One alchemist woke up comfortably, warm and snuggled up in two layers of blankets and curled against the wall of a cell, blissfully unaware of the cold as he opened his eyes. The other, however, woke up a shivering mess, clinging to her only heat source - her green coat.
Once her body recognized she was awake, she immediately sat up to perform a fit of sneezes. Iris might have regretted her actions from last night. Just a smidge. Her head spun as she looked to Edward and Alphonse.
"I told you," the suit of armor chastised gently.
"Huh?" the older brother asked, dazed. He realized she had no covers and examined his own. He had two.
"You looked cold," she stated simply, hoping her face was already red from the sickness so they wouldn't notice her embarrassment. Her voice was terribly stuffy.
Ed didn't know how to react. "Oh," was all he could say, completely baffled.
"You're-" she sneezed "-welcome."
He handed back the blanket. They touched hands briefly during the exchange and the boy noticed how cold her hands were.
"It did no good to have you get sick."
"Rather have just one of us sick instead of both of us. You looked like an ice cube."
"I'm telling you, Edward, you should really get your automail checked out for the cold," another voice popped up from outside the cell. It was the medical woman from yesterday, and she was holding a steaming cup of coffee. Iris' eyes lit up; she loved coffee! She couldn't remember the last time she even had any. The other girl had noticed this and raised her eyebrows, then offered it to her. With her restraints, it was hard to grab, but she took it gratefully and gulped it down, it giving her warmth to battle the cold atmosphere.
It was black coffee, her favorite. Not that she had too many chances to try any other type of coffee since all Roy drank was black.
While the hot drink helped, Iris's body quickly reminded her of her current illness as she coughed and set the empty mug on the floor. It was strange that the year was 1915 and still neither alchemists nor doctors could figure out a true cure for the common cold.
"That's gonna be 100 cenz, little lady," the woman chirped.
Iris leaned back onto the wall in exhaustion.
"Seriously?!" She started fishing through her pockets, but Ed raised a hand and took 100 cenz out of his suitcase.
"On me." He answered the question before it was asked. "For last night and stuff."
"Thank you."
"You can thank me by feeling better," he dismisses, then looks back to the one outside of the jail cell. He hands her the money and she pockets it. "Do you have any idea when we can get out of here?"
"Well," she starts, "I heard the General wants to see you again to have a little chat. She'll eventually get what she's looking for out of you, y'know."
Ed grimaces at her, but she just smiles then walks away, humming a tune on the way out.
"So what now?" Al inquires, his tone disappointed.
"We wait."
•••
Sure enough, General Armstrong comes down personally to speak to the teenagers once noon rolled around, along with Captain Buccaneer. She finds them playing tic-tac-toe and other childish games on the wall and floor with old chalk that Iris originally used for transmutations. She merely scoffs and gestures for her subordinate to unlock the barred door.
"Get a move on!" she barked. "We have things to discuss."
The group headed up to the development sector once again where Falman was waiting for them. Olivier was vague as to where they were going, but as soon as they headed towards the hole that homunculus dug through the previous day, they had somewhat of an idea of what was happening. They had help getting down there by Briggs soldiers, for the drop was actually quite deep. They also supplied horses down to help them trek through the hole of dirt.
Iris had never felt so privileged as she saddled up on a horse for the very first time. It was always a dream of hers to ride such a majestic creature. In her hometown, her family was too poor to afford any animals, and in the bustling city of Central, cars were too common for horses to roam about.
The horse was white with brown spots here and there. It had long, long legs and a luscious mane. Its eyes were as dark as hers. Falman noticed her childish wonder and gave her a sugar cube then gestured to the animal. Leaning over, Iris placed the treat in the center of her palm and carefully put it in front of the horse's mouth. It nibbled it gently and the girl laughed at how strange the sensation was, like a tickle.
