I met Edward's' eyes, despair filling me when the only other options I could come up with royally sucked. I couldn't let Edward lose his alchemy. That was one of my main goals. He'd be able to live without it, sure. But it was a major part of his personality and his lifestyle. It would be a crime against humanity to rob them of a genius of his caliber. I guess it's not like I really belonged here anyway. I sighed, reaching a hand into one of my expanded pockets, pulling out my class ring, one of my precious links to my first home, and grabbed his hand, placing it inside.

"Well, guard that for me would you? Little memento of this idiot for you to keep around."

"What?"

I stepped into the circle, glancing out at everyone.

"Maybe you can't use a human life, but I don't care either way at the moment. My soul won't be taken into the gate, at worst I'll end up in another world again. I know what you're going to attempt, Edward. And you'll hate it. Sure, you could endure, but the Fullmetal Alchemist-no longer an alchemist? Kind of a universe shattering concept."

He made to step back towards the circle,

"Good bye."

I slammed my hands together sharply, only to be thrown bodily out of the circle by streaking blue lights. I lay on the ground, staring at the sky in confusion. Did I...just get rejected? By the fucking Truth? What the hell? I went from laying down to standing in the blink of an eye, hands going to my hips.

"What. The actual. Fuck."

I stepped into the circle again, clapping my hands. I was thrown further this time, managing to land on my feet and skid a bit instead of flopping. I marched right into the circle again, ignoring where Edward and the rest were just staring at me. I changed my intentions, just clapping and wanting to appear at the gate.

"What the fuck, bro?"

The white creature had its arms crossed and head tilted. It had never looked more human than in that moment.

"I've grown tired of your abuse of the system in this world. You're an exception to the rules, but that doesn't give you a right to walk all over them. I refuse."

I was sent hurtling from the white space, meeting the ground outside of the circle once again. Edward was beside me in a second,

"Steph? Stephanie!"

I groaned,

"Shut up, would you? I've just failed at life, how about I get a moment of silence for that or something."

I stood in one fluid movement, dusting myself off viciously.

"Right, okay, different method."

I stepped towards the circle again, only to feel a hand on my wrist yanking me back.

Edward glared at me, putting his hands on my shoulders.

"No! I can't let you do this!"

I pulled away sharply,

"It's not like it matters if you let me, which I don't frankly care what you allow for me to do, the Truth isn't fond of me anymore, it would seem."

I made to walk towards the circle, only for Edward to step in my way again.

"I can't allow this Stephanie! I can't allow for the one I see as a little sister to sacrifice herself for my little brother!

I groaned, facepalming.

"Edward, I'm older than you! I'm like...I don't know, it doesn't matter, I'm like three or four years older than you, I win in the older sibling argument, now outta the way!"

"I can't let you!"

"Well it's not like I'm going to let you!"

"We're wasting time, we have to get Al back!"

"I agree, so move it! Leg it, right outta my way."
He stepped in my way, heading me off every time I tried to make for the circle. Roy was behind us somewhere in the crowd, demanding that someone explain to him what was going on. We ignored him, but Riza was whispering somewhere, so she must have been complying.

I growled at Edward.

"Move it!"

"No!"

He tried a leg sweep, the bastard, but I leapt up, lashing out with a foot on my way down. He dodged, leaning back to get out of the way of my fist and then throwing himself forward in a punch of his own. I nudged it to the side, cheating with my mind palace, slowing things down with my unnatural abilities of perception. I was fast, but he was stronger than I was. If I let him land too good of a hit then he would come out on top in this, and I couldn't allow that. It was the first time we had fought for real, outside of games, or sparring. Neither of us had sunk so low as to use alchemy against the other.

I pulled a half matrix move, leaning back and grabbing his wrist when he overextended the punch, twisting to throw him using his own momentum. He managed to land on his feet, of course, turning to launch into another flurry of attacks.

