96 - Pushback

"No," Izumi snarled, "Xenotime is a trap."

The alchemists had gathered in a room and, even after the noon hour lapsed, they still remained locked in debate. All around the circular table Mustang had spread his maps and plans out on, the morning arguments raged on.

"It's not much of a trap if we all know what it is," Al had to concede and got a nasty look from his teacher for it.

Ed's voice once again rose up, "At some point there'll be enough people in place at Xenotime that Dante'll act. If we don't do something soon, we put everyone she's trapped at risk and possibly be sacrificing the town as well."

"Can someone tell me," Mustang bellowed, "does the size of the Philosopher's Stone impact the strength of it, or is it simply a matter of longevity of the stone."

"Longevity," Izumi answered.

Mustang took his frustrated, dark gaze and put it on Ed, "Then we might have to let the town fair on its own so we can deal with things."

Ed's hands slammed down on the table, "ARE YOU FUCKING MAD?"

Mustang's fists did the same, "I'M FURIOUS. With this situation, with these endless no win options, with this monstrous little terror, and with YOU , for continuing to think that any of us are going to let you within a day's travel of her."

Ed threw his hands up in exasperation.

"The hound is right," Izumi's vocal barrage followed next, providing unusual backup for the officer, "the danger of putting you anywhere near her, especially in such a pocketed area is way too high. What the hell are you thinking, Ed?"

Before Ed could bear his fangs and bite back at anyone, Al stepped in with hands raised, "Maybe maybe maybe we're approaching this all wrong."

He waited until the boiling faces lowered to a simmer.

The smallest alchemist in the room continued, "We all agreed Dante is obviously trying to get us out of Central and into a more remote area to manage. We know that's how she's operated for decades – pulling her strings in smaller areas like Ishibal and Lior and even Dublith," Al glanced to his teacher, "and we agreed earlier that she was doing it because she doesn't feel like she can get an upper hand on us in a place like Central City right now."

Armstrong's voice finally rose up, "And because of that, we hold the advantage in Central City. It's the last place she wants to engage us."

"Right," Al nodded and pointed his question at the lumbering officer, "Can we do anything to strengthen our position here to lure her back?"

As temperatures cooled elsewhere around the table, Armstrong took the lead, "Dante has deliberately left the city in a vulnerable position. The heads of government are acting like everything going on is inconsequential. With high ranking officials gathering in Xenotime, we could easily subdue the city in the course of a few days and use their neglect to claim victory. However, the disadvantage it leaves us in is staggering."

Izumi's nose wrinkled as she looked at Mustang, "She's really handing you the keys to the city?"

"Yes," Mustang flipped his pen into the centre of the table with a disgusted sound, "and the moment I take it everyone I have at my disposal here, or anywhere else, become too overburdened with governance to manage Dante," he scowled at his plans laid out on the table, "issuing an immediate ordinance or putting any resources towards capturing and imprisoning a seven-year-old for any sort of reason, at any point would cast serious doubt on my competence. I'd be forced to let her slip away and have no way to track her. I'd suspect she'd let the assembled government in Xenotime hang to buy herself more time," Mustang gave a short, sarcastic laugh towards a darker fate, "or actually replenish her Philosopher's Stone with the town of Xenotime, just as a former State Alchemist walks in to helm their lives. I might as well hang myself for her at that point."

"So," Ed slowly drew out beneath his relentless scowl, "we still need to come up with a plan to get Brigitte, Lieutenant Ross, and the rest of'em out of Xenotime."

"I'm absolutely not allowing you anywhere near her vicinity," Izumi glared bullets at Ed.

Armstrong spoke up again, "Is there any way to use the Empty City as a distraction while a few men infiltrate the lab in Xenotime to get everyone back?"

"I could—"

"Not you," Mustang nearly snapped his fingers at Ed.

The older Elric's eye twitched and he withheld what he'd have preferred to shoot off his tongue, "Al could maybe entice her."

"I-I could?" Al stammered. Not expecting to be put on the spot, his hands fluttered around as he tried to come up with something, "I… could… oh," he looked around the room in frantic thought, "OH. I could offer her a trade!"

"A trade?" a number of voices echoed in chorus.

"Yes, for Brigitte! And I could offer her…" Al reached into his pocket, "this."

On the table, Al unfolded the piece of paper he'd received from his brother the night before – the four new alchemical symbols Al had spent the night learning.

Ed's jaw unhinged and eyes popped wide – that was absolutely, in no way, in any universe, anything close to what he was going for. Slowly, he inched away from Al, who stood between the older brother and Izumi.

Armstrong did the courtesy of wondering aloud for everyone, "What are those?"

"Four symbols from beyond the Gate," Al announced proudly.

"ED."

Pinpoint gold pupils snapped to his teacher, "Yes Ma'am?"

Slowly stepping around Al, Izumi zeroed in on the slinking Elric, "WHY WOULD YOU GIVE AL—"

"IT'S OKAY!" Al flailed his arms, "they're pretty harmless."

Ed froze, hands behind his back, "They were the four most common ones that we didn't have."

"That's not the point!" Izumi roared back.

Reaching across the table, Armstrong picked up the sheet, eyed it, and handed it to Mustang.

"Giving Dante alien alchemy information isn't something I'd otherwise consider an option," the senior officer took the sheet, his one eye inspecting warily, "what do they do?"

"Not much," Al watched the small hopes of the room deflate and quickly added, "well, I mean, they can do a lot of things but, so far, they don't seem to have properties beyond what we can already do."

Ed straightened himself and cleared his throat, "It looks like they're just simply formula elements that can complete any average transmutation if they're swapped in for others and the circle is re-ordered to accommodate. The transmutations they're used in execute slower because they require more pathways to conduct flow. And they're also symbols that ended up becoming common characters in language, so for them to be basic isn't too surprising."

Mustang looked from the sheet to Ed curiously, "How would alchemical symbols fall out of favour and end up as language?"

