Flame and Fullmetal
Chapter 44 - The Truth About the Philosopher's Stone

Fullmetal sent them home after dropping the shoe and Roy dropped by his aunt's for a drink because he wanted answers and they were still eluding him. But Fullmetal sounded like he had a better idea after five minutes with the rewritten book than they'd had with over a day, so there really might be some answers coming tomorrow.

In the meantime, Fullmetal had sent him off with a different stack of papers and he was not looking forward to doing the paperwork part of his job. Which he rarely had to do because of all the missions he went on (sans mission reports). On top of that, Fullmetal might as well have lumped a year's supply on him. Falman and Fuery both carried a stack to the car and it took Roy three trips to get them all indoors. And then there was Riza's somewhat more manageable but still atrocious pile.

He wasn't looking forward to that at all.

'What's wrong, Roy-boy?' Madame Christmas asked. 'You sound like the girls have ransacked your dorm.'

'Paperwork has ransacked my dorm,' Roy sighed. 'I mean, sure I was out of the country for a year and things have been kind of hectic since I came back, but this is literally dumping the entire year's worth on me to do in a night.'

'Maybe your boss doesn't expect them in a night,' Madame Christmas shrugged. 'Or maybe someone's lit a fire under his ass for it.'

'I can always light a bigger one,' Roy grumbled. 'Better yet, I can set the entire stack of paper alight.' Now there was an entertaining idea – especially if the paperwork turned out to be rubbish. Because surely most of the paperwork that piled up in a year would be obsolete?

And afterwards, when he sat under the swaying light of the dorm room and started on the first pile, he was tempted once again to burn them all to a crisp.

'Really,' he groaned. 'These are all pre-Ishbal. Some were four or five years older. All mission reports or travel logs. All Fullmetal's. Talking about him and his brother that was now just a rectangular piece of metal in an office. Talking about a crazy chopper who liked cutting up pretty girls and managed to catch one in particular because she was in love with anything mechanical. About an alchemist in Aquroya who'd played every role she had an outfit for and thensome all to weave a fanciful tale he would find some years later…

There were other familiar tales as well. Some weren't named, or named differently but he picked them out anyway. Hughes. Marcoh. Tringham –

He stared at the last one. Tringham?!

He scanned the files. There were Russell and Fletcher Tringham but no mention of their father, no mention of the papers the now named boys had sent him to Central to find.

Had Fullmetal known about those all along? Or had his actions been restricted at that point and he hadn't been able to get to them?

In any case, those papers weren't in the pile now. But all these other tales were. Tales… And what were they even trying to tell him? What was the point of giving him years' worth of mission reports and travel-logs that pretty much said the same thing?

But that wasn't true, was it? The name Tringham didn't appear in the official reports at all. Or in the travel-log, now that he was reading properly. His mind had just connected the dots automatically, breaking the code that lurked – but while that and other random words jumped out at him, there was still something –

He sighed, brewed himself a cup of coffee, and grabbed a pencil.

This was going to be a long few days, trying to work out whatever the heck Fullmetal was trying to say.

.

Riza showed up some time the next day with food and a stack of finished paperwork and things went a little faster like that. They really did work better as a team. And they slowly made their way through the pile, drawing a story that sounded like what Fullmetal had told them before they left for Xing… But then why go through all this trouble?

There was more. There was definitely more.

And then they reached it. The Ishbalan Civil war. Seven years of conflict before the alchemists had entered in the final fray. A soldier had shot an Ishbalan child to start the conflict – or so the official report said.

Fullmetal's travel-log version spelt out a Homonculus.

'Envy,' he breathed.

A shapeshifter who could effortlessly sow the seeds of conflict.

A Homunculus deliberately began the war in Ishbal.

Which others did he know of? Havoc said he'd met Lust. Roy and Riza had also met her handiwork. Then there was Greed, who they'd met in person. And then the one Havoc had said had looked too much like Fullmetal's mother for him to take… Or was that Envy's handiwork too? In any case, it wasn't in this tale. Yet.

They continued working through the pile, slowly processing it all.

And stopped cold at the next revelation.

Homunculi had also infiltrated deep within the military. They'd known it on some level, but they hadn't realised just how deep.

'The Fuhrer himself is a bloody homunculus?' he hissed.

'Now, that's rude,' said a familiar voice and Riza aimed her cocked gun at the speaker. 'Are your manners always this bad, Mr Roy Mustang?'

'You're…' Roy began. The woman from Xenotime. The one who'd commented on his flame alchemy.

Something ran down his hand. He raised it. The shredded gloves. The blood from torn skin. Shit.

The woman smirked, and brushed her hair aside.

There was an ouroboros tattoo on her chest. 'Are you Lust?' he asked.

'My, you know of me.' She smiled.

'We met your handiwork in Briggs.'

She laughed. 'Not all mine,' she corrected. 'You see, we homunculi can't do alchemy by ourselves. We can only give some… permenance to their work.' She stretched out her nails again. 'How about it, Mr Flame Alchemist? Shall I help you burn down these dorms? This city?'

'Why would you do that?' He backed away slowly. He still had one okay glove, but it really wasn't made for pinpointing. That was the shredded one. But if he could get his back to the wall, he could sketch a circle out. To compress his flames. Aim them. Not burn down the dorm – and the dorm would go in a flash with all the paper they had around.

The paper fell and sparked and Riza dropped her gun from the flash. The papers were growing blank, the words sucked out of them and going – going where?

Oh well. He'd figure that out later. Fullmetal had been prepared, apparently.

He drew the circle in the window of opportunity they gave, and snapped.

The woman's face melted away and bone crawled out of her neck.

They ran.

They still didn't have a clue how to defeat something that just wouldn't stay dead, so they went the only place they could. To Headquarters, a little singed and out of uniform but Roy had his pocket watch. They let him in without a problem.

Still, they didn't get far. Breda accosted them in the halls. 'You're transferred to Central,' he snapped. 'The paperwork went through a few days ago.'

'What?' Roy hissed. 'But we need to see Fullmetal – '

But Breda simply marched them out, and they realised why when the building trembled under them. Something was going on in the upper floors. A fight – and the extent of it was quickly apparent when they were fully outside and could see the deformed building. Alchemy and something else devouring its very foundations.

'Come on,' Breda muttered. 'We shouldn't even be here. Let's go.'

Roy balled his hands into fists. 'We can help,' he snapped. 'With whatever's going on. We can help.'

'You'd be helping by getting clear,' Breda snapped right back. 'Orders from Fullmetal. You're transferred to Central. Under Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. Full-fledged Investigations. And things here are going up in smoke as you can see.'

'But why?' Roy almost had to jog to keep up now, and Riza was already jogging, pistol cocked and ready. 'Lust –'

Breda cursed under his breath. 'So they did come after you two, despite the ruckus we kicked up.'

'The ruckus you kicked up?' Riza spoke up. 'You don't mean you're creating a diversion – for what?'

Xenotime. It must've been Xenotime, or the First Library branch. Otherwise this would've taken place in Liore instead. A different time. A different stage.

They'd run into Lust at Xenotime and hadn't even realised it.

They'd stumbled onto something and hadn't even realised it.

And now they were completely and utterly lost and dressed in slacks. Breda let them into his car and Roy slumped in the front seat and wiped his brow.

Then blinked. His sleeve wasn't white, but black.

'This is going a little too far for my tastes.' He shook his head.

'We can't all be as young and volatile as the boss.' Breda shrugged. 'He does get overdramatic sometimes, you know. But this was years overdue.'

What was? Roy wondered.

But he had a feeling there was a lot more of the story to get through – even if they had to put it on hold for the moment.