And here's another chapter, because I'm impatient and there's a LOT of material to get through. I do have some of this written up already - but it's literally in one huge, long document with chapters just denoted, so I have to go in and copy out each chapter... Not the most...efficient way to do it but it flows the most naturally for me. Aaaaaanyway, I hope you enjoy this one! I know I promised long chapters but that comes later - I think one is over 20k words or something ridiculous - so for now, enjoy this quick jaunt into Lissa's mind!


"Man," Lissa muttered, as she and the boys left East HQ behind and stepped out into the rain. "Someone got the best of the Iron Blood Alchemist. I ran one mission with him, a long time ago… He was terrifying. It's hard to imagine someone actually managing to even surprise the guy, let alone hurt him. Apparently he was a major player in the Ishvalan Civil War, from what I heard."

"I wonder why they went after him, though?" Ed tugged his red hood up over his head and hunched his shoulders. Lissa knew weather like this made him ache. "State alchemists haven't been called out to do much of anything since the conflict in Ishval."

The only one not bothered by the rain, Al stepped through a growing puddle in the road without paying any attention to it. "Maybe someone had a grudge against the Brigadier General," he suggested.

"Who knows? But I don't like it. He'd be tough to kill, which says a lot about whoever killed him." Lissa sighed and tipped her head back, letting the rain pelt her face for a moment. "It's useless to go to the cemetery with the weather like this. Maybe we should grab lunch before we head out—we can pick up some flowers in town too."

Drawing his cloak around him tighter, Ed nodded sourly. "Please. I don't like being out in the rain like this, it makes my stumps ache."

Lissa wrinkled her nose at the crude word, but didn't deny him the use. She had no right to dictate that kind of thing.

They stopped in a little café nearby for lunch, drying off by the warm fire in the corner before snagging a table out of the way, on the far end of the building where Al wouldn't feel like he was on display too much. But the rain didn't show any signs of stopping all through lunch, and by the time they'd eaten and paid—and lingered until Ed got too bored to sit there any longer—it still hadn't let up much at all.

"We'll be heading out to Central tomorrow," Edward sighed. "We won't have time to stop by the cemetery before we go… Might as well handle it now, I guess. At least the weather's appropriate."

Lissa frowned at him. "Will you be all right to go?"

Ed rubbed at his shoulder, where the port for his automail sat, and nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. I'll be okay, I've had worse."

They picked up some flowers from a vendor nearby—daisies, which Lissa thought Nina would've liked—and went straight to the cemetery, walking the mostly-deserted streets with a bit of a heaviness to them. Lissa was glad there weren't many people around, at least, because the privacy would be nice. The rain had scared most everyone inside. She was…just dreading this, though. It would make everything seem so final. Part of her still thought if she went back to the estate in Central, she'd find Nina and Alexander, alive and well, not…

Murdered.

The word felt like ash at the back of her throat. Three years. Three fucking years and nobody had a clue who had killed Nina and Shou Tucker.

Lissa caught Edward's hesitation at the gate to the cemetery, so she stepped past him and pushed it open, taking that burden onto herself for him. She and Alphonse had sworn to each other, back in Youswell so long ago, that they'd look after Edward because he wouldn't do it himself. And she meant it.

"I think it's this way," Ed muttered, turning and leading them off to the right.

A few rows down, sitting unassumingly underneath a tree, was a pair of gravestones. Lissa felt a surge of rage seeing Shou Tucker's right there, beside Nina's, as though he deserved to be so close—as though he wasn't the reason that poor little girl was dead. Al seemed to have the same idea, because he moved to block Tucker's grave when they reached the two headstones, keeping his back to the second one very firmly.

Disregarding the rain, Lissa knelt before Nina's gravestone, brushing her fingertip along the dates. 1906-1911. She'd been so young, just five years old. "She didn't deserve this," she whispered, placing the flowers beneath the carving.

"No. She didn't." Ed sank to his knees beside her and bowed his head, overcome. "I feel so…useless… It feels like in three whole years we haven't done anything helpful, not one damn thing. What's the point of anything we do, huh? Why are we still even trying when—when none of it seems to matter?"

