Part two of the double-update! Getting through Liore here - and I'll be stitching it back together with Brotherhood very soon. Any commentary on my manipulation of the timelines? I know it's unorthodox but I had some events in my head I really badly wanted to apply, so it required me to adjust things a little. How has that been flowing for you guys? Let me know what you think, and enjoy!


"Right, I double-checked the connection. I can feel the electricity flowing out, so if Al's gotten ahold of the bell, then we're all good." Lissa dusted her hands off and leaned into Cornello's desk beside Ed, closing her eyes for a moment. She couldn't trace the feeling of electricity very far past the window, her range was pretty limited, but it was enough to be able to sense the pathway the connection took. "You know, I probably don't tell you enough how much it means to me that you and Al don't think I'm completely crazy. Or too weird to keep around."

Edward bumped her shoulder with his own. "Too weird to keep around? Nah, no way, Liss. I mean, at first I guess it was a little strange, adjusting to the whole thing, but at this point…" He grinned at her. "It's just helpful. And we care way too much about you to dump you off somewhere."

She poked two fingers into his side, making him scrunch his face up. "Well, at least I'm not only useful."

"Oh, shut it."

Sighing, she tugged at the edge of his ruined tank top, watching a faint blush creep over his cheeks as she shifted closer to him. In the past year or so, she'd noticed him acting weird about physical proximity sometimes, but she'd tried not to pay too much attention. "Ugh, this is going to take a little extra material to fix," she mused. "And your cloak…don't even get me started on your cloak."

He winced and hunched his shoulders up. "You'll help me fix it though, right?"

"Do I ever say no to you?" she teased, giving a little tug to the antenna of hair sticking up from his head.

"No, but you do mess with me," he snickered as he batted her hand away.

"Just because it's easy."

He went to snap some reply, but she pressed a hand into his chest to stop him. Lissa's whole body tensed up as a sensation rolled across the back of her neck—that same thick iron-copper deluge of wrong that she'd felt from Cornello's ring before. "He's coming," she murmured.

Ed looked up at her sharply. "You can feel it?"

"I feel his ring. Ask me when we're not enacting the final stages of your plan, yeah?"

"Good point."

Footsteps pounded down the hall—and Father Cornello himself skidded into view, stomping into the office angrily. "There you are, you infernal brats!" he snapped.

Edward rolled his eyes. "Look, can we just cut the crap and talk here? All we want are some straight answers about the stone. Tell us what we need to know, and we'll be on our way."

"Or we could always get the military involved, if you'd prefer," Lissa added with a smirk.

Cornello knew immediately they had him—he had to be an idiot not to notice Alphonse was missing, so he'd assume they had a way to contact the military if this conversation went poorly. Still, it was nice to see he wasn't that observant. He'd completely missed the newly-transmuted microphone sitting at his feet. So Ed had been right. This guy really was just an amateur.

He let out a strangled cry, agitated, but finally he nodded and shut the door behind him. "Fine. Ask your questions."

Ed sat forward and eyed him. "You could do anything you want with the Philosopher's Stone, right? So why waste all that power performing your stupid phony miracles? What's the point of that exactly?"

It was almost too slimy to handle when Cornello grinned at the question. "Because with each miracle, I can attract new believers to the order—believers who would lay down their lives for my sake! I'm slowly building an army! A legion of holy warriors, unafraid to die! And in a few more years, I'll be ready to unleash my mindless horde upon the world!" He laughed and took a step forward, as though he were trying to menace them into submission. "I'll use the Philosopher's Stone to tear this country apart! Who knows? I might even carve out a slice for you, if you're obedient enough!"

Lissa glanced sideways at Edward as Cornello began to laugh—she broke first, and Ed followed, both dissolving into peals of laughter. It was just so ridiculous. The man thought he was a full-blown super-villain or something!

"Wait, what are you two laughing about?" Cornello asked, cutting off his own laughter.

