December 18th, 1990

Despite the deep, wet cold and the dark, Trisha's team kept pushing forward, creeping slowly and quietly down the winding far edge of the river, that would have been much more treacherous without the careful and precise application of alchemy to their footpath by the Marble Alchemist. Step by step she widened and solidified the rock into a clear and sturdy path from which they could survey the rapids clearly. Not that it was easy in the dark, even with flashlights, and floating alchemist lights Trisha generated with her abilities, by reflecting ambient diffuse moonlight.

Rapid was there mostly in case they needed him to transmute someone back out of the water, or keep the water away from them. He was uncharacteristically solemn and serious as they searched for any signs of Fischer. The irony of where the Whitewater Alchemist had disappeared was not lost on Trisha, either.

The chances of finding him alive were slim, and they dwindled as the night wore on. The explosion could have killed him on impact, or the shock of cold when he fell. He could have hit his head on a rock, or been impaled, or drowned, or died of hypothermia. The list was extensive and Trisha wasn't sure how much she trusted to the alchemist's luck. She wanted to hope, but Fischer was not a young man, and anyone could die.

The most perilous part of their trek was as they passed the smoking remains of the Zinovek's aborted attack. They had retreated, leaving only the hulks of destroyed vehicles, some of which were still on fire. Trisha watched the other side of the river, but there was no one left to spot them. Not up here.

It was not yet dawn when the ground leveled out alongside the river which took a brief swing south from there, and widened and slowed beyond them. There had been no clear sign of the passage of anything save for a few freshly busted rocks that had been slammed by debris from the collapsing overhang. No blood, no scraps of Amestrian uniform, no body parts. Nothing on their side of the river. The dusky lightning of dawn through the clouds made it possible to vaguely see the other side, only fifteen yards away. Nothing that looked like it might be a human body.

"We'll have to go back up soon," Marble commented, sounding tired and dispirited.

Rapid kicked a stone into the water with frustrated force. "We have to find him."

"We have to report back," Trisha replied firmly, her tone brusque. "It's been almost nine hours. If someone else didn't find him, he's dead."

"And if the enemy found him, he's probably dead." Rapid shuddered. "Still…we have to at least investigate the other shore. There's an eddy there," he pointed across the way, "Where some of the debris washed up. If his body did… it's probably there."

Trisha looked at Marble. "Shall we make a bridge? I'll help." Air and light might be her specialty, but every State Alchemist knew the theory behind all standard transmutations, and every Elric had a wider diversity of tricks. Her Grandpa had made sure they all learned.

Marble nodded. "Let's do this."

Together they sketched a circle in the mud, and Trisha poured her energy in to assist as Marble quickly created a rock-and-dirt archway across the river. They'd have to remove it when they left, but it was wide enough for them to cross as long as they were careful.

The three alchemists walked one-by-one across the bridge, with Rapid first, then Trisha, then Marble. Trisha refrained from looking to either side as she focused on staying steady, and was just grateful when they all reached the other side without incident. They needed to act quickly, in case the Zinoveks had soldiers walking security duty this far out from the main camp, which was still a half-mile distant.

"How are your tracking skills?" Trisha asked Rapid as they approached the area where, as he had said, the water swirled and eddied along the shoreline, which seemed to catch debris… small chunks of rock, broken tree limbs, and some scraps of metal from the trucks up the hill that had exploded.

"Until now I'd have told you they were pretty good," Rapid admitted as they approached the debris. "Suddenly our training doesn't feel adequate."

"You'll be fine." Trisha crouched down at the edge of the debris field, looking for any sign "We're probably not looking for any subtle sign here. The ground is soft enough from silt we'll see any signs of movement." For several minutes, everyone was quiet save for the sounds of shifting debris and the crunch of feet on the icy shore. They sifted through as much as they could, looking for any signs of life, or death, finding nothing.