Al touched his shoulder lightly. "Because, brother… We can't give up… We owe it to ourselves, to mom…and to Nina. We've got to keep trying."

"I just hate this," he rasped. "I hate every damned part of it."

Lissa wiped at her face, unsure if she was wiping away rain or tears. "You don't have to do this alone, Ed," she told him quietly. "You have me and Al, and we're not going anywhere. We're all going to do it together, whatever it takes. I swear." She looked up at Nina's gravestone, feeling heavy all over, and pushed to her feet. "Come on. You'll feel better once we're inside."

He brushed a hand across his face and nodded, standing up and jamming his hands into his pockets. With one last backwards look at Nina's gravestone, Edward turned and walked away. And Lissa followed, Alphonse right behind her, neither willing to let him go alone.

It will make a difference, she promised herself. One day all of this is going to be worth something. It just has to be.

Despite Lissa's assertion, they didn't make it far. All the strength seemed to leave Ed before they ever reached their hotel, and he sank down at the base of a statue and dropped his head into his hands, mumbling, "I just… I just need a minute, okay?"

Lissa gently rested her hand atop his damp hair. "Ed… You'll just make yourself feel worse…"

"I just can't get it out of my head," he whispered. "I've been thinking about this for such a long time. We put all our trust in alchemy, but in the end, what even is it? 'Alchemy is the science of understanding the flow of matter and its laws; the process of comprehension, deconstruction, and reconstruction,'" he recited, purely from memory. "'The world flows, too. It must also follow laws. Everything circulates. Even death is a part of that circulation. You must accept the flow.' Our teacher sure drummed that into our heads, didn't she?" With a creak, his fingers tightened on the stone beneath him. "I thought I understood it…but I didn't understand anything, in the end. Mom proves that. Now, here I am again, trying desperately to figure out a way to do the impossible. I'm such a hopeless idiot. All this damn time, and I haven't grown up one bit."

"That's not true," Lissa asserted, crouching and taking his hands in her own. "Just the fact that you can call it impossible means you have grown up. You know better. It's normal to consider all kinds of things, even desperate, maybe horrible things, when you're hurting…" Her throat tightened painfully as she realized she was quoting Major Armstrong, recalling the words he'd spoken to her on her first night in Central. "It doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you human."

Ed sighed and tilted his head back, closing his eyes against the rain a moment before dropping his head back down. "I'd hoped the rain would make me feel better… But I'm just remembering how annoying it is. How depressing of me."

"I don't even get that much." Al followed his brother's gaze, staring up into the gloomy, grey sky. "Without a body, I can't feel the rain hitting my face. That's something I miss… All the time… I want to get my body back soon, brother. I just want to be human again. Even if it means going against the flow of the world, a-and trying to do the impossible."

Lissa had the strangest feeling come over her—the rasp of sand and burning hot sunlight, tangled up with the metallic tang of blood and the fierce burn of pure rage—moments before a low, gravelly voice spoke up behind her. "You, boy, you're the Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric, correct?"

She turned and staggered back a step, shocked that somebody had managed to sneak up on them like this. And who the hell was this guy, anyway, wearing sunglasses in the rain like this? He was nobody Lissa had ever seen before, certainly, not as far as she remembered. As she was opening her mouth to ask his business, she watched him pull his right arm back—and then curl his fingers, in clear preparation for an attack.

And Ed wasn't moving!

"Brother!" Al cried, snagging Ed by the shoulders and yanking him out of the man's path just in time.

Lissa leapt into action as well, the air around her sparking with blue transmutation energy as she summoned the ambient gases and compressed them, using that to knock the man back while she raced towards the boys. Midair, Ed came back to himself and clapped his hands together, so the moment he landed on the ground he was able to transmute a hasty wall between them and his attacker. "What the hell is going on here?!" he gasped, sitting in a heap on the wet flagstones.

Suddenly, the wall he'd transmuted exploded outward, and the man strode through the debris towards them.