Ed grinned crookedly at him. "I knew it. You really are a novice, aren't you?" And with that, he held up the big, obvious on-off switch he'd had sitting beside him the entire time.

Lissa snickered to herself as Cornello began to put the pieces together, looking between the microphone, the switch in Ed's hand, and the wires stretching across the room and out the window. It was like he could see his whole world crumbling down around him, knocked into pieces by a couple of teenagers. Just beautiful.

"Y-you don't mean that… Why you… How long? How long has that been on?!" Cornello demanded.

"From the start," Ed told him smugly. "Your believers heard every word."

Lissa giggled and pressed a hand to her mouth. "Thanks for the great performance, Father. We couldn't have said it better ourselves."

"How could you?" he snarled, brandishing his cane at them. "You'll pay dearly for this!" Cornello's Philosopher's Stone ring shone with red light as he transmuted his cane—but Ed was faster, leaping off the desk and transmuting his automail on the fly. He slashed clean through Cornello's new weapon before the fraud ever got a chance to use it.

"Sorry, not today!" Ed shouted, taking a step back as half the enormous gun crashed to the floor. "Just face it. You're outclassed here!"

But Cornello wasn't listening. "I am without rival!"

Lissa slipped through the air, feeling it part around her as she moved, quicker than she could without modifying the resistance—and ducked under Cornello's incoming strike to deflect it with her leg, knocking his own transmuted weapon into his face and staggering him backwards.

Before Cornello could right himself, both Lissa and Ed had moved out of reach, Lissa slipping between air currents and Ed pulling off one of his favorite handsprings. She flicked her hair out of her face with a finger, making a mental note to tie it up next time she thought there would be a fight. Ed had the right idea—loose hair in a battle was just annoying.

"I won't allow this!" Cornello roared. He pressed his hand to the transmuted cane again, and red light bloomed from his ring as he aimed it directly at them.

Edward stepped in front of Lissa as Father Cornello's whole form was enveloped in red light—but then the fraud groaned in pain and the light faded, revealing Cornello grasping at his right arm, where the metal had fused horribly with his flesh.

"It's a rebound!" Ed hissed.

"No! I won't be disgraced like this!" Cornello cried, sweat beading along his forehead even as red energy crackled all around him, enveloping him in flares of light. "Now, children, behold—the chosen emissary of the Sun God Leto!"

Before their eyes, Cornello began to grow, rising up as his body shifted sizes, expanding into an enormous, monstrous version of himself.

He swung his rebound-laden fist at them, and Lissa grabbed Ed under his arms, wrapping her arm across his middle and pressing in tight against him. He lifted his automail arm to protect them as she drew air in between them and the wall with a twist of her free hand. The air cushioned the two just enough to keep her from slamming directly into the wall when Cornello's giant fist landed, though they crashed through anyway, tumbling out into the chapel amid the debris.

"This is so not good!" Lissa yelped, as she rolled to her feet and twisted to face the behemoth.

Ed grunted as he leapt out of Cornello's way, narrowly avoiding a fist directly to the face. "You freaking think?!"

She flung herself backwards when Cornello came at them again, feet over her head, and landed just in time to see Ed catch his attack against his automail again. "My word is the divine word of God himself!" the mutated Cornello roared, leering down at them with inhuman, eerie red eyes. Lissa had a split second of what he felt like—steel and wood and blood and sickness—but she was too focused on Ed's plight to really take it in.

Cornello snarled and shoved in against Ed harder, and Lissa dug her feet in and pressed back, forcing everything she could gather up against his strength—but even that wasn't enough. "My fist is the almighty fist of judgment!"

"Oh, yeah? The fist of God, huh?" Ed glanced back at Lissa and caught her gaze, and she nodded. She had his back. "Well if that's what you want…" He shoved once against Cornello's arm and rolled away, springing to his feet and racing towards the statue of Leto standing at the altar nearby, bringing his hands together as he went. "…then you can have it!"