So caught up in the moment, Iris didn't at all catch Ed staring wistfully at the connection she had with the horse, a gentle smile coming over his face. When she sneezed from her cold, the scene was less graceful, but still just right, somehow.
This cave was a bit intimidating. It was dark without the light from the exit, and as they went farther away from it and all their light sources were small lanterns, Iris got the creeps. She clutched the reins of her placid horse even tighter.
After what seemed a mile in, the General spoke, still riding her horse and staring ahead. Her loud Armstrong voice projected in such a small space as she finally explained.
"It is just us," she stated simply. "There are no prying eyes, no other ears to hear."
The alchemist's first thought was she sent them all down there to kill them. Ed seemed to sense her fear and gave her a look of disbelief then shook his head, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and wished she knew how ridiculous she sounded. She didn't doubt the way of the north and believed the Ice Queen was given that moniker for a reason.
The group stopped gradually, and they set up camp on the cavern-type floor. Iris, using a glove from Roy she stole right before being re-adopted, made a small fire for them in the center of their group circle. Immediately as they sat, Olivier Armstrong was firing questions.
"There is now no excuse to tell me absolutely everything I want to know."
She's right, and all three of them know it. The two younger look to Edward. He just sighs, then explains everything.
"We weren't lying when we said we wanted to get our bodies back," the boy started.
"And I wasn't lying when I said I needed to know more about Xing and its culture," Iris added, biting her lip.
"But that's just not the whole truth," Al confessed.
"First we should start off with the facts," Iris said, folding her hands. "The Fuhrer. He's a homunculus, like the one we saw yesterday. And, well... he's also now my..." She gulped. "My dad."
Falman looked completely puzzled. "But Colonel Mustang? Isn't he your brother?"
"I got adopted. Again."
"Nevermind that!" Armstrong roared, a furious look etched on her face. "Are you telling me that the leader of this country, my Amestris, is an immortal and evil creature?"
The alchemists nodded solemnly. "It's true."
"He's not the only one, either. We've met many homunculi."
Ed began to tick on his automail fingers. "We first met Envy, then there was Gluttony..."
"Lust, which my brother killed, right, Al?"
"Greed, which is a part of one of our idiot friends, Ling..."
"Oh, don't forget Selim Bradley. The Fuhrer's son."
"And then the one from yesterday."
The three military personnel watched as the children recalled these monsters so casually like it was a grocery list.
"Falman," Iris suddenly questioned, "when did you say you were sent up north? To Fort Briggs?"
"I've only been here a couple of weeks."
"It was the Fuhrer's decision. His tactic. Everyone in team Mustang is stationed somewhere different. He's... He's all alone in Central, with no one to watch his back..." Her voice faded away in the realization that her brother had almost no defense.
"Well. Not to say that having a homunculi-ridden family is an upgrade, but at the very least I'm happy that you got away from that Mustang." The general had a face of disgust, "I couldn't care less about that man."
Iris's jaw dropped. How dare she say tha... Well, she could see where she was coming from.
Olivier waved her hand as if to shoo away the thought. "I digress. Are there any more of these 'homunculi' creatures?"
All of their faces dropped, and they looked to the young girl.
"There is another."
"Her name is Iridian," Iris mustered to say, not making eye contact. "Homunculi-ridden family, you said? Well, this one's actually my blood. She's my sister. Or, she was. Once." Her voice was void of any emotion but bitterness.
Her powers went into action as she said this. She felt a presence, a strong one, behind her. A homunculus. She saw something in the corner of her eye that no one seemed to pick up on. The fire crackled and danced, making it hard to see the shadows. It was quiet, and she gained the courage to look back, ready to stand and fight, for surely this couldn't end well.
But there was nothing. The brothers looked at her strangely, on edge by her strange actions. She continued, feeling it leave as soon as it came.
"I don't know how, and I don't know when, or why, but my sister was transformed into a homunculus. By other homunculi, I assume, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure about anything that has to do with my family anymore. My father died when I was young, and my mother soon after. Iridian was it. She was the last one I had, and she left too. Gone forever, like the rest of my family."