In the immediate aftermath, none of them moved—until Ed finally shoved to his feet and yelled, "Al, Lissa, let's go! Run for it!"

Lissa turned and sprinted after him, hoping for an escape down the nearest flight of stairs. Maybe they could lose him among the adjacent neighborhood, if they got down there fast enough! She just hoped they made it before-

Halfway down the first set of stairs, the wall above them exploded and their attacker leapt down, dropping to the landing directly in their path. "No you don't," he growled.

They skidded to a halt, Lissa grabbing the back of Ed's cloak to keep him from sliding down towards him. The man's right hand crackled with transmutation energy as he slammed it into the stairs—destroying the bottom half of the staircase in a single gesture. That kind of power…that kind of destruction… Who was he?!

Lissa brought her hands underneath her and cushioned her fall in a burst of blue as the cement crumbled underneath her, hearing Ed cry out in fear above her. When she landed, a bit unsteadily but painlessly, she looked up to see Al had caught Edward by his left ankle and was hanging by one hand off the broken staircase.

The man pressed his hand to the wall and sent energy scurrying up towards the boys. The tenuous hold Al had was broken, and they both plummeted down towards where Lissa stood, one staircase below. She cursed and pressed her hands together, borrowing Ed's familiar pose to tighten her control—but as she pulled the air together to protect them, the force of the blast from above staggered her and she slipped at the last second, dropping to her knees just as Ed landed beside her. Still, their attacker advanced, so Ed pressed his hands to the stairs beneath them and yelled, "Grab on!"

She grabbed him around the middle while Al clung down behind them, and Ed quickly transmuted a sort of pillar jutting out from the wall, trying to just put some distance between them and this man.

But he got that horrible right hand down on the pillar and crumbled it, throwing all three into the street below. Lissa transmuted on the fly, increasing the resistance in the air beneath them as they fell, and managed to land on her feet unsteadily, boots skidding in the slick rain and oil sludge atop the stones. Ed rolled to his feet beside her, and Al landed hard behind her—then Ed grabbed her arm and yanked her forward as they sprinted down the hill, trying to escape the man still chasing them down.

"Damn it!" Ed snarled. "What the hell is this guy's problem?! Making enemies isn't something that I… Well… I never really avoided it, but there's no reason someone should be trying to kill me!"

"Then who is he?" Lissa panted, turning and following the boys as they headed down the next alleyway. "And why's he chasing us like this?! See, I told you not to give out your full name everywhere we go! This is exactly what I was worried about!"

Ed shot her a disbelieving look. "You were worried about crazy murderers tracking us down?!"

"Well—not exactly that, but still!"

Blue energy raced along the wall beside them, and Lissa staggered to a halt, ducking as the explosion filled the alley. When she lifted her head she saw Ed and Al had stopped too, stuck behind the wall of debris suddenly in their path. And behind them…

Shit. He's right there! He's so fast, how the hell did he get here so quickly?!

"Who are you, anyway?" Edward demanded from his knees, staring up at their attacker. "Why are you after us?"

The man eyed them disdainfully. "As long as there are 'creators' like you in the world, then there must also be destroyers."

Ed glared at him, finally seeming to find his backbone after all the running. "Then it looks like we're gonna have to fight!" He grabbed a broken pipe from beneath him and transmuted it with a quick clap of his hands, turning it into a blade. Lissa took his cue, along with Al, both rising up beside him and preparing. Al shifted into a fighting stance, while Lissa took hold of the air around them, trying to sense the man's movements as quickly as possible—he was fast, so she'd need to be faster. They all would.

Just as Ed moved forward, running straight for him with Lissa and Alphonse right behind him, the man smirked. "Gutsy one, aren't you?"

Lissa's heart sank. She felt him shift, opened her mouth to scream a warning, but it was too late. He slid between Ed and Al, swung his arm back, and clenched it down on Al's armored side.

"…But… Too slow."

She twisted midair and spun back around, air currents whipping around her as she forced them to move her faster, to propel her towards him—but it was too late.

