wasn't alone.

Ed, dressed in a strange suit made of tarmac and metal covered in odd designs, raced up the side step-by-step with the faster homunculus, and Greed laughed.

"Long time no see," Ed stated, giving a cocky salute. With that, he disappeared towards the cockpit. Greed watched him go as he vaulted over the creature's shoulder and on to its back. He looked back over to the ship, and with a falling feeling he realized that the ship was preparing to leave. Its bay doors were open, allowing the refugees to come on - but barring the friendlies from before. Greed reached down and began to dig towards the spine of the creature, hoping to hit something central and end this, but a whip of steel grabbed him and slung him backwards as the tail caught him around the waist.

He crashed into the ground right next to the arguing teams. The pilot was standing by several of his comrades, all of them shouldering firearms at the newcomers. Hohenheim walked from his group towards the downed homunculus, helping him to his feet.

"Where's Ed?" Hohenheim asked darkly as the altercation grew heated.

"Battling the big guy in the cockpit, from what I can tell. How's the chick over there?" Greed asked, nodding to the group outside the bay doors. Hohenheim's face tightened into a scowl.

"Programming's still in effect. Looks like Grayson was programmed, too, but it's much more streamlined - it's a newer sort of brainwashing, I guess," Hohenheim stated distastefully. Greed was silent, watching the debate rage. There wasn't much more he could do. With Ed taking down the beast, they'd be more than set. Not to mention, Greed was pretty sure his Shield was punctured through and needed a bit of heal up anyhow.

"Figure something out now," Grayson ordered, his eyes strangely steely. The two groups had been doing nothing but wasting time.

"No friendlies on the ship. We can't risk the security -" Faster than most people would've believed the man could move, Grayson raced forward and placed a knife just below the man's right eye. The pilot stood there, transfixed with horror.

"Little rat, telling me what to do. You don't understand. We need out of this city. Or something really... really... really bad is going to happen. Do you understand? Or do I have to remove that pretty brown eye from your head so you can see it my way?" Grayson said in a honey sweet voice, tracing the knife just under the man's eye, drawing a trickle of blood from the soft skin.

"Grayson... Grayson, enough," Zhang breathed, appalled at the man's behavior. No one had thought Grayson could be so uncontrollable. Or... in hindsight that should've been apparent. After all, Grayson was a veteran from the last Team Black Market. It was no wonder the city had driven him crazy.

But... something didn't quite add up.

"All right, all right. Just... let the tribesmen come. The homunculus and the others stay. We can let you go home," the pilot said. Grayson relaxed slightly, but for whatever reason the entire group tensed as the blonde man seemed to unwind. He stood there for a moment, his back to the group. The sounds of warfare continued behind, but no one made a move.

"Go home," Grayson repeated slowly.

There was screaming as Grayson drove the point of his knife into the eye of the pilot, moving on like liquid lightning for the other squadmates.

"GRAYSON!" Richie screamed as he dived after his friend, but the others held him back.

"No, Richie! Something's not right! That's not Grayson!" Alice shrieked as the others fell, one by one. Kojak, who'd finished detaining Georgia, leaped into the fray with Greed and Hohenheim to take down the renegade as Alice backed away with Richie in tow.

"W-what's... what's the matter with him? Why is he doing this? Why is he killing them? They're our friends," Richie wheezed fearfully, tears beginning to stream down his face as the pilot twitched at the bottom of the bay doors, a knife sticking out of his orbital while he moaned piteously.

"He's been reprogrammed," Zhang breathed, watching Greed slam Grayson into the floor of the ship while the other squadmates trained their guns on him.

"Reprogrammed?" Alice asked. Beside Zhang, Guun nodded solemnly, his hands clenched.

"He was one of two survivors from the failed Team Black mission ten years ago. He must've been captured and reprogrammed all these years. He's a mole, and he didn't even know he was. The Crash Coffins... that must've been him," Guun explained, taking a fighting stance as Grayson refused to go down, advancing towards the others. From behind, a creaking noise could be heard as the behemoth went down in a cascade of metal. The two groups were momentarily distracted by the sudden defeat of the thing that had attacked the ship, but Grayson was a single-minded machine of flesh.

He dashed around Hohenheim's guard, though not before being stabbed by a passing strut of metal summoned by the golden-haired alchemist's hand. His knife flew straight, aimed at Alice's face. The young girl was dragged out of the way, and the knife sailed past - straight into Nirvana's side. The distracted alphysicist had been so busy watching Ed's progress that she hadn't noticed the commotion from behind until it was too late. She blinked in confusion as she stared at the knife sticking out of her abdomen, touching it with a look of perplexity.

"What... the...?"

"Get back! GET BACK! OFF THE SHIP!" a trooper shouted, brandishing his gun as Grayson was finally put down with a tranq slug. The tribesmen had not been idle, spreading out around the cargo bays to rush the doors, but now that their armed opponents were getting their wits about themselves, even if they'd been whittled down in number, they backed off.

"Hey, what'd I miss - oh..." Ed asked, staring at the mayhem going on.

Nirvana was on the ground, bleeding out as Thaddeus frantically tried to fix her.

Kojak and Hohenheim were both sitting on top of Grayson, who was fighting to stay awake.

Georgia was trussed like a colt at a rodeo, guarded by a few tribesmen slaves.

Their own team was training guns on them.

Clottie had been forgotten, still twitching in withdrawal-spasms on the ground.

"Great. I shouldn't be surprised," he sighed.

A/N: Aaaah, yet another chapter finished. I'm on a roll today! Here's the next installation of Amestris A.D., for all of your sci-fi, FMA related needs.

Very gladly, I have found that I have two new reviews, from Hikari Hellion (your ire towards Kade is quite amusing - I'm glad you enjoyed the humor so much!) and envyyyyy! I love the input, and I'm sure to keep all the things you've told me in consideration!

I have one new member of the favoriteer army: Shabondy! Greet him/her with open arms! Your love is much appreciated!

However, the subscription army is sadly lacking. There are no new recruits to haze. Alas, tis a sad day.

And, finally, for your favorite part: the discussion questions! There was a ton of action in this one chapter - are you ready for it to be over yet? Describe any relationship between two or three characters that you think is interesting. What do you find interesting about any aspect of Patron City? Is Greed continually in character, or does he need some retooling? Are the fight scenes interesting, or are they too overplayed? What do you think will happen to Team Black Market now that they have attacked an Oasis ship? What do you think of the programming that has come into play?

That's all I have for now. Happy Turkey Day! God bless you, and tell the ones you love that you love them! And thank the cook!