Alphonse put a supporting hand on her shoulder. "Hey, we don't know that. We still have hope that Ling can be separated from Greed and get his own body back, so we can assume the same for Iridian."
Ed piped up, trying to lighten her friend's dark state. "If not alchemy, surely alkahestry will be able to restore her to who she used to be."
Iris smiled half-heartedly. She wanted to believe they were right, of course she did! But was there a way of truly coming back after all this time? After everything? She didn't have room in her emotions to hold out hope for it. There were more pressing matters anyway, she tried to convince herself.
'Plus, I should be focused on who I know actually does care about me,' she thought. Images of Madame Christmas, all her adopted sisters, plus her only adopted brother Roy and his team surfaced in her mind. Not to mention the two boys opposite of her, the shadows of the flames flitting across their features as they looked at her with worry. Well, Edward, anyway, but she knew that Alphonse, with not a selfish bone in his currently-absent body, felt true sympathy for the girl as well.
"So what should we do with all this information?" Buccaneer spoke up, having no choice but to believe these meddling kids who were in too deep for their own good.
"Well, there's no one in the tunnels but us, so we could probably search the homunculus' entry point. But he must have been digging for some time. There's no way to know how long it'll take to find it," Iris realized, her powers actually being useful instead of a burden.
"But what are the chances that this whole thing is a big circle," Ed countered darkly.
"Why do you presume that?" Armstrong asked, crossing her arms.
"A circle is the basic shape of any alchemic transmutation," the younger brother explained.
"But we've never seen any homunculi perform alchemy," Iris recalled.
"But the homunculi are made with alchemy themselves, Iris. Surely whoever created them had knowledge of it."
Ed suddenly lights up with an idea. After asking the warrant officer for a complete map of Amestris, he wanted him to restate from memory all attacks by bloodshed ever since the country was founded.
The year was 1558 when the first attacks happened, then as the years progressed in Falman's mind, Edward was circling the towns or cities that were victims of these tragedies as they were being recalled.
"And the most recent has been in Liore, when there was an insurrection, where the false priest was to blame."
Edward and Alphonse were shocked by this information. Ed looked hurt and confused.
"In Liore?" the suit of armor repeated, disbelieving.
"But I exposed that fake priest and gave those people the truth!"
Iris didn't remember them ever talking about that city. It must have been before they had met. She looked into Ed's eyes and was instantly watching his memories from Liore. She saw a man in black robes, a girl just as old as her with pink and brown hair crying desperately, and even heard words of the Sun God, Leto. The boy must have torn his thoughts away because his memories ended abruptly in her mind.
"Circle the town, Fullmetal," the general ordered. Turmoil was written on the alchemist's face, but he mumbled and circled it. After, he put the lines together and stood back in disgusted awe.
"That can't be..." Iris breathed, covering her mouth in shock.
"What? What is it!"
"It's... It's a nationwide transmutation circle. And their next target is going to be right here, in Briggs!"
Olivier Armstrong clenched her fist. "My country... All built on lies and sin."
"You have to be careful who you tell of this," the girl warned. "Information getting into the wrong hands is nothing we need right now."
"We are not absolute fools, See-All. We will wait for the right time to expose these truths."
Iris wanted to protest, but she felt another presence coming in close and opted to make them aware instead.
"There is someone else coming."
They wait in anxiety until they can hear someone calling for the General. It is just a soldier, so they relax until they hear what he has to say. He was out of breath, probably because he ran all the way there without the aid of a horse, but stood to salute and spoke when his superior called him to attention.
"Sir, Lieutenant General Raven is here from Central. He wishes to speak with you."
The woman scoffs. "Like hell they're taking my fort," she muttered, more to herself than anything. "Tell him I will be there soon." She doesn't hesitate to mount her horse, but Iris tugs on her military jacket sleeve.
