Hi hi!

beachgirl5647: Thanks a lot! I know there are a lot of stories out there that deal with the same sort of thing, but I'm glad that mine is original! I'm hoping to bring it to an end soon!

READINGhearts17: Al is capable of being the overprotective one! Ed is usually the one who's protecting Al, but this is a good opportunity to see Al's protective side. I think you'll see more of that in this chapter ;)

Not so human: No Izumi time in this particular chapter, but next chapter's the one. Chapter 26 is Izumi time for certain and there'll definitely be some Sig in there too! Look forward to it my dear. I made this chapter extra-long so that I could get through everything I wanted to do before we switched to Izumi. It's all for you my dear, just so you won't have to wait too long for your Izumi time!

Res Nullius: I know right!? Tia is pretty evil and I would have no sympathy for her if she were destroyed :D But still, I don't think that Al and Winry would be down with that! We'll see how things go though :)

Please enjoy the new (extra-length) chapter!

"Fine," Alphonse said after hearing Colonel Mustang's intervention in between his argument with this Tia Wilson who had the tenacity to try to belittle her crimes. Her who demeanour was sickening, and she didn't even look guilty about any of it! But of course, Tia wasn't the only person that Al was interested in speaking with. He turned to Winry and crossed his arms before asking the inevitable, "How did you get here?" It had come out a little bit more accusingly than he had intended, but Winry understood that he was under a lot of stress and didn't hold that against him. She opened her mouth to answer but Colonel Mustang cut in.

"She can tell you on the way, the Lieutenant is in no fit state to continue with this mission and we need to get her back to Central so that she can be treated in a hospital." Mustang said. Hawkeye looked up at her superior in surprise, she only had a few burns and a little knock on the head and she felt as though she could continue. There was no point in arguing with him though; he had that look in his eye when he caught hers. It was telling her – no, pleading with her – to just go quietly and stay out of trouble. He was protecting her.

"We can't go yet, I still need to find my arm and gather up the remaining pieces so that Brother can put me back together when we find him," Al piped up. He was all for getting Hawkeye to the hospital, but he wasn't exactly so gung-ho about going the rest of his time in the armour without his arm. They all knew that he was right; they couldn't exactly just leave his arm behind when they had the time to find it. Al spoke again when he realised something, "Besides, we haven't exactly decided what we're going to do with her yet." He growled jutting his helmet towards Tia dismissively.

"That's true. The most sensible thing would be to bring her immediately back to Central under arrest," Mustang said thoughtfully. He closed his eyes and scratched his chin in thought, "But that would require me going back with her. We don't exactly have anyone else. I was intending on Winry accompanying the Lieutenant back to Central to get her to a hospital but if Miss Wilson needs to go too then I'll definitely have to go."

"I don't want to go back to Central! I want to go and find Ed!" Winry protested stubbornly. She crossed her arms in determination when the Colonel gave her an exasperated look. Alphonse approached her and tried to reason her down saying that it was too dangerous but Winry held firm. She wasn't going to come home with the knowledge that Ed was out there somewhere and hurt. Those monsters had taken away his auto-mail and reattachment nearly always goes wrong without a professional.

"If you stayed to find Ed then we would be knowingly and actively putting a civilian in danger, it's out of the question." Mustang said slowly and carefully just to be sure that every word sunk into Miss Rockbell's head. Winry looked furious at this and had to take a moment to calm herself down before she even attempted to answer back to the Colonel. Mustang knew that arguing with Winry served no purpose and that every moment wasted was another moment out of Ed's rescue wasted, but this was a problem that needed to be resolved before any of them could move on.

"Well then it's a good thing that you'll be needing me, isn't it?" Winry said with a sly smile. Colonel Mustang sighed, he wasn't sure that he liked where this was all going. Winry couldn't help but pat herself on the back for her idea and continued smugly, "When I was in that house, I saw Ed. They'd taken his auto-mail away from him and if the auto-mail is reattached without a professional then a whole bunch of problems can arise. So you see? You'll need me to put him back together."

"Don't talk about him like he's just some machine!" Alphonse burst out. He knew immediately after he had said it that he had taken the wrong meaning and that Winry hadn't meant to offend anyone. But the way that she had been talking about him had been infuriating. She said 'put him back together' like it was something easy to do and something easy to endure. But it was far from it. Alphonse knew that the level of difficulty that it took Winry to repair Ed's auto-mail in the first place and he shuddered to think about how horrible it must have been to Ed to have it attached.

"You can stay then, Miss Rockbell. But you will not be anywhere near this case until we have secured Ed. Do you understand? We will all head back to Central to place Miss Wilson under arrest and to get the Lieutenant to a doctor. We'll then figure out where Ed is going to end up and we will pursue him there. Only when we have rescued Ed, will you come and help. We'll send for you, Winry." Mustang clarified his plan. Winry seemed to light up with an idea as he was speaking and the silence after the speech was what prompted Winry to say exactly what she had been thinking.