Lissa was flung backwards by the force of the blast, feeling several places on her body light up in agony as shrapnel from Al's armor pierced through her flimsy clothes. She rammed into the wall behind her full-force, and though her vision blacked out, she could still feel. Lissa shoved her hands forward, ignoring the flash of white-hot pain in her abdomen, and sent the man flying into the wall opposite.

"You bastard!" Ed roared.

She lifted her head in time to see him come racing back down the alley towards the man, only to be seized by his right arm, the one clutching his transmuted weapon. Ed froze in place, trembling, held aloft by his arm. "Ed, move!" she cried out, but it was as though he hadn't heard her at all.

"You're too slow!"

Blue energy crackled along Ed's arm, and he went flying backwards, knocked clear out of the alley end over end. He knocked his cloak off his head and cursed before yanking it off entirely and tossing it aside. Then he got to his feet, his expression clouded and dark, and stared down their attacker as he strode out of the alley. When Ed transmuted his automail into a blade, Lissa felt sick. He was still going to fight. This man had half-destroyed Alphonse and injured her… It wasn't in Edward's nature to leave. He'd rather die trying to get revenge for this.

"Brother, don't!" Al begged him. "Just run away!"

Ed shook his head fiercely. "You idiot! I'm not gonna leave you two behind, Al!"

Pausing at the mouth of the alley, the man stared Ed down, almost…contemplative. Lissa could feel the anger simmering off him, rage like fire inside her skull, and…something else, something like what she'd felt in Liore, that deep, stomach-churning tilt that she thought was revulsion. "You press your hands together to make a ring," he mused, "and then you perform transmutation… Now I see."

Lissa staggered to her feet and tried, she tried to move, but her legs failed and she sank to her knees as Ed raced in for an attack. She dared look down—and then wished she hadn't. A piece of Al's armor was sticking out through her shirt, at the center of a wet, sticky bloom of blood.

Swallowing hard and ignoring the pain, Lissa grabbed onto the wall and hauled to her feet, her vision clearing in time to see the man grab Ed by his automail. He pressed both his palms to the metal, and with a sound like a sonic boom, Edward was flung backwards. His automail shattered into pieces, completely destroyed by one single attack.

Ed sat on the street, balanced only by his left arm behind him, staring up at the man in shock and terror, his whole body trembling.

"Now you will not be able to use your heretic's alchemy," the man proclaimed, like it was a damned victory to have shattered Ed's automail. Lissa took a step forward, then another, bypassing Al's attempts to grab her and stop her.

With a weak cry, Ed tried to escape, tried to shove backwards, but he slipped on the wet stones and crashed to the ground, his face pressed into the street.

"I will give you a moment to pray to god," the man intoned as he advanced on him.

"Brother!" Alphonse begged, trying to claw his way out of the alley uselessly. "Run away! Brother!"

Ed's hand tightened into a fist. "Unfortunately," he rasped, "there isn't any god I'd like to pray to." Then…his hand loosened, all the energy going out of him at once. "Am I the only one you're trying to kill today? Or are you going after my brother and my friend, too?"

"If they interfere, I will eliminate them," the man confirmed. "But, Fullmetal Alchemist… You are the only one who is receiving judgment today. You alone."

No… He can't be thinking… No…

"Okay. In that case…I want your word." Edward shoved up and fixed a fierce glare on the man, though his body still shook and he was powerless where he lay. "Promise me you won't hurt them!"

Al gasped behind Lissa. "Brother!"

The man ignored him. "I will keep that promise."

"No! Brother, what are you trying to do? What are you thinking? Run!" Lissa heard scraping behind her—Alphonse still trying to reach Ed. But she was the only one still on her feet, the only one who had a chance… No matter how much blood she'd lost or how injured she was, it was only her left now.

"Get up and run!" Al begged, desperate.

He kept pleading as Lissa staggered forward—one step, two, three, her hands flaring blue. She summoned up all her energy, took hold of the air around her, and parted it, slipping past the man just as he reached for Ed. Lissa shot forward and grabbed Edward, flung her body over his and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her chest with all the strength she had left. She felt something brush the back of her jacket—the man's hand, just millimeters away from killing her. But she didn't let go.