Lissa sank to one knee and brought her hands together, drawing in that same pocket of air and ramming it into Cornello's chest, just to keep him away from Ed. "Do it now!" she yelled.

Ed pressed both palms at the base of the statue. Blue alchemic energy raced upwards, scurrying out Leto's arm—and the hand transmuted, stretching out and curling into a fist bigger than Cornello's body itself. It caught Cornello midair and knocked him across the chapel, finally slamming him into the floor as his body shrank back to its normal size. Whatever he'd done to himself had faded, apparently, judging by the spider-webs of red energy Lissa saw.

"Careful," she tried to warn Ed, even as he strode forward, chasing Cornello down. But it was useless. He was on a damn warpath.

Cornello sobbed as Edward yanked him up by his head and rammed his own head down, breaking the man's nose instantly. "Shut up!" he snarled, shaking him. "Just give me the Philosopher's Stone! Now!"

As Lissa watched, the bright red stone in Cornello's ring dulled, the sense of blood and heaviness fading from the air as it rolled free of its setting and fell to the ground. It shattered against the stone, crumbling into tiny, fragile pieces. She knelt down to retrieve them, baffled, but the pieces suddenly disintegrated and drifted away, leaving nothing behind.

"What the hell?" Ed breathed. "The stone… It can't be… It's supposed to be perfect material! How did it just break like that?!"

Cornello flailed his arms in shock. "I—I don't know! I don't know anything about it!" Then, quailing under Ed's fierce glare, he began to beg, "Spare me! Please! I-I was wrong, I beg of you, please!"

Ed's face just fell. "It's a damn fake," he whispered, rising to his feet.

Lissa jumped up beside him and touched his shoulder. "Ed…"

Still collapsed on the floor, Cornello grabbed at her trouser leg and begged her, "Please, please don't leave! I'm helpless without the stone! Spare me!"

"You mean, we went through all this…risked our lives just for this one possible chance…and it's a fake?" Edward groaned and turned away, pressing both hands over his face in despair. Lissa's heart went out to him—he and Al were convinced they needed the Philosopher's Stone to get their bodies back, after years of research, and this was the first real lead they'd had since beginning their search. And it had led to a fake. She hadn't even realized a fake could exist, especially since this one had felt so particular and actually aided Cornello's abilities.

"Hey." She draped her arm across his shoulders and pulled him in tightly. "Come on, let's go find Al and get the hell out of this stupid town. Okay?"

Edward sighed and nodded, tipping his head to lean on her shoulder. "I guess so, yeah."

"So, uh…what about me?" Cornello asked, still lying flat on the floor.

"I don't care what the hell you do!" Ed snarled at him. "Just get out of here!"

Cornello yelped and scrambled away, crawling through the debris frantically just to get the hell away from them.

Lissa tightened her fingers on Ed's automail as she felt him sag against her. "I know it sucks," she told him quietly, "but you can't give up. I mean…look at it this way." She tugged him with her as she headed for the door, glad when he didn't resist. "Why would somebody go to the trouble of creating a fake one if the real one didn't exist somewhere, right? And Cornello obviously believed his was real. If you ask me…all that points to a real Philosopher's Stone existing out there somewhere. We just have to find it."

He cracked a faint smile and wrapped his arm around her waist in return. "I hope you're right, Liss. I really hope so."

"Hey, don't doubt me so much, huh?" she teased, trying to get him to smile more. She hated seeing him get so down on himself. "This was our first big lead, but it won't be the last. You can't let it knock you down so fast, Ed."

"I don't doubt you," he told her honestly. "Never."

They left the church behind and met up with Alphonse at the front, as the sun was just setting beyond the horizon. "Lissa! Brother!" Al called, hurrying up the steps towards them. "You're okay! I saw the explosion, I got worried…"

Ed waved a hand at him passively. "We're fine, Al. Cornello decided to push himself a little too far, his transmutation rebounded and we had to put him in his place. But nothing bad happened."