"I remember, those things thought I was asleep and they were talking about some 'back-up' base?"Winry said with a question in her voice as though she was asking whether the information was useful or not. Clearly it was because Al seemed to jump a little before asking whether she knew where it was. Winry thought for a moment, she had been pretty terrified at the time so she hadn't really been trying to take in the details, but finally she remembered, "Yeah, they just said Dublith. They didn't say exactly where, just Dublith."

"We know where to head then, don't we?" Mustang said, trying not to sound too excited by the information. He then stooped to pick Hawkeye up off of the ground and began to walk towards the small town of Rush Valley where they would head straight for the train station. Alphonse grabbed Tia's wrist tightly and started to scan the ground for his arm and any other missing pieces. It didn't take long to spot the large hunk of metal sticking up out of the ground a little ways away from where he was stood. The thing was, he didn't have an arm to pick things up with because he was holding on to Tia.

"Winry..." Al said quietly. He hated to ask her for help when she seemed so shaken and worried for Ed, but he had to. How else would his arm get back to the rest of him? Winry nodded and ran towards it before lugging it into her arms. She looked around for any other parts that belonged to the large metal armour suit before picking a few little pieces of metal off of the ground and putting them inside the arm. She returned to Al's side and then the two of them began to follow after Mustang who had already made quite a head start on the rest of them.

With a short jog, Al, Winry and Tia made it back by Mustang's side. Hawkeye looked as though she was dangling lifelessly in his arms, but after a short moment of panic, Al saw that actually she seemed to be so comfortable in the Colonel's arms that she had fallen asleep. But for her to even fall asleep in the first place just showed to everyone how much she really did need medical attention. Tia didn't care for the injured woman though, sure, it was unfortunate that she had gotten hurt but it wasn't Tia's fault that the house had exploded. That was all down to Lust no doubt, she seemed the most devious out of all three Homunculi who betrayed her.

It wouldn't be long. Sooner or later, somewhere between here and Central these people would make a mistake and they wouldn't even notice that she was gone. She'd escape and have her revenge one day – a day when they all least expected it. It was almost as though the huge metal guy could hear her thoughts because he tightened his grip on her wrist. Winry's thoughts however were on a different matter entirely. Colonel Mustang had been merciless when he had killed that thing with the green hair, Envy. Even if Envy was a monster, that didn't mean that Mustang had the right to determine whether it lived or died. She couldn't help herself, she was staring at the back of Colonel Mustang's head like if she stared hard enough then time would rewind and give him a second chance.

"Staring is rude, you know Miss Rockbell." Mustang said in a frustrated voice. If she could see his face, Winry was sure that his eyebrows would be furrowed. She readjusted Al's arm to stop it from digging into her hip and then bit her lip to try and stop herself from responding to the military Colonel. She had to remind herself that he was a man with power and he probably wasn't someone that she wanted to annoy. But she just couldn't help herself.

"The way you killed Envy: it was as though you were unaware it even had a life." Winry whispered. But Mustang heard her alright; he heard her and was angry. Clearly the girl thought that he was some sort of crazed murderer, but she seemed to be forgetting that Envy had already caused Ed to suffer and wasn't Ed supposed to be her friend? He gritted his teeth and reminded himself that she was just a child and didn't understand a lot about the world yet.

"Listen, sometimes to defeat a beast you have to throw your own humanity aside. You wouldn't understand that just yet because you're still young and you have a lot to learn and to explore. But the world is a dark place, with a lot of grey areas surrounding morality. You must never judge what you don't yet understand." Mustang said with clarity. It was as though he had given it a lot of thought. But his words made sense and Winry quietly apologised before shifting Al's heavy metal arm again and fixing her eyes on their destination – the train station.

"Colonel? I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to contact my teacher. She lives in Dublith and if we are going to be delayed, then maybe she could keep the investigation going whilst we get Hawkeye to hospital and arrest Miss Wilson." Alphonse suggested. Mustang thought this through, he hadn't exactly been the best of friends with Izumi and Sig Curtis. But if they could help to get his subordinate back and either kill or capture the Homunculi then they were worth giving a shot, right?

The party of five arrived at Rush Valley's train station and looked at the times for the next train available to get them all back to Central. It would make an appearance in half an hour. The Colonel took a quick look at his surroundings and spotted a phone box to his right where Al could call Mrs Curtis. He pointed it out and told Al to go ahead and call her before putting Hawkeye down on a nearby bench. He then took over guard of Tia Wilson and let Alphonse type in the digits of Izumi Curtis' phone number with his one remaining arm in the phone box. The dial tones rang three times before a familiar voice was heard out of the receiver.

"Izumi? It's Alphonse. We need your help and I was wondering whether you could do something for me..."

Thanks for reading! Leave a review please :D

Varishi x