Iris peers over the rooftop, watching Ed be theatrical and over the top with his alchemy in an attempt to lure out Scar. She was skeptical about this all; Scar was never good news, and would he really be so desperate to seek out State Alchemists in the middle of the day? She couldn't say she agreed to the entire plan.
Lan Fan could sense her worry. She tried for words of affirmation.
"Do not fret. The homunculi will come out soon." That didn't help her anxiety, but she appreciated her effort.
Iris suddenly felt the homunculi's thousands of souls, coming closer and closer.
"Sooner than later," Ling says to the two girls. Iris is taken by surprise.
"You can feel them too?" she asks, confusion prominent on her facial features.
Ling and Lan Fan look at each other, possibly wondering the same thing.
"How strange," he comments, "But we don't have time right now. Look."
It was a homunculus Iris hadn't encountered before. He was round and fat with a bald head. He gave off a sense of naivety, but once he opened his giant mouth and went after Lan Fan, she was truly terrified. She remembers clearly what happened the last time she had an encounter with these creatures. For a split of a second, she wondered if her sister would make an appearance.
Lan Fan and Ling ganged up on the homunculus, and Iris was about to join them in the fight when a voice called to her.
"The See-All Alchemist," the voice boomed from the ground. She looked down from her rooftop, recognizing the voice was King Bradley.
'TheFuhrerisahomunculushimself.'
"Didn't I see you in the hospital a few weeks ago? How are you recovering?" he goes on, unsheathing his two swords. It puts Iris on edge. "I heard Mustang was in the hospital as well. I wonder whatever happened to him... Have you any idea? Or should I ask him myself?"
"Stop this," she shouts from the roof. "I know what you are! You can't hide the truth from me!"
"An observant one you are, See-All. Did you ever think that would be the cause of your death?"
Iris looks around at her surroundings. Bradley watches as she transmutes push knives by clapping her hands then a disconnected iron pipe.
"Transmuting without a circle?" He looks genuinely surprised. "How intriguing. Looks like we have another candidate. Never mind that. I grow tired of talking."
Bradley moved so much faster than any aging man she had ever met. She barely had time to block, and his attempts at slicing her open almost succeeded. She knew defending wouldn't get her anywhere, so she threw the tiny dagger at him. It went straight through his left palm. Iris felt relief, but only for fleeting moments. He simply chuckled and pulled it out of his hand swiftly, as if it didn't pain him at all.
"You let your guard down because you got one shot at me!" He comes at her even faster, and Iris can't process it quickly enough. "You truly are an amateur!" The homunculus goes for a sword uppercut, it lands. But not on Iris.
"Lan Fan, no!"
Lan Fan's arm starts immediately gushing out blood, and Ling is quick to abandon the fat homunculus and go to his servant.
"What happened?!"
"She ran in front of me, Bradley hurt her!" There's panic in Ling's eyes as he tries to figure out exactly what to do.
"Ling, grab her and run!" Iris yells. "Give me your sword - I'll be right behind you, but expect the homunculi to trace us!"
Ling listens to her every command. He throws the sword at her and runs across the rooftop and into an abandoned building.
Bradley is quick to approach the alchemist again, one sword in front of him and one sword dragging behind him, making sparks. Iris raises up Ling's sword in defense, looking back every few seconds to make sure she doesn't completely lose Ling and Lan Fan.
"Working with some foreigners against the leader of your own country? I might have to consider this treason. And you know what happens to those who commit treason, don't you, Iris King?"
Iris charges at him, her sword targeting his hands. If she could strike at his hands, he'd drop his swords, and he'd have no weapons. He doesn't let up, though, and Iris tries everything to stay in his blind spot for a better attack. With his back exposed, she runs for him again, but he spins with his sword, and any second later, she would've been dead. The Fuhrer takes advantage of her shock and moves behind her, trying to slice her from behind. She runs away, but not before she feels a strange weight lift from her head. She looks back.
'He cut off my hair with his sword!'
She gives up on playing defense and runs into the abandoned building she saw Ling go through. Before the Fuhrer can follow, she sees some sort of bomb on the floor. She recognizes it as Lan Fan's.
'Even in her state, she's still trying to help out!' she thinks. Quickly, she activates the Xingese smoke bomb and sees the King's figure in a cloud of smoke. She runs out as fast as she can, following the trail of blood made by Lan Fan. The smoke bomb doubles as a grenade, and the building explodes just as she uses alchemy to make a way back down into another alley.
"Ling?!" she calls out? "Lan Fan?!" She hears a whistle from afar and runs toward the sound. She spots Ling finally, trying to open a grate to the sewers.
"Help me with this!" he demands, going to tend to a now-armless Lan Fan.
"What happened to her?!"
"We don't have time! Let's move it!"
Iris opens the grate with alchemy easily. Ling heads down first, then makes Iris help Lan Fan into Ling's arms again before going down herself. She reseals the sewer grate, trying to make it less suspicious. The trail of blood doesn't help, but she couldn't do much about it.
Catching up with Ling, they rest Lan Fan in a nearby corner of the sewer tunnel.
"Can't you do something for her?! You're an alchemist! Help her, she saved your life!" Sweat breaks out on her forehead, especially due to the sewers clammy atmosphere.
"I-I can't! I've never done medicinal alchemy before - that's mainly what alkahestry is for, not alchemy! I can't risk that on her, there could be a backfire!"
Ling makes a noise of frustration and takes off his shirt. He goes to wrap it around Lan Fan, but Iris takes it instead. She transmutes the material into a bandage instead of a piece of clothing, telling him that it will be easier to wrap around her and more efficient to staunch the bleeding. Ling wraps it around Lan Fan's shoulder quickly.
