SHONEN ALLIANCE

RE:BIRTH

OPENING THEME: GOLDEN TIME LOVER (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood)

Vine silently cursed as he ran through every option he could think of under pressure, but none seemed especially viable. For now, he had to keep a level head and see how things played out.

General Graham had a soldier fetch him a chair and had it set up so he could sit face to face with Ruby.

"Now," he began, "I was under the impression that your lot all went off back to the second star from the right, or wherever it was you came from. Was that a mistaken impression?"

"She's going to have a tricky time answering your questions, considering… you know," Vine spoke up, indicating Ruby's gag.

Graham signaled one of the guards who ungagged Ruby.

"I won't tell you anything!?" Ruby shouted, donning a defiant expression as she stared down her interrogator.

"You little bitch," Graham surprised everyone with a sudden burst of anger, rising to his feet and knocking his chair over as he drew his side arm, driving it into Ruby's forehead. The red clad huntress's expression shifted instantly from defiance to panic as Graham menaced her.

"I suggest you start talking before I lose my patience!"

"Who taught you how to interrogate?" Vine saw an opportunity and pounced, stepping towards Ruby and Graham.

"What?" Graham demanded angrily, "don't forget who's in charge here!"

"What do you do if she decides she still won't talk? If you blow her head off, you'll cost us both a valuable source of information and an irreplaceable hostage. Considering what her presence here suggests we're up against, we can't afford either."

"I WILL NOT BE UNDERMINED BY YOU!" he roared rounding on Vine and pointing his pistol at the Alchemist.

"Calm down, General," Vine held his hands up to placate the man, suppressing a smile as he continued to bait the General.

"Do you want to know something, 'Brigadier General'," Graham hissed, speaking Vine's rank in a mocking tone, "there's quite a bit of talk among Amestris's top brass after you executed Hughes. Many of them seem to think you ought to be brought in on our plans. That you'd make a valuable asset to us!"

Vine barely managed to suppress a look of surprise. This bumbling buffoon had just suggested he knew the nature of the plot that his friends and he had been working tirelessly to unravel, and Vine had his blood boiling. If he played this right, there was every chance this could turn into an unexpected boon.

"Our plan? You mean the transmutation circle? Don't look so surprised, even if I don't know what it's supposed to do yet, I'm still a State Alchemist. Figuring out what it was supposed to be wasn't difficult."

Vine didn't miss the confused look that passed between the soldiers. They had no idea what the two were talking about, and considering the lengths their foes had gone too to silence Hughes, the risk factor of this ploy had just increased exponentially. Still, he pressed forward.

"Haven't figured out what it was for yet? Guess you're not as clever as they say."

"What, and I'm supposed to buy that they let a fool like you know the details? Don't make me laugh."

"You smug bastard," the General hissed, his body trembling with anger, "talk all you want. It won't change anything. Soon, you'll be dead and I'll be immortal!"

The Fifth Laboratory came to mind, where the Elrics had come face to face with several infamous serial killers whose souls had been trapped in suits of armor, among them the then recently arrested and supposedly executed Barry the Chopper. At the time, it had raised no small number of questions.

Now, a few answers slid into place. Amestris's top leadership were seeking to gain immortality.

"Is that what the experiments at the fifth were about? You're planning to bind your souls to armor? Yeah, you'd technically be immortal at that point, but a friend of mine can attest that's no way to live."

"Fool, we won't need suits of armor! We'll live forever in our true, undying bodies!"

Fear gripped Vine's heart as the pieces finally began to fall into place. Suddenly, all the concerns that had haunted him since this mess had first been brought to his attention found their rationale. Still tied to her seat, Ruby bit her lip when she saw Vine beginning to tremble.

"You can't mean… that can't be right. The few hundred you've killed wouldn't be enough. To pull that off on the scale you're talking about would require…"

"Thousands," Graham gloated, drinking in the horror in Vine's eyes, "I'm certain you've heard of Xerxes. The great civilization that vanished over night! Well, after the eclipse is over, I imagine the rest of the world will begin telling the same stories about Amestris.

Gordon was to busy reveling in the horror his revelation had created to register that Vine had drawn his blade. By the time he did realize it, the tip of the blade had carved a deep gash into his throat, and he was on the ground, gurgling in shock as he bled out.

His first instinct was what it had been his entire life, to complain. To whine that this wasn't fair, that he was supposed to become immortal. He tried to give his gripes a voice, but his vocal chords were to severed to form the words, and so instead, he was left silent as darkness overtook him.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

The soldiers were dumbstruck. No one moved as Vine cleaned and sheathed his blade.

"Send for the Führer," Vine ordered, "and if you men don't want to share the General's fate, I suggest you forget everything you just heard." Vine looked down pitifully at the fallen General, "and get him out of my sight."