Ed shifted and folded his arms, "If I were to start a hypothesis based on last night, even if not all alchemical characters ended up in language scripts beyond the Gate, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the ones that did transition were the slower, redundant transmutation elements. I remember noticing at one point when I was researching that there seemed to be a fair bit of redundancy between certain alchemical methods, but I couldn't test anything to find out why. If redundancy was the case, it's possible that we ended up with the other world's preferred character script at the time of the Alchemical Revolution," Ed paused as he took a moment to organize a few thoughts, "In Al's trials last night they didn't show anything additional, just another, slower means to arrive at the same end. With that in mind, it might be possible to theorize or even determine at what point the redundancy ends and higher level alchemy begins based on what characters gained prominence in modern Gate language scripts and which didn't. Once I determine that, we can create a new, secondary set of alchemical characters that ultimately accomplish nothing more than what we can do already."

The room stared in silence at Ed.

He blinked, "What?"

Mustang refolded the paper in his hand and reached across the table to return it to Ed, "Thank you, Professor Elric. I'll take notes next time."

The colour drained from Ed's face and he looked back at Mustang absolutely mortified, "Don't you ever call me that again."

"Al, can you please explain in fewer words than your brother?" Izumi requested.

The younger brother swallowed his giggles, "Yeah. The characters just seem to be another way of accomplishing the same things with the knowledge we already have. But, they look fancy and new and potentially a lot more than they're showing now. Their transmutation circles look complicated, and kind of pretty too, but once you dissect them, they're very simple. If we can be confident in how harmless the characters are, then we can make a decent resource pool to tempt Dante with."

"And we can lure her out of Xenotime and into the Empty City, because its doubtful we'll be able to coax her to go anywhere else," Ed added, "we can do something like 'bring us Brigitte and we'll give you a sample from beyond the Gate'. Dante's not stupid enough to actually bring Brigitte, she might not even want the alchemy, but it's too enticing for her to pass up. It'll open up a window of opportunity for someone to rescue the people in Xenotime."

Slowly, the room quietly nodded in agreement.

With a heavy sigh, Izumi looked over to the two Elric brothers, "If you two can get something together, we can use Wrath to deliver a message."

Ed nodded, "And Winry can fix his leg up."

"Do you want to help or supervise?" Al looked up at Izumi.

Sighing, she shook her head a little, "I'm really not sure I want to be involved with anything that came from the Gate," her eyes flickered from Al up to Ed, "but if you'd like my help, you can ask."

The Elric brothers nodded.

"Alright," with his hands on the table, Mustang rose to his feet, "let's finally get this day going. Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong and I have a few things to work out on our end. You two get going on a placebo alchemical chart. Ms. Curtis, can I ask you to continue monitoring Wrath in the basement?"

The collection of alchemists gave nods of approval and Mustang dismissed the room.

With the pop of his brow, straightening of his shirt, and a grin ear to ear, Al knocked on Winry's door.

"Room Service!"

There was no reply for several moments, "… What?"

"Open the door Winry, free food!" Ed barked.

Al and his brother exchanged a concerned glance at the surprising amount of clatter, noise, and a few curses that tumbled towards the door before it finally clicked open and an interrogative pair of blue eyes peeked out.

The younger Elric brother beamed as they each held up a fairly substantially sized paper bag, "We bring lunch!"

"Smuggled in from the café down the street," Ed nodded with a smirk.

"Illegal lunch? At three thirty?" Winry found a kind of grin the brothers were wearing and she let the door swing open, "well, okay I guess."

Alphonse quickly slipped by Winry and bounced into the room, followed by his older brother who cast a scowl down at the obstacle course of crutches on the floor. The brothers sat their hefty bags of lunch down on a little table in the corner and, while Al plucked the seat cushion out of a chair, Ed turned around and laid his scowl on Winry.

"Stop walking on it."

"I'm not walking on it, I'm clearly hobbling," Winry matched Ed's scowl as he took her under the arm to help get her back to the bed, "how did you use those so often?"

Ed gave a half-hearted laugh to that, "I only used one."

Al plunked the seat cushion down at the centre of Winry's bed, relieved a pillow of its case, and dressed the cushion with a 'tablecloth'. He looked up with enough time to see the interrogative and suspicious look he got from Winry before his brother hoisted her up onto the bed with a squeak. Al giggled, watching Winry bounce, and walked with his brother back to the table of food.

Winry adjusted herself as she sat on the bed, "What am I being set up for?"

Ed picked up his paper bag and frowned, "We can't just bring you illegal take-out?"

"No," her scowl briefly came back.

Ed shrugged and walked back over to the bedside alongside Al with their lunch, "Move over."

Winry slid over as Ed put a bag down on the cushion table and Al hopped up on the foot of the bed, sat down, and started un-bagging their lunch.

"They're tiny pastries and sandwiches," Winry giggled at the display Al was happily setting out.

Ed pulled himself onto the bed next to Winry at their makeshift picnic, "We need you to do us a favour."

"Of course you do," she laughed at the edible bribery.

Carefully placing a bite sized lemon tart out in front of Winry as she folded her arms, Al gave a sheepish smile, "Can you fix Wrath's leg, please?"

Winry eyeballed the tart before letting her gaze slide up to Al's now hesitant smile, "That is a thing I can do… but, why do I want to give that little goblin two legs to stand on again?"

"We need him to relay some information out to Dante," Ed answered as Al resumed laying out food.

The look Winry gave Al moved up to the elder brother, "I thought we were leaving, why are we contacting Dante? I thought we were avoiding her at all costs."

A very pointed look was given to Ed by his younger brother, "My brother is leaving with you once we get some things sorted out."

Ed rolled his eyes away.

"I'll join you a little later," Al continued, "We're going to try and lure Dante out of Xenotime with some information from the other side of the Gate, so the brigadier general can rescue everyone with less trouble, and maybe Sensei and I can do something to throw Dante off her game a bit."

Slowly, Winry reached down and collected her tiny lemon tart, bit it in half, and chewed out a response, "I suppose I can help with that. He's just going to wreck it again though."