"That's good, at least. And…" Al hesitated, shifting uncertainly as he asked, "What about the stone?"

"Phony," Ed spat. "Just like him."

"Oh," Al murmured sadly.

Sighing, Ed approached him and tapped his automail on Al's chest sadly. "I'm sorry, Al. For a while there I really thought we had a way to get your body back."

Lissa grabbed both their shoulders and shook them slightly. "Hey, remember what I said? I think seeing a fake stone means there really has to be a Philosopher's Stone out there somewhere. It's just a matter of tracking it down. If a fake can do all that, then surely a real one could get your bodies back, don't you think?"

Click.

All three turned at once to look at Rose, who stood at the top of the stairs, trembling, pointing a gun directly at Ed. "Give me the Philosopher's Stone!" she sobbed.

Al lifted a hand towards her. "Rose…don't…"

"Like I was just saying," Edward began sharply, "it was a fake. It wasn't real. Besides, it's shattered now. There's nothing we can do."

"Liar!" she accused. "You want to keep it for yourself, don't you?! So you can use it on your bodies! That's right! I know what you want, I saw you!"

Lissa crossed her arms. "Nobody's lying, Rose. It's the truth."

Rose shook her head fiercely, and swung the gun around to point at Lissa instead. Immediately, Ed flung his arm out and put himself in its path, though Lissa caught his shirt and tried to tug him out of the way. She hated his sense of chivalry sometimes!

"It can't be!" Rose was sobbing in earnest now, her hands shaking. "You kept it! You're selfish, all of you! A-and you'll try to bring your mother back again, too!"

Ed's whole body flinched. "You shut up!" he snarled. But then his expression crumbled, and Lissa felt the cold, heavy blanket of sadness settle on her shoulders. "People don't come back from the dead, Rose. Not ever. Not ever."

Lissa moved to his side as Rose crumpled to the flagstones, the gun clattering out of her hand. "But he promised me," she whispered brokenly, staring down at her own hands as though she didn't recognize them anymore. "He said if I prayed, it would happen… A miracle… That hope was all I had left!"

With a heavy sigh, Ed began walking, Lissa and Al following suit without a word. There was nothing left for them to do here in Liore, Lissa knew. Not as far as the boys were concerned.

"What am I supposed to believe in now?" Rose begged them, as they passed her and began walking down the church steps, tilting her face up to the sky. "Tell me what to do…please… I don't know what to do…"

Ed paused a moment, though he didn't turn to look at her. "I can't tell you that. You have to figure it out for yourself." He shoved his hands into his pockets and continued on, shoulders low, his gaze distant. "Stand up and walk…keep moving forward… You've got two good legs, so use them. You're strong enough to make your own path."

Lissa caught herself glancing down at his exposed automail leg. She'd grown so used to the boys that she hardly thought anything of it—Ed's automail and Al's armor body weren't shocking anymore. It was just…them. But she knew it wasn't like that for everyone.

Every time he was outed as missing two limbs, having full automail replacements for both, Lissa had to watch his self-esteem take a hit. Ed didn't like showing that—he preferred acting like nothing ever bothered him. But she knew better. People like Rose…they weren't used to seeing automail, didn't grow up around the military and see prosthetics every day, so maybe it was natural to be a little surprised. But the disgust… The judgement… Lissa didn't see an excuse for that. Having automail didn't make Edward any less of a person, no matter what some people seemed to think.

She reached up and wrapped her left arm around his right, and tugged him in by the exposed automail, making him look up at her in confusion. But she just smiled and didn't say a word—she didn't really think she needed to for him to understand.

Lissa woke up to Ed shaking her frantically, his anxious face only a few inches away, realizing she was covered in cold sweat and trembling just a bit. "Wh-what happened?" she asked. My mouth is so dry. Why's my mouth so dry? Was I having a nightmare?

"You were crying in your sleep," Al told her softly, from where he stood behind Ed nervously.