Daylight had come, and they really needed to go. Still, Trisha was reluctant to give the order. Doing so meant leaving their commanding officer, a fellow alchemist, for dead, whether he was or not. It meant going back without even a body, and no confirmation one way or another, to friends… and having to tell his family. Gloria was in town. By now, she almost certainly already knew her father was missing in action.

Trisha stood, and sighed, turning to look in the direction of the enemy camp. It was only then that a line in the dirt, scraped through the frost and ice, caught her eye. Softer ground would have allowed for more obvious marks. Crouching back down, she examined the ground. "Over here."

"What is it?" Marble asked as the other alchemists came up behind her.

Trisha traced the line with a finger. About a foot, a little more, to the side, another, as if maybe, someone had dragged a body wearing boots. Moving forward slowly, she identified the scuff marks to either side of a boot-print in one softer area, now crisply held by ice. "Right here. What does this look like to you?"

She waited, wanting them to come to their own conclusions, in case she was seeing things because she wanted see them.

"It looks like someone was dragging a body," Rapid said after a minute, his voice quivering with excitement. "It could be Whitewater."

"Or it could be one of any dozens of Drachmans who might have fallen into the river when our tank rounds started blowing up their vehicles," Trisha felt obligated to point out. "Still, we should check out this trail." A trail that led almost straight towards the Drachman camp.

Ten yards later, after combing the landscape in excruciatingly slow detail, they finally found something more concrete. Not that it was much… a blood-stained scrap of half-raveled blue wool caught in a bramble thicket at a height that implied whoever was hauling the person had lifted them to get through the bushes.

"We're not going through there," Trisha made the call. It was a nasty thicket, and in daylight they would have no way to hide. "We have to go back and report. At least with this we have a direction to look."

"Like that's any good," Rapid snorted, scowling. "If they took him into their camp, was he alive? Was he dead? Why would they take a body if he was?"

"All excellent questions, and ones we are in no position to answer." Trisha frowned back. "We have the barest hint of evidence that they found Whitewater's body—alive or dead, we don't know—and thought it important enough to drag back to their camp. After that, we have nothing and we can't investigate. However, we know that Mihalov has spies in camp. It's possible we'll get back to find they've already reported information."

That got Rapid's attention. He didn't argue further, but followed as she led the way back across their bridge—which Marble then removed—and back to their path—which Marble then blocked the end of to hide it and make in inaccessible by others. The hike back, while treacherous, went much faster in daylight without stopping to search than it had at night. Still, it would take a couple of hours to get back to the top.


Sara was awake and waiting in the main command tent when the scouting party returned, stiff, frozen and exhausted. Not that she had slept either, beyond a catnap she had forced herself to take only through years of practice. Trisha had radioed as soon as she had been in a safe position to do so and Sara already knew what there was to know; that they had found no body, but some evidence that suggested that the Zinoveks might have found and dragged Cal from the river. In what condition he had been the only clue was blood on the cloth, which could have been from where the thorns caught him, or likely injuries from falling into the river and being tossed all the way down to the end of the pass. Sara could not imagine how anyone might have survived, even though she had heard crazier. There simply was not enough information to know either way, and while the realist in her head said the most likely case was that Cal was dead, she would not let herself utter those words without real proof. If there was even the slightest chance of his living, she would find out.

Mugs of steaming coffee and hot food were handed out before she even asked a single question. The leading officers of the Drachman military, Gavril Mihalov, and Live Wire and Molecule joined them, and waited as well.

As soon as she finished eating, Trisha gave the report, starting with the relevant information, and then back-tracing and covering the steps involved in the investigation to get to that point. This time, it included a much more detailed description of what Trisha and the other alchemists had noted about what the Drachmans had left behind, the number of vehicles that had been destroyed or at least damaged and abandoned, tanks, and the few burned bodies they had spotted. While it wasn't the reason they had gone, it was invaluable information to the war effort.