With a shrug, Ed deposited the empty paper bags on the floor as Al completed their lunch display, "Yeah, but it'll last long enough for us to actually get some good use out of Wrath. I've been hearing Dante was using him as a messenger pigeon, so now we'll just return the favour."

Winry soured and popped the other half of the tart in her mouth, "It's so painful watching him ruin my work, though."

"It's a noble sacrifice for a good cause," Al declared then flared his hands out at the food display, "lunch is served!"

A wide Elric grin flew into Ed's face as he looked at his brother's display, "I think we got three of everything."

"Why'd you buy so much food?" Winry laughed as she looked over her options of pastries and quarter sandwiches.

Ed dipped his head and looked at her, "Win, we need something to eat other than Mustang's food."

Winry puffed her cheeks and put herself nose to nose with Ed, "We need or you want?"

Ed gave an Elric sized grin and shrugged.

Winry giggled and turned her attention over to the indoor picnic, "Okay, so where do I start?"

"So what we have on the menu today are," Al proudly presented from left to right, "meaty ones, greeny ones, ones with spreads, bread in unusual shapes, and tarts. Help yourself!"

Winry reached out and plucked up another tart, opting for dessert first, "I missed food that had taste. Eating just makes me more hungry."

"Careful with the pastries, Win," the grin Ed had been holding turned into a wicked smirk, "or you'll have to figure out how to adjust that corset again."

"Excuse me?" Winry squawked, "again?"

The frozen fingers of Ed's hand reaching for food twitched as he eyed her, "Tilly said she let out your corset when we got back after France. We did kinda spend a lot of the trip on a pastries and wine diet…"

The elder Elric brother very quickly found himself backhanded across the head with a pillow.

"Did I LOOK LIKE I got fat?" Winry raged.

"No," was the meek reply.

Ed was sideswiped with the pillow again for the sake of it, "That was NOT why she adjusted it."

"Then why?" Ed swept his hair out of his face.

"Where is that stupid thing anyways?" Winry scowled at him, "where'd they put all our things we came back with?"

Ed frowned in thought, "I think Mustang said everything was in a box somewhere."

"I want that back," Winry sunk her teeth into half a sandwich wedge.

"What the hell for?" Ed gawked at her sudden interest in it, "you hated that thing. You bitched for months about it. I had to listen to you bitch about it for months."

"Yes," Winry's eyes lit with righteous fire, "and now I'm going to burn it."

Ed started to sputter before he burst out laughing at the idea and Winry abruptly slammed a sandwich wedge into his mouth to shut him up. When it didn't help silence the laughing Elric, Winry popped up on her knees, laid an overhead smack down on him with a weaponized pillow, and then finally made a vain effort to try and shove his whole face into the mattress for being a horrid nuisance. Unfortunately for Winry, she quickly realized she was absolutely no match for a two-armed Edward Elric.

"Christ Win, I have stitches in my face!" a grievance given with a laugh, "bugger off."

Popping back down to her backside, Winry decided that dishevelling him was enough, "You can explain to the doctors that your foot-in-mouth disease caused collateral damage," she hotly snatched up another sandwich wedge and sliced it in half with her teeth.

Collecting himself, Ed finally sat back up with a grin and pulled the tie out of his hair to fix the mess. But, he slowed when he made eye contact with Al.

Alphonse took a slow nibble at the corner of his sandwich and stared at his older brother, slowly raising his brow.

"What?" Ed asked cautiously, giving a firm yank to his ponytail to tighten it.

A swift breath was taken and Al filled his lungs, "You know, I think this is the first time the three of us have sat down together to enjoy anything since you both got back."

"Sorry, that's my fault," Winry offered her confession, "I'm the miserable bedridden one. Everyone must come to me to save me from my doldrums."

Ed turned to her, "Why don't you come to Al's room?"

"For?" Winry questioned.

Giving a shrug, Ed picked up another sandwich, "Just alchemy stuff, not much different than anything I was doing at the house before we left, but you can be bored here on your own or come be bored with us? At least, until you get your AutoMail stuff going."

Winry paused a moment, her eyes wandering away as she considered the invite. A tiny smile popped into her face and it grew larger as she replied, "Well, I'll do my best to not to ruin the working aura with my boredom."

"Tch," Ed chortled, but suddenly found Al's stare again. His eyes grew wide with concern, "uh… unless Al needs the focus?"

"Nope," the response came quick and Al grinned wide, "Winry can absolutely come and be bored in my room. I don't think we've really ever had Winry around while we worked before, it'll be a good change."

Winry laughed at that, "Al, I promise, I'm the most useless alchemy assistant."

Ed nodded, "She really is."

This time, he got clobbered with a two-handed pillow attack.

While voices rose and the both of them tried not to laugh amidst feigned contempt, Al continued to watch the scene with interest and he helped himself to another sandwich.

"Is that all clear, Major?" Mustang looked up from a sheet he'd read.

Armstrong nodded, "Yes, Sir."

"Alright," Roy shook his head in disgust of himself and swept up the papers he'd laid out on his desk, "I don't know how long you'll be able to maintain the façade until someone turns up to challenge you, but do your best with the men."

"With the Armstrong family honour, I will, Sir."

"Very good."

Finally, Mustang was able to hold a proper briefing of his trusted officers – Hawkeye, Havoc, Armstrong, Breda, Falman, and Fuery – and actually give out some concrete information and instructions. It was a relief given the chaos they'd found themselves besieged by in the weeks prior.

Havoc looked to the ceiling, his arms folded, and he flicked the cigarette in the side of his mouth, "And with that, there goes our credibility. Farewell."

Breda put his hands together in false prayer, "Not with a bang, but a whimper. It was a good run, my friends."

"You two…" Hawkeye cast a disappointed frown at them from across the table, "I think the wellbeing of the entire nation is a bit more important than all that."