Ed didn't release her shoulders, his fingers digging into her skin almost painfully. But she didn't mind. It was grounding her. "I think you had a nightmare," he explained. "I…I was trying to wake you up, but… Are you okay? It must've been something pretty bad this time."

She averted her gaze as shame burned on her cheeks. Lissa had nightmares from time to time, just like Edward did—but whereas he'd admitted his were about the things he and Al had suffered before, she'd never been able to figure out what exactly hers were about. She didn't have many memories from before her parents were killed, during the Ishvalan Civil War. The doctor she'd seen in Central hypothesized she had mild amnesia, or at least some kind of PTSD from the experiences she'd supposedly had. But Lissa remembered very little of it.

She knew, or rather she'd been told, that her parents were killed by Ishvalan insurrectionists during the war. That's what the soldiers who came for her said. Both her parents were accomplished alchemists, and she knew they had both been asked to become state alchemists several times—but instead they'd focused their efforts elsewhere, and had eventually been roped into the Ishvalan Civil War, to help evacuate people from the southern and eastern cities threatened by the war.

Lissa's nightmares centered mostly around fires, sparkling blue light like her own alchemy usage, and the sickly-sweet smell of blood. Different than the feeling of blood. None of it meant anything to her, but it always left her terrified and feeling so very, very embarrassed. Like it was her fault for having nightmares, for not knowing why she had them, which meant she couldn't even do anything to feel better about it. No amount of consoling from the boys had ever really banished that feeling that she was somehow lesser just because of her nightmares.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Ed asked quietly, finally releasing her shoulders and instead resting his hands on her knees, like he was trying to steady her.

She shook her head. "No, I'm okay. Thank you, though." Lissa brushed a lock of damp hair from her face and peered out the window, trying to distract herself from the images still flitting through her head. "How close are we to East City now?"

"Less than half an hour out. We need to report to Mustang first, and then…" Edward and Alphonse shared an uncertain look. "Al and I were thinking… I mean… Nina's gravestone is here."

Lissa clenched her hands on her trouser legs and nodded. The Tuckers had been buried out here in East City, considering this had been their hometown before relocating to Central, and from what Lissa knew a distant cousin or something to that effect had asked for their bodies to be buried here. In the three years since that incident, they'd never gone to visit Nina's gravestone, not once. It had been too painful to even consider.

"It's time," she agreed quietly. "You're right. We should go."

Slowly, like he was afraid to startle her, Edward moved to sit on the bench beside her and tucked one leg under himself, leaving his automail dangling off the edge. Lissa smiled at the position. It was familiar, just sitting with the boys like this, Ed curled at some uncomfortable-looking angle and Al watching over them both, taking a train going…somewhere. She sometimes thought she'd spent more time on trains in the past few years than off. The sense of familiarity helped calm her, though, soothing the nightmare from her mind as they approached East City.

The train pulled into the station and all three hopped out, Lissa stretching her back and trailing the boys as they exited the station. "One thing's for sure," she muttered, staring up at the cloudy sky irritably, "I'm not looking forward to seeing Mustang again. It's been nice not seeing his stupid face recently."

Ed turned to look back at her with a grimace. "You can say that again. He's gonna be all snooty because we didn't get the stone again, too."

"Maybe we can try to avoid him for this year's assessment," Lissa suggested.

"Good idea." Ed swung his suitcase over his shoulder and sighed deeply. "We'd better get this over with, I guess. He'll be even worse if we put it off."

Lissa didn't see a way out, so she just nodded her agreement and hurried to catch up. She really didn't want to see Mustang right now, riding in the wake of another failure, but there was no choice—he was Ed's commanding officer, in charge of all their assignments, and he required debriefings after every major event. Liore had been a major event, she knew it, no matter how she might try and twist it around.

They went straight to East HQ and up to Mustang's outer office, where his team was set up, all working diligently. Lissa had no issues with them—his team was much nicer than he was. They came in amid Master Sergeant Kain Fuery complaining about the receiver on his radio not working, prompting Ed to simply wander up and fix it himself with a quick burst of alchemy.