Then came the barrage of questions, which Trisha mostly fielded, except when Marble or Rapid had been the first to see something, or had a specific observation to add. Finally, they had said all they had to say, and Trisha looked at them. :Has your intelligence seen or heard anything about the Zinoveks dragging in a prisoner or a body that wasn't one of their own?:

There was a general shaking of heads, and Mihalov spoke for them. :Not yet. We haven't gotten a report from any of our people on the inside, however, so it's possible they have and we just haven't gotten word yet. Our next scheduled contact isn't for six hours, though we have communications officers standing by at all times in case of unscheduled emergency transmissions. If we hear anything, you'll know.:

:And will we be able to rescue him if he's alive?: Rapid demanded in passable Drachman.

:That will remain to be seen.: The response was hard to hear but not unexpected. Sara knew that not everyone could be saved, though she was already working on a variety of plans. The Alchemists did have the autonomy to choose to work independently if needed, though not in any way that would run counter to the needs of their allies.

Sara forestalled any objections—and it was clear that Rapid had several from the look on his face—by holding up a hand. "You've brought us invaluable information. Now, I want the three of you to go change and rest. I'll contact you as soon as we have information or new orders, so it will be at least six hours. Rapid, I need you on top of your game. You're going to be our only water alchemist for the foreseeable future." She knew the younger man was talented, and he had been doing intense one-on-one training with Cal. She just hoped it would be enough for him to step up and handle Cal's level of transmutation should it be needed.

They nodded, and she dismissed them, sending Live Wire and Molecule along with them. After last night, they all needed more rest. When they were gone, she finished her coffee, and stood. :Do you need me for anything else?: she asked Gavril.

The other man shook his head. :Not until we know something. As usual, there's no way to thank you enough for what you've all done for us since you arrived. I have to say, given what we've seen so far, I have no idea how Drachma ever managed to make any inroads into Amestris at all.:

:We've learned a lot of new tricks since then,: Sara replied flatly. :And you're welcome. Anything we can do to keep Savahin and the Zinoveks from consolidating power and becoming a real threat to anyone outside of Drachma's borders, we will. That's why we're here after all. That said, you might want to look into actually training some ethically minded alchemists with defensive capabilities for yourself. That's always been Drachma's mistake in dealing with the alchemists within its own borders, and that has to change on a cultural level.:

:With all the upheaval lately, we might just be able to,: Gavril admitted with a nod. :Though I don't even know how we'd convince them to come out of hiding, or where we would find any.:

:In your prisons,: Sara responded without hesitation. :Many were, like me, thrown in prison cells. One of your predecessors even imprisoned the majority of the Drachman Alchemists used in the war after we sent them home rendered incapable of performing alchemy.:

That got her a very startled expression. Even now, there were things members of government did not know about their own country. :How?:

:The same way they did me. In fact, they probably learned it from us,: Sara admitted wryly. :We sent many of the poorly trained Drachman Alchemists home after we had captured them, and used a transmutation circle that dissipates energy to make it so they would be unable to gather energy to perform transmutations. It's something the Xingese alkahestrists invented. Since it doesn't require energy to do anything, anyone who can draw it properly—or burn it into someone's flesh—could put it on someone. My brother, the alkahestry trained one, was able to break the circle and remove it.:

:And you say that the alchemists from the last war are in the prisons. Or were.:

:Many of them have probably now been released,: Sara pointed out. :Their only crime was failing as alchemists with next to no training in the first place, and being captured by the enemy. They may not want to touch alchemy anymore, but if you ask your prison officers for manifests and who those people are by name, I suspect you'll find many of them already fighting in your army. Ask for volunteers. By now, they're all middle aged or older, and they'll know themselves and the situation well enough to make an informed decision.:

:But how will we train them? You said they were poorly trained in the last war. What will be different now?:

:Isn't that obvious?: Sara shook her head. :You've got us here.:


Trisha didn't mean to defy her mother's direct orders. At least, not entirely. Before she slept, she felt obligated to go find Gloria and tell her second-cousin what little they had discovered. Anything was better than nothing, really. If it had been her, and her mother had gone off that edge instead, she'd have wanted to know anything anyone knew.