I promised, I promised I'd protect you, I can't let you go like this…

Lissa buried her face in Edward's hair and waited for the end.

BANG!

"That's enough!"

Lissa jerked her head up, stunned to see Colonel Mustang standing only a handful of feet away, aiming a pistol into the air, backed up by not just his team but a few other soldiers too, all aiming various weapons directly at the man.

"You won't be killing anybody today, Scar," Mustang told him sharply. "I'm taking you into custody—where you will answer for the murders of at least ten state alchemists."

Scar?

Lissa recalled Mustang's warning from earlier that same day. About the suspect in the murder of the Iron Blood Alchemist… His distinguishing feature was…an x-shaped scar on his face. So was this the man? This was the serial killer? What was he doing here in East City?!

Slowly, Scar stepped away from her and Edward, fixating his gaze on Mustang instead. "Alchemists alter things from their natural form, perverting them to something else. Something grotesque. They profane God, the true creator of all things." His voice was so sure, so confident… It made Lissa's skin crawl. "As an agent of God… I am here to hand down His judgement. If you interfere, I will eliminate you as well."

But Mustang just smirked at him. "Oh, is that right?" he challenged. He immediately handed his pistol off to Riza and strode away. "You guys stay out of it."

Riza's eyes went wide. "Colonel Mustang, sir!"

Lissa squinted through the rain, still keeping her arms tight around Ed. She wasn't going to let him go until she knew he was safe—and right now, Scar was still standing right above them. At any moment he could fix his attention on them again and…

No. I won't let him!

Scar grasped onto that little fact immediately. "Colonel Mustang," he repeated thoughtfully. "So this is the Flame Alchemist. Volunteering yourself to receive judgement. This is truly an auspicious day!" He stepped over Ed and Lissa and took off towards Mustang and the soldiers, sounding almost…pleased, like he'd been handed Mustang on a silver platter.

But Mustang just kept on walking towards him. "So, you know who I am and you still want to challenge me? Bad decision!"

Lissa's sluggish mind caught up with the situation at had just as Riza reached him and knocked Mustang's feet out from under him, just narrowly skirting Scar's outstretched hand. The rain! The fucking rain would've soaked his ignition gloves! The idiot couldn't use his flames! What the hell was he thinking?!

Thankfully, Riza was on it. She fired both pistols in her grip, forcing Scar to retreat and duck behind the nearest wall, while Mustang demanded to know why she'd done that to him. Irate, Riza snapped back, "You know as well as I do, you're useless on rainy days! Please stay back!"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Havoc mused. "It's kinda hard to get a spark going when it's raining, huh?"

Scar stepped back into view, clearly ready to continue the attack. Lissa still felt too close for comfort, too afraid to move, so she just ducked her head and pressed Ed into the street, holding her ground. She wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't pass out if she tried to go anywhere, if she did anything but kneel right where she was.

"It is fortunate that you can't create your blasphemous flames, state alchemist," Scar almost sneered, as he readied himself for another attack. "For I will destroy all who interfere with my mission, right here and now!"

"I'd like to see you try it!" a familiar voice thundered.

Lissa looked up in shock, her heart racing. Was that… But what was he doing in East City?!

She drew Edward in even closer, letting out a harsh sigh of relief as Major Alex Armstrong slammed his fist down into the street, forcing Scar to jump out of his way or else be crushed by the attack.

"You have to be quick to avoid my fist," Alex observed, returning upright and regarding Scar like his prey. "Not bad… Not bad at all. You said you were going to destroy us all, didn't you? In that case, why don't you start by defeating me?! We'll see how you fare against the Strong Arm Alchemist, Alex Louis Armstrong!"

Someone put their hands on Lissa and she flinched, pulling Ed tighter against her and then wincing when it put pressure on her wound.

"Easy, easy, Lissa, it's just me."