"I know I know," Havoc raised his hands to surrender for his poorly placed comment and looked back at the round table of officers, "it's just, after all that, we're going to go out there and try to support this piss-poor, farce of a government. I know what we're going for, but it feels like a loss."

"There is no 'support'," Mustang corrected, "we're initiating accountability and forcing the government to determine how it topples. And when it does, we will be there. And yes it does feel like a bit of a loss, but sometimes taking a step backwards leads to greater strides forwards, or so I'm hoping."

"Lieutenant," Armstrong's voice rumbled out, "one of the few weapons we possess against Dante is our ability to act in contradiction to her whims. If she wants us to take over Central, then we must stall. If enabling the government leaders she's controlling is not something she wants us to do, then that's exactly what we will do."

Hawkeye nodded in agreement, "If we try to hold the government accountable and responsible, and encourage the people to do the same, rather than doing the easy thing and take control, we'll keep attention pointed her way, and it'll be harder for Dante to act."

Mustang tucked his stack of papers in a folder and tapped it straight atop the table, "Worst case, the government simply fails and we reach a point where some faction must take over, but we'll force Dante to handle the government's actual downfall, we will not execute that for her or we will lose," the brigadier general looked out to his table of officers, "all that being said, the more we can do to keep people's eyes on the farce in Xenotime, the safer a lot of people will be."

The bundle of papers in Mustang's possession was slid across the table, settling in front of Lieutenant Breda.

"Enjoy being Armstrong's right hand man, Lieutenant!"

"Paperwork until the end of time," Havoc chuckled and patted a heavy hand down on Breda's back.

"Ha ha," the lower lieutenant straightened out the bundle in front of himself, "make sure you bring me back a souvenir for this, I'm shit at paperwork."

"Officer Falman," Mustang's commanding voice came up again and was answered with a 'yes, sir!', "I've made arrangements for you and Sergeant Fuery to take Edward and Winry north once everything with Wrath is sorted. Make sure they're kept low and out of sight, I don't want any attention on them leaving or en route."

"Yes, Sir!" was the dual confirmation.

"Alright," Mustang sat forward in his seat, "provided no further delays, Hawkeye, Havoc, and myself are leaving in under forty-eight hours for Xenotime to retrieve Lieutenant Ross, Miss. Brigitte, and the rest of the hoard," the superior officer stood up from his seat, picked up a map from the table, and spread it out, "We'll have a check-in point at the halfway mark here, and unfortunately nothing after that. Once we've arrived, we will keep low in the Xenotime town and try to assess the situation until Wrath appears," the brigadier general looked up to two of his officers, "prior to transporting Edward and Winry, Falman, you will accompany Ms. Curtis and bring Wrath here," Mustang's finger relocated on the map, "at which point the road into Xenotime is direct and he can be released on his own. Ms. Curtis will re-engage his leg at the release point and then we will wait for him to reach Dante."

Mustang leaned back from his map to address his round table as a whole.

"Once we can confirm that he's made contact with Dante we'll monitor her and wait for her to make a move. When it's evident she's heading to meet Alphonse and Ms. Curtis, we'll clear our people out of Xenotime. If we are able to get Brigitte in the process, or if Dante takes her with her, we'll make contact once we're safely clear to update the situation. There should be enough time for Ms. Curtis and Alphonse to work accordingly. Any questions?"

"What about Aisa?" Breada was the first to ask, "she caused a hell of a lot of chaos with Izumi in Central."

Mustang drew in deep, nasally breath, "Ideally, she'll remain behind in Xenotime, since Dante would want someone she trusts to protect their assets. Her physiology has been altered to act as a flesh container for both the Philosopher's Stone and red water; but, she is not indestructible," the senior officer looked around in thought, "however, from what I understand, the closer you are to Aisa's vicinity, the more volatile the transmutations become due to the red water. The Philosopher's Stone being part of her body further amplifies the mess she can cause and ultimately Ms. Curtis ended up at the Gate. If I need to do anything, I'll do it from a distance. Otherwise, this is a classic rescue operation."

"Hopefully she's left behind for us to deal with," Hawkeye offered a concerned look to Mustang, "she severely cripples both Alphonse and Izumi by simply being there."

"Yes, she does," Mustang grumbled, "and if they do have to deal with her, at least they'll know how to respond to her presence this time. Anything else?"

Sergeant Fuery raised his voice, "I know we've been most concerned with Ed, but doesn't sending Wrath to Dante run the risk of revealing we have Winry?"

Mustang sank back in his chair, "Dante believes she killed Winry, leaving no body, and she has no idea, nor any reason to believe, that Winry went beyond the Gate and has come back. Dante has already played the hand where she pretends Winry is in her custody, so if that homunculus does bring her up, there's a good chance she won't take him seriously," he gave a shake of his head to his own thoughts, "and if she does, retrieving Winry from what Dante believes she fated her might actually be an easier task than retrieving Ed. Alphonse's time at the Gate can explain her presence, if needed. That said, as far as everyone at this table is concerned, Winry is not here and was never with Ed beyond the Gate, understood?"

"Understood," the tabled chorus responded.

"Good, any other questions?"

The brigadier general scanned the table as no other officer voiced a question or concern.

"Very well, in two days' time Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong will be hosting these meetings – be sure to give him your full attention. Dismissed."

Chair legs scraped along the floor as everyone rose with murmurs, departing the room while Mustang held back in the room with Armstrong.

"Sir, I have a request."

Mustang looked up.

Armstrong voiced a concern, "I believe it would be prudent to have one more check in just prior to Xenotime."

"We risk a lot by lighting the switchboard that close," Mustang's gaze narrowed.

"Considering the deteriorating state of communications, you may not be able to reach us from your first checkpoint," with a slow, thoughtful nod, Armstrong offered an alternative, "and if we want to avoid a switchboard redirect, perhaps a telegram from the post office instead?"

The senior officer's tight brow slowly lifted, "Very well. Our regular code should suffice. I'll check the map within the hour for a hamlet to send from and an approximate time to expect it. Acceptable?"