Finding Gloria turned out to be more difficult than expected. Apparently her way of handling worry was keeping busy, and in this case that meant following a string of people who said they had been interviewed by her last night or that morning, or had seen her going by with Alexei looming in tow, yet they also weren't at their temporary apartment, or the television-and-radio studio.

She was about to give up and go back and get the sleep she had been ordered to when Trisha caught sight of Gloria and Alexei at last, coming down the street towards their building. She knew Gloria had caught sight of her at almost the same moment, because she stopped dead for a moment, and Alexei had moved two steps past her before realizing she wasn't moving. He looked back, then forward and spotted her. Slowly, they both started moving again, and Trisha met them just outside their building.

They didn't need to speak. Gloria nodded towards the building, and they all went inside, and up to the little apartment. Trisha followed them inside, and waited. The moment the door closed, Gloria rounded on her. "What do you know about my father?"

Trisha swallowed, and pulled the scrap of fabric out of her pocket. "We found this," she said as she held it up in the light. The fabric had dried, which only made the brown-black dark of blood stand out more against the Amestrian blue. Gloria gasped. "It was caught on a bush. We think Zinovek soldiers found him and took him back to their camp, but… there was no way to tell what shape he was in when they found him."

Gloria's hand reached out tentatively, and Trisha gave her the scrap. Clutched against her, Gloria closed her eyes a moment, and took several steadying breaths. "So, you don't know if he's alive or not."

"We don't," Trisha acknowledged, "I'm sorry. It was a miracle we even found that much. It was all the way down in the valley."

"How long have you been back?" Alexei asked her. "You don't look like you've slept yet."

"I haven't," Trisha admitted. "We got back a couple of hours ago. Then we were debriefed, and I came looking for you. I thought you'd want to know."

Gloria nodded. "I appreciate it. After last night, they didn't give us clearance for this morning's meeting. They didn't even tell us Dad was missing until your Mom came and found me late last night. It was almost midnight."

"We were already on our way down the mountain by then."

Gloria took a longer, harder stare at her, and then flushed with embarrassment. "Look at me, keeping you standing. Are you hungry? Thirsty? You must be ice cold after being out all night in that muck."

"It's fine." Trisha smiled, despite being tired, and wasn't surprised when it turned into a jaw-cracking yawn. "I'll go find my bed now that I've found you. We're off duty for the rest of the day as long as they don't try to hit us again, which seems highly unlikely given the damage and the major blockade they've just helped create in the middle of the pass. Or, unless we get information we can follow up on about where to find your father."

Gloria threw her arms around Trisha and hugged her. "Thank you." When she stepped back, she handed Trisha the scrap of uniform. "You might need this… for evidence, or tracking dogs, or whatever. I… don't."

Trisha tucked it safely back in her pocket. "I promise I'll send word as soon as we know anything, no matter what the news is."

With that, she turned to go, as she closed the door behind her in the hallway, she saw Gloria turn to Alexei, and bury her face in his broad chest. His arms wrapped around her. Then the door was closed, and Trisha did not have to listen to her cousin sob.

Her heart, like her feet, was lead-heavy all the way back to her tent.


Amalea Finn felt particularly useless. Despite assurances that her lightning attacks had been useful in the fight, and her healing skills had been of some use, she had spent most of the past twenty-four hours keeping watch on skies that were unlikely to hold anything again so soon, or sleeping. Everything felt wrong. She knew, academically, that she was dealing with the grief and uncertainty of having lost a comrade, but without the certainty of his death. A commanding officer, a legend, a strong steady seemingly unbeatable force who had vanished in the simple blink of an eye. If someone with Whitewater's incredible power and ability could be killed so simply, what hope did the rest of them have?