She turned to see Havoc, face tight with anxiety as he lifted both her and Ed off the ground. "Havoc," she breathed. Lissa wanted to let go—but her joints felt locked in place, her muscles refusing to cooperate. She noticed absently she was trembling, shaking all over like a leaf, her body threatening to give out right there…but still she couldn't let go.

"Who is he?" Edward asked, staring across the street at the man now locked in combat with Alex.

Havoc sighed roughly. "That's the same man who murdered Brigadier General Grand. And…" He gritted his teeth. "We have reason to believe he's the one who murdered Mr. Tucker and his daughter, a few years back."

"It's him?" Ed breathed, looking at Lissa in shock.

Then his eyes opened even wider as he looked down, spotting the blood soaking through her shirt. "Liss, you're hurt… What the… What happened to you? That looks bad, you need a hospital right now…"

She shook her head at him. "I'm not leaving you."

"Major, watch what you're doing!" Havoc chastised irritably. "We don't want to destroy the city, do we?!"

"What do you mean?!" Alex shot back loudly. Even in the middle of a fight he felt the need to set Havoc straight. "Destruction and creation are but two sides of the same coin! You must destroy to create! That is the law of the universe!"

Lissa took some kind of comfort in the fact that Alex hadn't changed one bit—he still ripped clear out of his shirts when he got passionate about something.

"Non-alchemists may fail to see the inherent truth of that statement…" Alex fixed a knowing look onto his adversary. "But we understand, don't we, Scar?"

Mustang took a step back in surprise. "So this killer is an alchemist, too?"

Ed jerked his head up from staring at Lissa's wound, instead looking across at Scar in a sudden burst of understanding. "That's it! That's how he's doing it," he realized. "The stages of the transmutation process are analysis, deconstruction, and reconstruction. This guy just must stop at the deconstruction phase."

Havoc glanced down at him anxiously. "But if Scar is an alchemist as well… Doesn't that mean he's strayed from whatever his ways of God are, too?"

"The ultimate hypocrisy," Lissa murmured. "Using something he calls blasphemous for his own ends, as if he's got some big religious justification for doing exactly the thing he hates so much. I hate religious fanatics."

"But what would be his reasons for only targeting alchemists with state certification?" Mustang wondered aloud.

Lissa stared at the ongoing fight, trying to piece it together. But her mind just wasn't there, she wasn't coming up with anything—her vision was blurred at the edges, just breathing felt like a monumental effort… She wasn't even certain how she was conscious anymore. Was it just pure adrenaline at this point?

This hypocrite… Using alchemy against state alchemists while calling them blasphemers… And all this right after Liore. What is it about religion that brings out the worst in people?

Finally, Alex corralled Scar into a wall, yelling, "I have you cornered, Scar!" in clear triumph. But Lissa had seen him fighting plenty—there was something…odd about the way he was moving, dragging his swings much too wide, in direct opposition to what he'd taught her. Tight swings, keeping your arms in towards your body, especially in such close quarters. He swore that was the only way to keep yourself safe. So why was he…

Scar lunged, bringing that deadly right arm hurtling towards his target—but Alex danced backwards, lighter on his feet than his size would suggest, and moved aside to leave a clear path, almost an escape route but not quite.

Gunfire rang out. Lissa realized much too late this fight had only been in place to buy Riza time to set herself up with her rifle, and do what she did best.

"You get him?" Mustang asked her quickly.

Riza's mouth thinned. "He's too fast. I only grazed him with one shot." The sheer fact that Riza Hawkeye had been unable to land a more serious hit shook Lissa to her core. She couldn't recall anybody ever being quite so untouchable before.

Scar lifted his head, blood trickling from a small, glancing wound on his forehead, glaring up at them with vibrant red eyes.

Blood…sand and burning hot sunlight… All that anger and rage, and the unfamiliar feel of him… So this is why… Lissa felt Ed stiffen beside her, the two realizing it at the same moment as everyone else. For Scar's red eyes and deeper skin tone could mean only one thing.

Scar was Ishvalan.

Murmurs rippled through the amassed soldiers. An Ishvalan taking out state alchemists… Then this was a revenge mission, nothing more.