It's not like I needed the circle anyway, I'd seen the Truth. I could probably just think really hard and open the gate from here. But that would run the risk of sucking Edward in as well…

Roy was yelling at us, but we were mostly tuning him out, until flames flew dangerously close to us, the heat seeping in through our clothes. We stopped dead, turning to him incredulously,

"What the hell, Bastard? You could have killed us!"

"Damnit man, if that had caught this coat there could have been dimensional collapse, black holes opening fucking everywhere! Jeez."

I clutched my heart with one hand, taking a half-second to slow my breathing. Roy was scowling, blind eyes pointed our way.

"Cease your childish squabbling! We've just finished fighting, there's no need to continue it amongst ourselves! Neither of you are allowed to sacrifice yourselves! We've all lost entirely too much today already."

I glanced at Edward,

"Time out for a second, kay?"

He nodded, stepping away from the circle. Thank god for his sense of fairplay. I stalked closer to Roy,

"Sorry, no one thought to tell our resident magic medic that you were hurt."

I gathered together raw energy from the Dragon's Pulse, testing the theory that had been brewing in the back of my mind ever since I saw he had lost his sight. There was all kind of research for repairing detached retina in the dusty corners of my mind, but the most prominent theory I had cobbled together involved using my strange mash of alchemy and alkahestry to just nudge everything back into place. The energy used would be raw natural stuff from the power lying around after that god-creature kind of exploded a bit.

I steeled myself, only sort of sure he would forgive me for intruding on his personal space, and took off my right glove, standing on my toes to gently touch his temple.

"This might tingle a bit."

I let blue lightning stream from the ground, through my feet, using myself as the amplifier, gently slotting everything back into place. I felt horrible about considering leaving him like this. What if he hadn't found Marco, or the little alkahestry user beside us had not thought to help him? The color seeped back into his eyes, and he blinked several times. I took my hand away quickly, sliding the glove back on and stepping backwards.

"There, much better."

I turned back to Edward, but my comment was lost as I thought back to what I had just tried, and succeeded to do. Raw leftover energy from the pulse...would it…?

I grinned viciously,

"Maybe there is another method. Edward, Time in!"

I made to rush past his right, only to do a dorky pirouette, that I would deny until the end of time, and got past his defenses, sliding into the Transmutation circle, grin wild. I slammed my hands together before he could take another step, sucking in that excess energy as quickly as possible. The air swirled around the circle, the light dancing and ringing noise reverberating around us. When the god-like energy was depleted I started on the 'off-ness' that had surrounded Amestris, the taint that Father had forced into the life of the very earth around the country. Then I hit a barrier and was thrust forwards to face the Truth.

If I was wrong Ed would be furious and Al would be dead. If I was right Ed would be furious and Al would be alive. Either way I would have an angry blonde kicking my ass when I got back.

The Truth grinned, it's mouth stretching ghoulishly wide.

"Queen of the loophole, welcome back."

Hm, I like that name, I think I'll keep it.

"Of course I'm back, now gimme."

I'm going to be the first to make 'god' roll its eyes, I'm sure of it.

"Just stay out of my sight from now on."

The doors swung open and for the first time, didn't make a mad grab for me. They insead deposited a shaking, emaciated form in front of me. I whipped off my coat without a second thought, putting it over his shoulders and wrapping it around him.

"Come on Alphonse, let's get you home."

The gate slammed closed, and I blinked in the sun, Alphonse as well. I glanced up at everyone, grinning and waving.

Edward pulled Al into a hug and I stepped back out of the way, giving them their moment. I glanced over at everyone else, expression smug.

"Truth called me Queen of the Loophole, so I'm pretty sure it's official in some way."

I was yanked downwards, and fell into a hug. I blinked for a second before hugging back. This...I'm glad I didn't have to leave this. It's not a blood family, we're all a little broken, the country is a lotta broken, actually, but...I'm home.

To be continued in the sequel: Of Emeralds and Opals

~TimeLordOfPie