She had learned alchemy from her father. When she was little, when he was still struggling with the loss of his friends in the war, he had used his alchemy to make her laugh, and showed her the basics. It had been a bonding between them, especially when she showed an affinity for the science. She knew that his pride, that teaching her the basics, had helped her father move forward with his life. While he had never talked about it in those days, she had learned as a teenager, and as an adult, how hard it had been for him to keep his will to live, when he had lost every one of his closest friends in combat against the Drachman army.

He had been so proud of her when she made it into the State Alchemy Program, and when she had become a State Alchemist. Even now, though he'd been scared for her, he'd told her he was proud as she headed off on this mission. He'd assured her that Twilight and Whitewater were the best commanding officers she could ever hope for on a mission like this, and he was sure she would learn a lot, as well as being incredibly useful. You're the healer, the one who saves lives. They need you most.

Yet she could do nothing to save Whitewater, General Fischer, one of the highest-ranking remaining Alchemists of those originally taught by Edward and Alphonse Elric themselves. Incredibly talented, proven in battle, and still handsome enough Amalea knew she was not the only woman at military HQ who thought he was attractive. Not that she would ever dare to say so in a million years. His devotion to his wife was as legendary as his alchemy.

Amalea sat in the Alchemist's group meeting tent, not really tired, since she and Wren had been ordered by Twilight to sleep last night when they weren't on watch duty, which the three alchemists had split. She knew Wren was probably not asleep either, but for the moment, she was alone, off duty, and unfocused. What were her father think, or say?

Probably to pull herself together and find a way to be useful. This was the military after all. She had chosen this path, as opposed to the research path, or private medicine.

The door-flap to the tent opened abruptly, causing her to jump slightly. Silently berating herself for being sensitive, Amalea looked up to see who had entered.
Ryan, the Rapid Alchemist, had come in. She wasn't sure if he saw her there, because he simply crossed to the table in the center, and stared intently down at the map weighted down there. His light brown, wavy hair was tousled and rumpled, but he didn't look like he had slept well. His fingers splayed on the table as he leaned forward were vibrating from tension that she could see, looking closer, ran through his entire body.

"It's my fault."

So, he'd noticed her after all. Making a split-second judgement, Amalea stood, and moved to stand beside him. "How?" she asked simply.

"I had a better angle. If I'd been faster, I could have gotten a hit off before it dropped the bomb."

"Did you see it first?"

"I… don't know," Ryan admitted. "I heard it."

"We all heard it," she reminded him gently, taking a risk and resting her right hand lightly on his left shoulder. "Could have is meaningless. We all reacted to the best of our abilities at the time. None of us could have predicted where it would hit, and if they'd dropped it later, it might have hit the camps again, or the city itself. Hitting on the edge where it did… we should just be grateful their aim wasn't better. Whitewater made the call to stand where he did, didn't he?"

Ryan glanced sideways at her. "Do you know how cold logic sounds right now?"

"Yes, I do," she replied, irritated by his implication that she didn't care. "I've been trying to tell myself there's something we should have done differently for hours, but when I try and break it down, I can't think of anything. At least you found evidence. All I did last night was heal a few bruises and stare at the sky. You're not the only one of us who looked up to him, you know."

To her surprise, his expression softened. "I always kind of imagined myself the next him. Not that I'm that good yet, but someday. Now… I have to take over for all the alchemy he would have done, and I feel like in comparison… I'm just a shit alchemist."

"You're not—shit I mean," Amalea objected. "None of us can be him, cause we're not. Even he wasn't what he was now when he was our age. Remember the stories Whisper told us in training?" She presumed his group had gotten many of the same stories of what the State Alchemists that were now their much-senior officers had been like in their early days. "And she got those stories from Twilight, who went through the program with him. Someday we might be that good. No one expects us to do more than our best."

Ryan didn't look too reassured, but he had relaxed enough that his muscles were no longer tight-coiled. He sighed heavily. "I know that, but I just don't feel it right now."

"Twilight to Liondragons." The radio on the table crackled to life.