"You might as well give up, Scar," Mustang called out, raising one hand to keep his soldiers from firing. It would take only one small gesture to order them to shoot, she knew. "You're not getting away this time."

But Scar had other plans.

She squinted as a sudden flash of alchemic energy burst upwards, blue sparks dancing all around the Ishvalan—then the ground beneath him exploded.

Lissa barely had time to stretch her arm up and hold off the sudden influx of debris and particles rushing towards the soldiers, the air crackling and sparkling with blue energy as she forced the foreign particles back and away. She refused to be useless anymore, not after how damned useless she'd been fighting Scar. It wasn't much…but it was all she had.

While the soldiers inspected the giant, gaping hole Scar left in the ground, Ed looked round at Lissa in panic. "Oh no… Alphonse," he breathed.

Her body unlocked in a heartbeat. Lissa and Ed both stumbled to their feet, and when he staggered, unbalanced, she caught him on his right side and wrapped her arm across his back to help him across the road. But Ed peeled away from her and ran the last few steps himself, sinking to his knees before Al's motionless, slumped body, and grabbed at his chest frantically. "Al! Talk to me! Are you all right?!"

Lissa sank down next to him, trying to assess Al's condition past the ache radiating out from her abdomen. His eyes were still glowing red, so he was in there… He had to be… Right?

"Come on, Al!" Ed begged desperately. "Do you hear me?"

Suddenly, Al's fist swung up and slammed right into the side of Ed's face, knocking him into the opposite wall of the alley. Lissa sank back onto her butt, stunned by his abrupt and violent reaction. Al usually wasn't the violent type.

"Why didn't you run away when I told you to?!" Alphonse demanded, his voice furious. "What kind of idiot are you?"

"No way!" Ed shot back. "I'm not just going to run away and leave you behind!"

"Which is exactly why you're an idiot! And you!" Al rounded on Lissa and she flinched back, surprised to be at the receiving end of his ire. "What were you thinking, jumping in the way like that?! You're just as big of an idiot as he is! Both of you are such idiots!" He shoved at Ed again, ramming his fist into the same spot as before.

Ed pressed his hand to his face and stared at Al in shock. "What do you keep punching me like that for? If I'd run away, you could've been killed, you know that?!"

But Al didn't back down. "And maybe I wouldn't have been! Making the decision to die is something only an idiot does!"

"Hey, easy on the idiot stuff, I'm still your older brother, got it?!" Ed snapped.

"I'll say it all I want to!" He grabbed the front of Ed's shirt and yanked him in, glowering down at him with his eyes vibrant and somehow threatening. "Survival is the only way, Ed. Live on, learn more about alchemy… You could find a way to get our bodies back and help people like Nina… But you can't do that by dying!" His voice cracked, and Lissa covered her mouth to keep back a sob, but he just pressed on. "I won't allow you to abandon the possibility of hope and choose a meaningless death!"

Snap!

Ed suddenly crashed down beside Lissa as Al's arm broke off, landing uselessly on the ground between them.

"Oh, great!" Al ranted. "And now my arm's come off because my brother's a big, fat idiot!"

Edward bowed his head and laughed softly, self-deprecatingly, sitting there in a heap. "We're really falling apart, aren't we, brother?" he whispered. "We look like we belong in a junkyard."

"But we're still alive," Alphonse pointed out quietly.

"We are," Ed agreed.

Lissa blinked back tears, refusing to let them fall, feeling suddenly lost and helpless, like a little child again. She'd seen the boys at their worst, she thought… But this was something different. They felt beaten down, muddied, and it broke her heart to feel the change in them.

"Um, Lissa?"

She looked up at Al curiously. "Huh?"

"Please tell me…that isn't a piece of…of me sticking out of you."

Lissa winced and touched a finger to her blood-soaked tank top, feeling a regretful grin playing around her lips. "Sorry, Al. But I think it is." She sighed and stared at the piece of metal, deciding at once that it couldn't have been as deep as she thought. It was just the shock of being semi-stabbed and thrown into a wall that had done her in.