"More than, thank you, Sir," Armstrong gave a firm nod, "and I'll have my 'presentation' for tomorrow finalized by the afternoon."

Mustang gave a wry grin, "I cannot think of anyone better suited to give an impassioned speech to motivate a crowd of people than you, Major."

A heavy chuckle shook through Lt. Colonel Armstrong as he stepped past Mustang to exit the room.

Alphonse's expression widened curiously, watching his brother modify a transmutation circle.

"I think," Ed narrowed an eye at his piece of paper, "if it's redirected this way, with an auxiliary path," his pencil carefully finished his thought. The elder brother grinned triumphantly and he handed it to Al, "try that."

Al collected the paper, put himself back down on the floor, and carefully drew out his instructions. With the transmutation circle laid, he poured out a measured amount of sodium and sulfur on each element of the circle and followed one of the lines pouring out a cup of water. He sat back on his knees, both brothers took a deep breath, and Al ignited the transmutation.

The reaction was quaint: it simply went poof and alchemized the materials into a scattering of yellow flakes.

The end result might have been yellow, but Ed turned green and he got up swiftly from his chair, "Yup, that did it."

"That's so foul," Al covered his nose and mouth with his hands while his brother threw open the window again.

Snatching up one of the bags that kept their leftover sandwiches, Ed dumped the food on a table, knelt down with Al, and the brothers hurriedly swept their transmutation into the paper bag. Ed crumpled it down and tossed it out the window into the alley below. Al brushed away the transmutation circle, clapped his hands, and refreshed the carpet.

After breathing in some fresh air from the window, Ed came back into the room, sat down at his small working table, and added another element to the chart, "That was the last trial on that one, I declare it safe and done."

"Also disgusting," Al dragged himself over to the window and hung himself out of it, "everything that one did smelt terrible."

"There should be a law against transmutation elements that align with sulfur," Ed moved himself back to the window and joined his brother hanging out the frame, "this one had a double strike against it; redundancy and sulfuric alignment. They did everyone a favour by letting that one go."

"But, you know," Al looked up to the night's sky with playful determination, "we could use that one and make the greatest stink bomb and just smoke Dante out of Xenotime."

Ed cackled at first, but eventually gagged at the suggestion, "Unless you want to run a solo mission, we aren't getting anyone volunteering for that. We've had enough complaints in the last hour with everyone trying to get some sleep. We even chased Sensei and Winry away."

"You chased Sensei away," frowning, Al wasn't going to let his brother sweep that away and he pulled himself back into the room, "she got exasperated with you and left. You're lucky she didn't kick your ass."

Ed scowled and dropped a firm response, "I'm not biting on Mustang's plan to go north, Al. You're going to need me here."

"Brother, you're making this way too hard," Al scowled back, "we're going to be luring out Dante in the Empty City, and she's not going to play fair – you said so yourself, that's why we even started on the new symbols, to change her playing field because she doesn't play fair."

Grumbling out a sigh, Ed put his back to the window, "I was hoping we could use the transmutation elements as a way to get a leg up on her and shake things up. Bribery with a foreign alchemy table still leaves us on even footing."

Al shot his brother a wary eye and drew a line, "And I think by the time we're done the new table we'll have had enough of otherworldly alchemy for a while," the younger of two brothers looked down at his hands, "Once this alchemy table's done I'm not touching anything related to otherworld alchemy until after we're all north."

"Al," Ed's head fell back as he looked to the ceiling, "you're going to need me here. I can—"

"No," Al's interjection was firm, "if Dante sees you, she's going to take one look at you and start to question everything."

Ed glanced down to himself, "I don't look that different."

Al's jaw dropped. Had his brother never looked in a mirror? "For starters, you have all four limbs!"

"You did that," Ed rebutted the concern.

Technically, he wasn't wrong, but Al didn't care to acknowledge that, "Your face is…" Al needed a word, "sharper! It's not round anymore!"

"I wouldn't call it sharp ," Ed ran hand over his chin, "but my face hasn't been round since I was thirteen anyways."

Al's brow popped high, "No, your face was still round when you left."

"No, it wasn't," Ed wrinkled his nose.

"Yes, it was! It was so much rounder," the younger brother threw his arms out to his sides, "and you have shoulders and a great big arm span now," Al's hands were then thrown above his head, "and your legs are long and you're like THIS tall."

Ed's wicked grin curled with immeasurable pleasure, "Yeah, I did get bigger, didn't I?" and then he had to wipe it away, "but, I'm not that tall. Dad was tall. And besides, I did most of my growing when I was seventeen and eighteen, by our world's calendar this isn't that far ahead of schedule."

Al wasn't sure how to phrase his biggest concern, or what words could actually describe it. But there was something heavy lingering about his brother that added more age to him than he appeared to be seeing, "You look tired."

Ed garbled his reply, like he'd had more than one thing to say about it and couldn't choose which, but then chose something else entirely, "Then, I'll get a good night's sleep."

"When?" Al folded his arms.

At the sound of a click, the brother's growing voices were subdued when the bedroom door opened.

Winry gagged before entering, "UGH, what died?"

"Sorry," Al called, "it's the sulfur."

"It's gross whatever it is," Winry stumbled into the room on her crutches, a large burlap sack dangling down from her shoulder and clanking around her hip, "you can smell it half way down the stairwell. I could also hear you beyond the door, what is going on?"

"Nothing," Ed stepped away and went back to his working table.

Al grumbled a sigh and looked at Winry as she tossed her noisy bag onto the bed and climbed back onto, "Winry, can you please tell my brother he's going north with you once you're done with Wrath's leg."

"What?" Winry flipped open her bag, "Ed, why the heck aren't we going north now?"

"You're going north," Ed pointed a finger at her, "I need to stay back to—"

A bolt ting'd off Ed's forehead and Winry sat back, "You don't need to do anything. Al and Izumi are more than able to take care of themselves. We're going north."