Amalea closed her mouth on her reply to Ryan and reached for it first. "Live Wire and Rapid listening." A moment later the others responded as well, in various stages of awake.

"You'll hear a plane approaching in about five minutes. Do not attack. It's reinforcements from home."

Her spirits lifted for just a moment. The second Amestrian plane was arriving. Even if it wasn't a fighting plane like the ones the Zinoveks were using, it would have supplies and maybe additional alchemists. "Understood, Ma'am. Would you like us to meet the plane?"

"No need. I'm headed there now. You can help any additional personnel settle in when they arrive in camp."

"We've got it," Amalea promised before the transmission ended. She turned to Ryan and offered him a small smile, hoping it conveyed confidence that they could at least do that much. It was better than doing nothing after all. "Right?"

For a moment, she thought he was going to taunt her, but after a few seconds he nodded. "Right." He ran a hand through his hair, and straightened up. "Thanks…for that. Can you not—"

"Tell anyone? I won't, I promise." Amalea shook her head. The last thing she would do was betray someone's confidence about their personal feelings. Not as long as they didn't put the team in danger, and she wasn't worried about that. They all had doubts and fears. That was just part of being human. The fact that the cocky show-off had real emotions wasn't a surprise. She was just a little startled that she had been let in enough to see it. The only off-putting thing about him had been his tendency towards over-confidence, and the fact he was incredibly flirtatious with just about every female of his own rank or lower. At least in Central. He hadn't been here, though she wondered if that mostly had to do with the fact most of the women here spoke no Amestrian, along with being under the direct authority of legends who far outranked them. Amalea wasn't really afraid of her superiors, but she definitely didn't want to get the Twilight Alchemist angry. "Thanks."

She startled him. He turned and looked at her for a moment, perplexed. "What for?"

"I was feeling pretty useless myself. But if I got to make anyone feel better, than I'm not as useless as I feel."

"You're not even close to useless," Ryan blurted out. "Lightning, healing… you do a lot. We need you."

A warm feeling of appreciation filled her. "Thank you. I needed to hear that. Now, let's go see if we can be ready for whoever's joining us."

"Right." Ryan smiled weakly and gestured grandly towards the door. "After you."


Gloria took a sip of water and set it down, willing her hand not to tremble as she straightened her notes for the evening news broadcast. Reporting in Karmatsk, and even the past few days, had never been as hard as the report she was about to give. Even Sara had told her to go ahead and make the report public. Her father being missing-in-action (they were not going to say he was dead without absolute evidence) was a huge fact on the breaking story of last night's new attack. All she knew was that the intelligence they could get out of the Zinovek camp, which had been minimal, was that there was no report yet of anyone having seen a prisoner, or anyone matching her father's description. They had been informed to keep an eye out for him. It wasn't much.

She had to report her own father's unknown fate with a straight face on international news, and Gloria had no way of knowing if her mother had been told. She was unsure what Sara had reported back to Headquarters, or if that information had been sent yet, and last night's coverage had been right in the beginning of clean-up efforts, with very little knowledge of what precisely had happened or the full situation. Tonight, the people would be expecting more detailed efforts. Some of the artillerymen the night before had also been Cretan support troops, and they had been a large reason why the Zinoveks had lost so many vehicles behind the line of defense drawn by alchemy. Their help, and the work of the State Alchemists, had won them another small victory for their allies, with minimal casualties.

Except, possibly, one very critical person, at least to her. Gloria wanted to believe, with all her heart, that her father was alive, even if he might be an enemy captive, but she wasn't sure she dared hope; if that wasn't just a daughter's fantasy.

"We'll be starting in thirty seconds." Alexei's words cut through her reverie, and Gloria snapped back into professional mode, ready to get on the air. She sat to one side of the Drachman reporter—the Cretan on the other—of the news desk. Having all three together had been a join agreement. It was another opportunity to show that they were allies in a visual way.

I'm sorry, Mom. I hope you're not finding out like this.