The soldiers thankfully decided to carry out Vine's orders, rushing out of the room, two of them dragging the slain General Graham behind them. Vine let out a sigh as he wondered towards the nearest wall, leaned against it, and slid down the wall to his seat, resting his head in his hands.

"Uhh, Vine… are you alright?" Ruby asked, "what was all of that about?"

Vine replied with another deep sigh before raising his head to meet Ruby's concerned gaze.

"It's not the first time I've had to kill someone, kid," Vine admitted, "It's what he told us that has me worried."

"Uhh, right… what exactly did he tell us? I didn't understand any of that."

"Yeah, can't say I'm surprised," Vine admitted, "the specifics are probably a bit over your head, but the important part is that they're planning on essentially gaining immortality by committing genocide against our entire country. Not even in our worst nightmares could we have predicted just how bad our situation is."

"Sooo, maybe we should call back the others?"

She had a point. The crisis was beyond anything Vine and his friends could ever have predicted, and all things considered, they were likely in over their heads. After a moments thought, he relented.

"I'll need your help sorting out this little Graham problem, but once that's sorted, then yeah, we should probably see about calling in the cavalry."

"Alright, sooo are you going to untie me?"

"Uhhh, about that…"

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Back at Central, in a secret bunker Mustang had had set up for his schemes, Aliasse, Mizore, and Neptune were quickly growing bored. Barry the Chopper had proven surprisingly amicable once he'd been brought before Mustang. It was possible the apprehending heroines had misjudged the outstanding character of the man who referred to himself as "the infamous serial killer, Barry the Chopper", though it was far more likely he didn't want to be encased in ice again. Whatever the case, he was sitting at a table opposite of Havoc, whose hot coffee had turned cold as he waited for Barry to make a chess move that was even remotely legal.

"He's worse then that girl Vine was playing with," Aliasse groaned.

"Can you play?" Mizore asked.

"No."

"Man, of course the one time I forget my handheld," Neptune yawned as she sprawled over an uncomfortable couch, "how long do we have to keep this up?"

A sound at the door, too quiet for the others to hear, caught Aliasse's ear and she rose, tensing as her eyes flashed blood red.

Havoc began to ask if something was wrong, but only got as far as "some…" before the door cracked open and a flash bomb rolled in.

The blinding light and smoke that followed stunned everyone in the room, forcing them to shield their eyes. Aliasse recovered first and blue flames surged around her as she faced their assailant. Her flames instantly extinguished and her expression shifted to a mixture of surprise and irritability.

"Hey, I was right!" Ling Yao excitably boasted, "you're that little Valkyria girl who followed around the Darcsen Colonel. Aniasse, right?"

"You're that annoying jerk with the ninja girl! PING!"

"Uhh… Ling," Ling repeated, "and wait, are you saying Lan Fan is the one you actually remember? Not sure how that makes me feel."

"Sooo, are you gonna just ignore that he called you Aniasse? Seriously, the fact you didn't acknowledge that probably has the poor reader thinking that was just a typo," Neptune inquired, a wicked smile crossing her face, "yeah that's right. Sorry, SHONEN ALLIANCE fans, but no fourth wall is safe once Nep's on the scene."

"Who's she talking too?" Barry asked, prompting both Havoc and Mizore to shrug.

"What do you want?" Aliasse hissed, her flame reappearing as she tensed for a fight!

"Whoa! Truce! I'm on your side!"

"Got a funny way of showing it," Mizore admitted coldly.

"Seriously, who flashbangs someone if their supposed to be on their side!" Neptune pointed out.

"Okay, sure, but I didn't know for certain it was you guys, so I had to make sure!"

"Coulda just knocked." Despite Ling's expression remaining good natured, Havoc got the impression Neptune was striking nerves with laser precision. Based on the short time he'd known the self-proclaimed goddess, he could relate.

"Look I'm just trying to find the Elrics. I figured if I'd found you, eventually you'd go back to Vine, and eventually he'd lead me to the Elrics, understand?"

"That plan hinges on a lot of eventuallies," Neptune remarked.

"Of course, maybe you guys can help me out," Ling suggested, resolving to ignore Neptune, "I just wanna ask your armored friend here a few questions.

"Absolutely not," Havoc declared without hesitation.

"Ah come on, you don't even know what I was going to ask," Ling protested.

"I can guess," Havoc declared, "and it's nothing you need to know."

"Well, that's just rude," Ling protested, "I…" he cut off instantly as Aliasse tensed again. The Valkyria's fine tuned battle senses had noticed it seconds before the Xingese prince had.

"Something…" Havoc had been about to ask what was wrong when Barry shuddered.

"What the… I'm getting the chills…"

"I mean, you were frozen in a block of ice earlier today, so I'm not surprised," Neptune admitted.

"Except if his body is like Al's," Aliasse observed.

"Right, I can't even feel stuff like that," Barry confirmed.

That was when the window exploded, showering glass all over the safe house.

CLOSING THEME: KIMI NO NAMAE (Rising of the Shield Hero)