"Win, you don't understand," Ed wrinkled his nose and rubbed his forehead.

"No, I sure don't," she went back to rummaging her bag as Al brought her back the bolt, "but I do know this is Alphonse and the woman who taught you alchemy, so you should have no problem with them handling this."

Joining his ally atop the bed, Al watched as she grabbed both ends of the sack and unceremoniously dumped the entire noisy, metallic contents out.

"AutoMail parts?" he asked.

"Yup," Winry slid out onto her stomach and began sorting, "I managed to get someone to fetch a ton of parts for me earlier. I wasn't exactly sure what I needed since I still haven't gotten the leg back yet—"

"I'll go get it."

With a huff, Ed lurched to his feet and made his way out. Al and Winry watched as he let himself out of the room without another word, closing the door just heavily enough that neither of them could say he'd slammed it.

Al sagged and sprawled out in what was left for space on his bed.

"Well, he's cranky tonight," Winry went back to picking parts.

"Winry, why is he fighting us?" Al groaned, "I don't understand why he's being so stubborn."

Grinning, Winry picked up a screw and held it in her fingers, "He's just used to being part of the solution, Al."

"It stops being a solution if he sticks around," Al shook his hands out at the ceiling in frustration, "it's nothing but a huge problem. The brigadier general told him no, Sensei's told him no, I'm telling him no, but he's not listening! He isn't practicing any of the new alchemy with me; everyone agrees he needs to wait until we're in some place with wide open spaces just in case, but then he doesn't seem to see how much of a problem it is for him to go to the Empty City with us. I don't understand what he's thinking."

Winry's hand danced through a mess of metal parts, "Al, you and I know that your brother has spent more than half of his life trying to stay in control of his own destiny and trying to fix things that went wrong," she stopped for a moment, keeping her eyes in her work while her thoughts organized her next words, "the world beyond the Gate tried really hard to knock him down, hoping that if it happened often enough, at some point he'd stay down. Ed is Ed though, and he kept getting back up," she picked up a bolt and tumbled it through her fingers, "And he took some heavy blows before we left. I think he's just trying to find a way to get up from that."

Al let his arms bounce limp off the mattress, "We need to find a way to convince him he doesn't have to right now."

Winry turned to Al, "You've been working all day, why not call it a night, get some rest, and think more later?"

With a whine to concede to Winry's assessment, Al relented, "Yeah, sleep'll probably do some good."

"Good, but before you do," Winry reached over and pinched the smaller Elric's nose, "can you go find a fan to blow this stink out of the room? Or we're going to be smelling rotten eggs in everything for the next month."

With a bounce to get himself mobile, Alphonse was more than willing to pass on alchemy for the rest of the night and hunt one or two of those down.

At the top of a cement staircase late that night, Izumi looked down at a bewildering scene. Tilting her head, the woman's eyes flickered away for a moment of thought, before returning to question what she saw in the hallway light soaking the floor of Mustang's poorly lit equipment room meant to contain Wrath.

Izumi stared at Ed; the golden blonde was crouched down, squatting on his toes, arms resting on his thighs, leaning forward as though he were trying to read the fine print of something posted on the far wall.

Engrossed in the baffling sight, Izumi put her left hand down on the railing and silently slid a foot on to the top step. Her right arm reached back, fishing for the inner door handle, and when she caught it, another step down was taken and she pulled it shut behind her. No click was heard and when the room sunk into moderate darkness again, Ed placed a hand on the ground, slid a foot back behind himself, and without disengaging what he was looking at, resettled farther away on his toes. His head dipped forwards curiously. Izumi took another silent step and took her eyes off Ed, shifting her attention to whatever he was looking at. With one more downwards step, Izumi leaned out and found what had his undivided attention.

Still bound by his single ankle and wrist, Wrath strained towards Edward with every inch he was able to give. With his toes latched on to a divot in the cement floor, the binding on his wrist strained as he precariously balanced on the one leg, neck stretched and craned to project his forehead as far forward as it could possibly go.

Ed's left hand came up suddenly and motioned for Izumi to approach. The teacher began descending the stairs, letting her sandals clack louder and louder with each step she took, watching how Wrath completely ignored her no matter how much noise she made. Crouching down next to Ed, Izumi looked at the bizarre view he had of their otherwise feral homunculus. Wrath's eyes were enormous and fixated on Ed, his breathing heaved while purple pupils danced around him with no noticeable pattern or point of focus – beyond Ed himself.

"What the hell is he doing?" she finally wondered aloud.

"I have no idea," lines cut into Ed's forehead as his brow tightened. He put his hand on the floor again and this time started to shift to the side, "he's probably going to fall over if I go too far." Ed moved one body width, then two and, as he'd expected, Wrath toppled over.

Izumi watched Wrath fall, noting how he'd done nothing to brace his landing, he'd simply hit the ground with his wide-eyed, unblinking focus locked on Ed.

Ed rose to his feet while he and his teacher watched Wrath twist his body around to keep a lock on Ed's gaze. The elder Elric brother began to walk slowly towards Izumi, both watching how Wrath used his single leg to claw along the floor, trying to get closer, while fighting against the tension of the chain that linked around to bind his wrist.

Ed walked past his teacher and stopped at her opposite side, "I'm going to go upstairs. He seems to snap out of it when I'm out of sight. Can you watch and see what he does when he comes out of it?"

Izumi nodded, "Yeah, go."

As Edward ascended the staircase, the puzzled teacher studied Wrath as the door opened and flooded the room with the hallway light. Wrath seemed completely unfazed by the brightness change, his pupils never reacting, he simply stretched and strained, trying to see around the stairwell wall despite his bindings. The door finally shut, locking out the light from being anything more than what the tired bulb hanging from the ceiling offered. Izumi crouched down and examined Wrath, watching to see if she could identify what it was that would change.

With a blink, whatever enchantment had entangled the homunculus, suddenly vanished and Wrath slipped slightly along the floor as he let the tension in his bindings ease.