There was movement at the end of the alley, and Lissa looked up, feeling warm all over as Riza came and draped her military coat around Ed's shoulders. Good. He'd hate having his automail out like that, he always said he felt exposed when it was off.

"It seems you've suffered quite the injury, Lissa."

She looked up and grinned at Alex's huge form looming over them. "It's not as bad as it looks. Plus, I mean, if I'm gonna get impaled with anything, I'd rather it be from Al than anything else. At least I know he's clean."

Ed gave her an anxious look. "Still, you gotta get that looked at, Liss…"

"I would be happy to assist you to the hospital," Alex offered.

Lissa waved a hand though. "No, that's okay. I think we'll need your help getting Alphonse out of here." She looked up as Havoc crossed to them, and lifted her hand to get his attention. "Hey, Havoc… Feel like helping me out?"

He smiled down at her, not making a joke at someone's expense for once. "Sure, Lissa. Hawkeye, you got the chief, right? We'll make a whole parade of it."

One hour and five stitches later, all of Mustang's team, plus Ed, Al, Lissa, Alex, and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes reconvened in Mustang's office. Lissa sat on the floor with her back resting against Al's undamaged side and his arm draped sort of protectively over her, still a bit fuzzy from the anesthetic and the stitches, listening with her eyes closed as the Colonel recapped the Ishvalan Civil War, to get their heads in the right space. She thought she knew the story of the conflict by heart now, having researched it so many times to try and make sense of her parents' deaths. Not everyone had looked into so much detail, though, so she respected the need to make sure the others were fully aware of the significance of Scar being Ishvalan.

The whole time, Ed paced back and forth in agitation, his face screwed up in some kind of rage or frustration or something. Lissa just wanted him to sit with her and Al, to take a damned breath and calm down, but he wouldn't do it. Not yet. So she kept her eyes on him instead. He'd gone with her to the hospital, seeing as Alphonse couldn't, and let her squeeze the hell out of his hand while she got her stomach stitched up—so she had yet to actually let him out of her sight since Scar had gone for him. And she had no immediate plans to, either.

That's twice, dummy. Twice I've flung myself into someone's warpath for you. I should probably feel like an idiot, just like Al said… But I can't. I only feel like I did the right thing. Does that make me more or less stupid?

"That man…is an Ishvalan survivor," Mustang finished gravely. "In a sense, his revenge is justified."

Ed rounded on him angrily. "No way!" he snarled. "There's no justification for taking revenge on people who had nothing to do with it! He's just dressing his ugly lust for vengeance in the mantle of his God, and calling himself an agent of justice!"

Mustang didn't argue that point, thankfully. And who would? It was one thing to go after the state alchemists actually involved in the conflict—but Ed had nothing to do with it. How was that fair at all? He hadn't done a damn thing to the Ishvalans. "Still, the fact is, he's coming at us with full force… We can't let ourselves be killed for his cause." His eyes darkened. "Next time there will be no more talk. Got it?"

His team chorused their agreement, not questioning his judgment for a moment. And for once, Lissa was wholly and completely on his side. Mustang was right. This hypocritical freak needed to be taken out.

Turning to look up at Edward, Hughes asked, "Well… Ed, Lissa, Alphonse… What are you three going to do now? What's the plan?"

Ed's eyebrows furrowed. "We're going to keep moving," he began, his voice low and sure, as though the answer was as inherent as breathing. "We can't just sit around, not as long as we're still alive."

Al looked up at him in surprise. "Brother…"

"But…" He grinned at Al, suddenly looking more like himself than he had all day as he rested his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Before we can make any headway on getting your body back, we have to get my arm back to normal. After all, I'm the only one who knows how to bond your soul to the armor.

"Uh-huh. That's true," Al agreed.

Ed sighed deeply and nodded once, a single, decisive movement. "We've got no choice. It's been a long time, but we need to pay a visit to our mechanic." He turned and quirked a grin down at Lissa. "What do you say, Liss? You up for a trip to the middle of nowhere?"

Lissa just laughed and nudged his boot with her own. "I'm from the middle of nowhere, dummy. 'Course I am."