"Huh?" Fuery looked up in surprise. "Oh, hey! Look who's back!"

Riza smiled at them from her spot at the shared desk, seeming genuinely pleased to see them. "Welcome back, you three. The boys didn't give you any trouble, did they, Lissa?"

"No more than usual," Lissa laughed. "And Mustang hasn't run you into the ground yet, Riza? I'm surprised."

The First Lieutenant gave a friendly roll of her eyes. "Speaking of the Colonel, he's expecting you all. In fact, he was expecting you quite a bit earlier… I suppose you got held up in Liore a bit longer than you thought?"

Ed groaned and passed a hand over his face. "Bet he's in a great mood, then. Wish us luck."

Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc smirked and flicked off a two-fingered salute. "Best of luck, chief. Try not to die in there."

"Thanks," Ed grumbled.

Lissa nudged him forward, and he consented to cross the room and push the door open to the inner office. Mustang sat at his desk, handling paperwork as usual, though he deigned to look up as the three trooped inside. "Ah, so you made it back after all. I was beginning to wonder if you'd stay in Liore another night."

Ed rolled his eyes and tossed his report down on Mustang's desk, before sinking onto one of the couches set in front of the desk and crossing his legs. "Obviously we didn't."

"Obviously," Mustang agreed absently, as he thumbed through the report.

Lissa settled opposite Alphonse, meeting his gaze and lifting her eyebrows. She didn't appreciate Mustang's involvement in her life—but she could appreciate the entertainment of his interactions with Ed. Those two were always at each other's throats.

"It's all in there," Edward told him, looking up and scowling faintly. "Including my recommendation that Lissa take her state exams already. As always."

She stuck out her foot and nudged his shoe with her own, smiling at him. Over the past three years, Edward had included that recommendation in every single report he filed, without fail. It meant a lot to her, although he complained wildly that nobody ever listened to him. For Lissa, just the fact that he kept trying was enough, for the time being at least. Besides, she had less than a year left before they had to let her take her exams.

"Yes, I can see that," the Colonel noted. "Well, it looks like you three did a good job in Liore. Nice work. I appreciate you resolving the matter."

Ed rolled his eyes. "No big deal. S'not like we did it for you, anyway."

"Right." Mustang lifted his eyes from the paper. "The Philosopher's Stone. Another false lead, then?"

"Yeah, after all that the stone was a fake. Even so…" Ed clenched his fist tightly. "The power it gave Cornello was real enough. He'd transmuted this huge chimera using its power, and he had the whole city just eating out of his palm… The stone he had allowed him to bypass Equivalent Exchange and transmute organic matter into inorganic matter."

"I see why you thought he had the real thing, then. It's a shame it didn't pan out."

Ed glanced up at Lissa thoughtfully. "Liss pointed something out, though. Just the fact that somebody bothered to manufacture a fake stone, and the power it gave Cornello, means it's that much more likely a real one exists somewhere. Why bother to make such a convincing fake unless you're distracting from the real thing?"

Mustang nodded, apparently agreeing with that, which was a first. He usually liked to disagree if only to play devil's advocate. "That's a good point, actually. Even so… Liore was a dead end. Do you have any leads on where to go next?"

"Not yet," Al told him, shrugging. "But we're thinking about heading back to Central next."

"I see. Well, I don't have any new orders for you just yet, so feel free to go. But watch yourselves," Mustang warned sharply. "Just the other day, someone in Central killed the Iron Blood Alchemist."

Lissa stared at him in shock. "Somebody killed Basque Grand? How?"

His eyes narrowed. "That's still under investigation, so I'm afraid I can't share many details just yet. All we know is that a man with an x-shaped scar on his face was sighted leaving the scene immediately after. I wouldn't worry about him here, but… Still, you three should be careful if you return to Central after this."