Izumi watched as Wrath regained his bearings and finally snarled at her.

"Why are you bothering me?" Wrath lashed out uselessly.

"I haven't done anything to bother you," she eyed him, "what were you just looking at now?"

"Nothing," he tossed his head back and rolled over, stretching his arm and leg out as far apart as they'd go.

Izumi put her hands on her knees and pushed to her feet, "Ed, you can come back."

The door cracked open for a brief moment, before it closed again, and Ed made his way back down the stairs, stopping at the last step.

"You got your shit back together yet, Wrath?"

The creature screamed at him, "GIVE THOSE BACK TO ME."

Both Ed and Izumi rolled their eyes at the verbal explosion. Izumi turned and walked towards the staircase.

Ed shook his head uselessly at the situation, "He's either screaming at me for my arm and leg or staring at me like he's trying to dissect me."

Izumi put a hand down on Ed's shoulder and motioned to the exit, "Let's talk upstairs. We can leave him to scream himself out."

The pair climbed the stairs besieged by Wrath's angry wails, wasting no time shutting the door to drown him out once they reached the top.

Ed scowled at the door, a hand coming up to scratch through his hair as he tried to think.

Izumi re-did the locks and turned around to Ed, "How long has he been doing that?"

"I was down there for about half an hour trying to figure him out," he replied.

Her frown growing darker, Izumi gave a passing thought to the red stones in his system, but couldn't find anything in its properties that might warrant a behaviour change that they'd never seen before.

Unfortunately, this mini mystery would have to sit on the backburner, "Wrath aside, how close are you and Al with your experiments?"

"A few of them were so rudimentary we flew through them, so it's been doing pretty good. We should have a dozen ready in the next couple of days," Ed answered, "but Winry said she'll probably finish after us."

"That's fine," Izumi nodded, "let's still try to get Wrath gone sooner than later, though."

"Right," Ed didn't disagree, "and I think Al and I should do a canvas of the Empty City while you're taking Wra—"

"No," the teacher was getting tired of this, "I've told you, repeatedly, you're staying put until we can send you north with Winr—"

"Sensei." Ed's shoulders locked and his stance firmed up, "I'm staying in Central while you and Al meet with Dante. I'm not going north until I know you're safe."

This was by far the most interesting thing Izumi had heard come out of Ed's mouth since he came back - not because of what he'd said, but because of how he'd said it. It was a very unfamiliar tone Ed pulled out for her and it kept Izumi from coming down on him, only because it was so unusual. The Ed she knew, the one who'd shown up at the meeting, the one who quarreled with her in Al's room, was shrill, hot, and animated with his arguments, but this sound was firm and authoritative. It was obviously some mannerism he'd picked up while he'd been gone and it was clearly meant to put himself in an irrefutable position. She couldn't imagine the number of arguments he must have gotten into to have honed it. Izumi found herself at an intriguing crossroad with him: she wasn't sure if she wanted to punch Ed through the wall for using it on her or keep listening to see what he did with it.

Ed seemed to mull over his next words, before he finally chose, "If you don't want me in the Empty City, fine. But, I'm not leaving without you and Al."

The teacher's brow creased as her gaze narrowed; seems she was opting to study the latter.

"Al and I still have work left to do tonight. We should be finishing up two more elements, so if you come by in the morning, you can confirm them with us."

"I can do that…" Izumi replied slowly.

An unwavering Elric gaze looked back at her before turning to walk away, "Thanks. Can you let me know if Wrath does anything else weird tonight?"

"I can."

Oh boy, Izumi was suddenly hot for letting him get away with that. It took all her willpower not to reach out, yank him back by his ponytail, and chain him up in the room with Wrath.

Until that point, Ed had either been as complicit and obedient with her directions, or as argumentative as she'd remembered, but she also hadn't asked too much of him either. It seemed the decent behaviour now had a limit and instructing him to bow out entirely brought on the well-polished obstinacy. Izumi laughed to herself, she wanted to blame his father for that; she couldn't imagine Ed behaving for that man. The Elric brothers' alchemy teacher was going to have to come up with something more poignant to get through his thicker skull.

Through the pitch black darkness, feet dragged in the dirt, carefully feeling each step taken to avoid falling unknowingly. The air thick with dust and almost no flow, the deep, heavy breaths of four people were the only sounds above the scraping of feet. The dirt tunnels had lost their light far too many hours ago, and now the only drive that remained was the one to walk forwards without end, and hope and pray to whatever God might be listening, that they may find their way out. Breaths got louder, strides shorter, and sweat heavier, as the dark, dusty air grew hotter and thicker while the ceiling grew lower and lower.

It wasn't the light at the end of a tunnel that changed their courses, but a draft of cool air at their feet. With an eager abandon that had once faded before the light had left them, the group trapped in a dirt tunnel turned to follow its flow. There wasn't enough energy to be used for both walking and words, but the sounds of desperation in their strides were enough to shout 'faster'. When the ceiling of the cavern shrunk and they were all forced to hunch and stumble forwards, a faint light finally showed them the way.

Moonlight, thankfully, called them to an exit, buried in overgrowth. Hands were used as claws, the exit was unearthed, and the muddied, sweat-soaked, exhausted tunnel crawlers gasped in the fresh air and hauled themselves out into the night.

Roze, with her pacified baby wrapped against her chest, was the first to exit, followed by Fletcher, who helped haul his brother out with Maria Ross draped over his back. In the grassy, weedy, semi-forested hillside overlooking the southern lake outside Xenotime, Roze unwrapped her child and laid him in the cool grass and Russel did the same for Maria on her back, before face planting himself into the earth.

The collection of exhausted people sat quietly and breathed in the lake-side air.

Wriggling up to his knees, Russel popped a few buttons of his shirt, slid the soaked piece of clothing off over his head, tossed it into the grass, and resumed laying down on his stomach, "That was absolutely awful."

"I feel so gross," Roze finally laid down on her back.