"You'll stay here with her," he practically demands. "I'm going to catch one of those damn homunculi. Stay here, I promise to come back for you." He seems to only say the last bit to his guard. He runs off swiftly with his sword he reclaimed. Iris hears him escape the sewers, the metal bars being cut off by his sword.
The warrior's heavy breathing concerns her deeply.
"You'll be okay, Lan Fan, I swear it."
The Xingese girl doesn't listen to her and instead mutters, "You lose this round, Homunculus."
•••
For both Lan Fan and Iris, it feels as if they've stayed in those sewers for hours. Lan Fan passed out from the pain quite some time ago, but once Ling comes back to their rescue, she starts mumbling things that no one can make out. A disguised Hawkeye picks them up in a car, and eventually, they reach a safe house near the outskirts of Central. Iris has never been here before, but apparently, it's a house of a friend of Roy's.
Almost the entire team came out to the house. Mustang, Hawkeye, and the Elrics, along with their catch: the homunculus aptly named Gluttony. They put him in a spare room, bound by seemingly inescapable iron wires. Watching him writhe made Iris feel sick. The souls swimming inside of him didn't help her either.
Ling catches her watching the monster and guides her into another room. She follows, worried he's going to do or say something terrible to her. She did almost get Lan Fan killed, after all.
She sits down, thinking he will as well, but he remains standing, pulling out drawers. He finds some sharp scissors and closes all the drawers back up. He comes towards her.
"Turn around," he says, and his intimidation wins her over. She turns her chair around and faces the desk that has a mirror on top of it. She watches his reflection approach her slowly. When he reaches her, he pulls the hair band out from her hair. Her hair falls loose and frames her face.
"What are you doing?" she asks, wanting to turn around, but being too intimidated.
"Your hair got cut off."
Iris noticed it a lot better now that it wasn't tied up. She pushed it out of her face. The mirror let her know how ugly and chopped off it really looked. It almost came up to her shoulders now, instead of the small of her back where it originally was. "Yeah, by Bradley on the rooftop."
"Might as well make it even," he states and starts cutting off pieces.
"Hey, wait!" He stops. "Do you even know what you're doing?" He starts again, cutting further and further up.
"I've maintained my hair by myself for awhile now," he states. "I'm sure this will be easy." Iris didn't have much more room to protest, so she let him be. The snipping of her hair made her wince, but as she saw Ling cutting off uneven parts, then going even farther above her shoulders and cutting hair off her nape, she quickly grew to like it.
"All done," he stated simply. The alchemist fluffed her hair out and smiled in the mirror.
"This doesn't look half bad. Thank you, Ling. Really. And about Lan Fan, I-" She silences herself as Ling suddenly puts the scissors to the front of her throat. She sees her panicked face in the mirror and notices the Xingese prince's eyes are slits.
"She almost met her end trying to save you," he speaks in a low and threatening tone, almost husky. She feels one side of the blade touch her throat for a moment, but then he slowly pulls it away and lets the scissors drop and clatter on the desk. "But you redeemed yourself by helping her in the sewers. She would have bled out." His eyes close again, and he returns to his usually chipper self as if he didn't just threaten to kill her. "So thank you. No hard feelings, right?"
Iris turns to look at his face now. "Sure," is all she can say.
There's a knock on the door. "Come in," Ling shouts, and Edward comes into the room.
"Woah, what happened?" He gestures to Iris' hair. "New haircut?"
"Yeah." She clears her throat and touches what's left of her hair. "Turns out Ling can cut hair."
"Well, uh..." He looks away. "Looks good. A-anyway, Scar got away. Winry, she figured out that he killed her parents. She almost shot him." His face is grave, recalling the memory vividly.
"Is it wrong for me to say that I wish she did?" Iris asks quietly, crossing her arms. Ed remains silent.
"Iris," Roy's voice calls out from the hallway. "Come in here."
All three of them come out and into the room where Gluttony is kept in. The colonel notices his sister's hair immediately.
"You look just like Ri-" he stops and corrects himself, "-my Lieutenant. Back in the day." Iris gives him a smirk at his slip-up, but does realize that her haircut is just the same as hers was, minus the blonde hair. She didn't know her at the time, but there is a picture on Roy's nightstand of the two of them in civilian clothes rather than their usual military wear.
"I do, don't I?"
The rest of the group gathers in the hallway, minus the bed-ridden Lan Fan and Hawkeye herself, who is on the lookout on the front lawn with her rifle.
"Do I even want to know what you've brought into my house?" Dr. Knox looks exasperated.
"It's a homunculus," Ling informs, "And I'm going to take him back to Xing and force the secret of immortality out of him."
"Hey, woah, he's not all yours!" Mustang yells.
"Lan Fan lost her arm to get him!"
"Doesn't mean you can just take him, you idiot! We need the homunculus, too!" Ed put in.
"Ling, we all worked together to get one, we have to share!"
"Whatever this is, Mustang, leave me out of it!" Dr. Knox shakes his head in disapproval.
Gluttony starts muttering. He goes unheard at first from all the shouting but soon enough he gets louder and louder, screaming, "Mustang! Mustang! Mustang killed Lust! Mustangmustdie!"
All eyes are on the homunculus, and he surely puts on a show. He stands upright, still trapped in his coil but a single eye coming out of his stomach. Sharp fang-like teeth form around the edges of the eye, and everyone is too flabbergasted to move. Then, half of the house is swallowed, out of sight and never to be seen again.