"They'll overtake your fort if you let them, so don't. Do you think you could wriggle some information out of the Lieutenant General?"
They hoist back up the hole, General Armstrong first so that she can immediately talk to Raven. They talk and have tea in the small room that she interrogated the three in yesterday. They and Falman and Buccaneer go upstairs and listen in through a small microphone that is hanging from a grate, hopefully unbeknownst by the General from Central.
The two share lots of small talk, Olivier strategically planning out how to go about this. She resorts to her lady-like charm that Captain Buccaneer struggled not to laugh at. It was so out of character for the Ice Queen. Iris didn't pay too much attention; her focus was more on trying not to blow their cover. She held in her sneezes as best as she could, her eyes watering furiously. Al tried his best to quiet her, but one particular sneeze was just too powerful.
Thankfully, Armstrong acted quick on her feet and made a sneezing motion, so the General barely suspected a thing.
"Pardon me," she excused. "The weather is becoming harsher every passing year. Even I myself am not completely immune."
"Immune, eh?" Raven's face darkened. "Well, how would you like to be?"
"Whatever may you be talking about?" Olivier's faux-innocence worked well on the foolish man.
"Never dying, never getting old, no sickness riddling your body! How would you feel about that?"
She wanted to answer, but a knock at the door interrupted them both. She answered to one of her men at the door.
"Speak, soldier!"
"There's a problem with the advance team in the tunnel! Please, sir, we need you to come immediately."
"Very well. Excuse me, General. I must attend to my men."
"Ah, no worries! I shall come with."
They both exit the room with the soldier, and Buccaneer gets up, along with Falman.
"Let's go."
Ed has the idea for them to look tied up, for Armstrong had mentioned her suspicions about them and locked them up. Once tied up, they went into the hall and back to the development sector as fast as they could, worried about what would happen with Armstrong and Raven without them.
Their mission was cut short though, for they ran into Major Miles and a mysterious character. Iris didn't recognize him at first, but once he looked up from under his hat, his dark, malicious eyes cut straight through her and she knew exactly who this man was.
"Solf J. Kimblee?" she blurted out loud in disbelief. She restrained herself in saying, 'You should be in prison!' She remembered from both Roy and Riza's memories that he caused the most casualties in Ishval, and took pride in it. She suddenly had great worry for the major, who seemed to be his 'babysitter' of some sorts.
At the call of his name he smiled. "Am I this popular?" He looked at Iris. "Who might you be?"
She suddenly hated this idea of the ropes, making her look like a prisoner. "Iris King," she introduced herself with as much grace as she could. "See-All Alchemist. Or should I say Iris Mustang? Will that help you get a grasp of who I am?" Her bold statement caught the Crimson Alchemist by surprise.
"Ah, yes. Sister to the Flame Alchemist. How..." He struggled to find a word, so settled with, "lovely."
Buccaneer felt like he was walking a dog who wouldn't stop yapping at another dog. Dog of the military, that is.
"No time for squabbling," he ordered, and Iris had no choice but to listen, and keep walking.
"I'll be seeing you!" Kimblee called out behind them. It made the alchemist's blood boil.
"Who was that?" Al dared to asked, a bit afraid of Iris's current state.
"That was the Crimson Alchemist. He killed many Ishvalans, as did others that served in the war. The only difference was that he enjoyed it. Roy told me that he was put in jail for murdering people who weren't on his government-approved hitlist. The Fuhrer himself must have released him."
"Can he do that?"
"He's the Fuhrer. What can't he do?"
The three are escorted back to their jail cell, where they wait anxiously for some news, any news.
"Do you think Raven and Kimblee came here together?"
"I wouldn't doubt it. They're both from Central, and they popped up at about the same time."
"They're not homunculi, but those two reek of evil," Iris concluded.
Footsteps eventually come around, and to their surprise, its General Raven.