Breathing on his hands and knees, Fletcher looked from his brother to Roze, and then down the remaining hillside to the wide lake below. The younger brother forced himself back onto his feet, staggered over to Roze, and picked up the damp wrap her child had been tied to her with.

"Can I borrow this?"

"Of course," she nodded.

Fletcher made his way to his elder brother and picked up his soaked shirt, "I'll be back in a minute."

Nobody had the energy to question him, they simply let him go.

The sound of Fletcher's feet vanished into the brush, replaced by far too many crickets and a squirrel or two through the trees.

"How the hell did we manage to get out?" Russel eventually asked the earth.

Roze laughed, softly, but cynically, "I promise you, if Dante had wanted us caught, we would have been."

He managed a light chuckle, "So instead she chases us into the unfinished mine shafts and leaves us for either death or whatever this death feeling is."

After a few deep breaths, Roze looked up into the moonlight filtering in through the trees. She asked the stars an unanswerable question, "What happened that made her lose interest in us…?"

The sound of movement in the brush startled both Russel and Roze. They sat up and looked down the slope, watching in relief as Fletcher slogged his way back up.

Russel narrowed an eye, "You're soaked."

The shirtless boy with soaked rags over his shoulder heaved his baggy pants along as he walked, "The lake was so nice."

With a huge sigh, Russel put his face back into the dirt, "I don't have the energy to go down there."

Fletcher walked up to Roze and wound her lake-soaked baby's wrap around her neck with a tired grin and left the ends in her hands, watching as the woman laid back and drained it into her face and hair. His brother's lake washed shirt was returned to him, spread out over his back as he flinched at the chilly lake water. Fletcher sat down with Maria, who seemed to have passed out, and wrapped his soggy shirt around her neck as well, squeezing out the ends over her face and hair. He looked up when Roze's baby began to squawk as his mother wrapped him in the cooled cloth.

"What do we do now?" Fletcher's hand moved his damp hair off his forehead.

"Is it safe to spend much time here on the hillside?" Roze asked the boys.

"It's fine," Russel garbled into the ground, "unless you're afraid of mountain goats, we have some of those that come down here. But, it's just squirrels and regular critters otherwise."

"We need to get Ms. Ross some help though," the younger brother's concern grew.

Russel rolled over, taking his damp shirt and wiping it over his face as he sat up, "When we're feeling up for it, we'll head over to the train tracks and walk the tracks across after the last train's gone through tomorrow evening. Bramleah is the closest town once we're across, it's a bit of a hike, but there should be a doctor in town and a post office or something with a phone we can use."

Sighing, Fletcher's concerned gaze held fast over their wounded officer, "Guess we don't have much of a choice."

"Not really," Russel grumbled.

"Fletcher," Roze called, "can I ask a huge favour of you?"

He shuffled over to her, "Of course."

Wrapped in the damp cloth, Roze passed her son off to the younger Tlingum, "Can you take him down to the lake and wash him up please, we haven't had a chance lately."

"Oh, yeah yeah, of course," he grinned and wrapped the baby up in his arms, "I'll be back in a bit."

Watching his brother run off again, Russell ran his cool shirt around his neck with a grin, "He's having a good time playing big brother."

Roze sighed, "I'm so sorry I'm imposing so much on you, but thank you."

"What?" Russell wrinkled his nose, "don't worry about it. It's just a shame we couldn't get you out with the Hughes'."

"The conversations I had needed to happen, unfortunately," Roze pulled up her legs and wrapped her hands around them, "Dante's biggest weapon is everyone's ignorance. It's how she's lived for so long. It's how she's corrupted this country from the shadows. The more people who know, the harder it'll be for her to move, maneuver, manipulate, and cover it all up. Taking away Dante's cloaks and forcing her out into her chess board is how they'll find success."

Looking down at Maria, a frown found Russel, "Did you ever fully come out of it? What she'd done to you?"

"Dante groomed me for a bit, but never fully finished, so sometimes I feel like I'm a little out of step, like I'm waiting for some external confirmation of my thoughts," Roze shrugged, "it slows me down a little occasionally, but it's not something I can't manage," her focus fell onto Dante's latest victim, "Maria though, I'm worried it might be different. If Dante tried to get into her mind, I'm not sure how that'll affect her long term."

Russell grew curious, "You just came out of it though, right? Like a stupor?"

"I did, yes," Roze nodded.

Russell paused before asking, "What snapped it?"

Roze's gaze returned to the overnight sky as she thought back to a memory that felt much farther away than it actually was, before looking back at him, "I watched Ed die."

Midnight's silence fell between them as Russell stared back, uncertain if he'd heard her right or if her statement wasn't meant to be taken at face value. His head slowly tilting, Russell's perplexed look quickly grew more concerned as he tried to piece his parts of the story together.

"I'm missing something, aren't I?"

Roze giggled, "Yes, you are. Don't worry too much about it."

Sweeping his damp shirt over his face again, Russell struggled to take in what she'd said, "That's a tall order…"

With a smile, Roze laid back down in the hillside grass, "I think it's best if we simply keep standing and moving forwards, everything else will sort itself out."

To Be Continued…

Author's Notes:

Hohenheim used the Elric surname beyond the Gate, but he didn't mind being on a first name basis with most everyone, including students. However, he was officially addressed as 'Professor Elric' in Germany and occasionally in London. Ed died a little inside lol.

Ed's pretty much run his own show the last five and a half years (since he gave the middle finger to his dad for most things). Ed arguing with Mustang will always read as normal. Ed arguing with Al doesn't hold, because Al can still diffuse his brother. Ed arguing with Izumi exposes his ill behaviour.

The explanation Tilly gave, and that Ed glazed over, when she said she'd helped Winry adjust her corset, was 'she'd bloomed'.

Comments:

;A; thank you so much to everyone excited to see this come back. I hope you enjoy it!

Miss Woodford - I'm not sure if you got my DM, but AO3 is short for 'Archive of Our Own', it's an alternate fanfiction platform that offers a bit more customization :)