"So odd to see such decorated and famous state alchemists in a jail cell," he tutted. "I've heard of you all from Fuhrer Bradley." He turned to the girl. "Or should I say your new father? Congratulations to you, young lady. I'm confident they've been treating you well. Surely they wouldn't want you incarcerated!" He laughed. "I've come to remove you from these shackles, and these troublesome boys."
"Is my adoption really such public news?"
"Another member of the royal family? Of course! Everyone fawned over Selim when he was adopted, so why not you as well, Miss?"
She just sighed in exasperation.
The general first opens the cell with one key, then uses another to remove the handcuffs. Iris is grateful, but she worries for her two friends who are now on the other side of the bars. The older man puts a hand on her shoulder, then his face turns dark as he addresses the boys.
"I spoke to Armstrong. She's going to put the homunculus back from where it came from and reseal the tunnel, without a word. She's one of us now, Fullmetal." Then he returns to his cheery facade. "You are free to go, little lady." The nickname rubbed her the wrong way.
"Let's go, shall we?" He practically pulled her away from the boys, with no other words to be exchanged. She tried not to be too worried. They'd just be in the cell, right?
Iris goes upstairs and meets back up with Major Miles and Kimblee yet again. She deliberately stood next to the man adorned in the white fedora. They watch as the two generals converse a few feet from the hole, then as the giant creature is brought by Captain Buccaneer and some military men, still frozen, but showing signs of melting.
"Let me guess," Iris struck up a conversation. "The Fuhrer gave you a pardon despite being a vicious murderer?"
The man almost laughed. "Well aren't you so charming? You're just as fiery as your older brother. But, don't take it so personally, dear. Killing is just my profession."
See-All feels disgusted, sick to her stomach. She instead watches as military men pour and level cement for the hole.
"I'm going to take a phone call," Kimblee suddenly says, then starts walking off. Major Miles is ticked and follows begrudgingly. Now alone, Iris stares down below. Her eyes rake over the scene, then her attention is grabbed by Olivier suddenly pulling out her sword. In an instant, blood gushes out of a certain old man's arm. General Raven cries out in pain. From his shoulder down, blood poured and dripped. Quite fabulously, Armstrong pushes him into the cement, which immediately starts eating him like quicksand. She cleans her blood-soaked sword with her gloves, then discards them in the cement, which disappears quickly as well.
All Iris can truly hear is The General's last screams until it fades to silence and his body entirely disappears. The woman pushes some hair out of her face and sighs as if the task was nothing but bothersome.
"Men! Clean this up, will you?"
Iris gained more respect for Olivier in that moment if that was possible. She knew how to get things done, and put matters into her own hands. Suddenly she remembered Ed and Al! They needed to know!
She ran back down the stairs as fast as she could. She was in the hallway where the boys were being held but quickly ran into a problem. Quite literally. She bumped into the Crimson Alchemist. He was so tall compared to her that she ran into his rather thin chest.
"Oh, sorry sir I-" She stopped herself as she looked up to see it was Kimblee. Her face soured. "It's just you. I thought you were making a phone call?" She looked behind him. "Where's Major Miles?"
"Don't ask me, I wouldn't know. He's supposed to be watching me, not the other way around. But that's not my problem."
"And what is?"
"I'm looking for the Elric brothers. You all are friends. You know where they've been quartered, correct?"
"Why do you need to find them?" she asks, defensive and suspicious.
"Oh, it's nothing really. I just wanted to reunite you all with an old friend." A sinister smile lurks onto his face as Iris sees a blonde coming down the hallway. She didn't dare think of who it could be. She couldn't handle this.
'Please don't let it be you, please don't let it be you...'
"Iris!" Winry's clear voice rings out and echoes in the white hallway as she starts running towards the girl. When she reaches her and gives her a hug, Iris can't even lift her arms to return the embrace; she's so afraid of what is about to happen. One thought just repeats over and over in her head.
'Oh-fucking-no.'
