As Edward was dozing, Alphonse watched the countryside as it passed them by and he realized that they were heading out back towards Resembool; their hometown. The small town brought back memories of when the brothers were younger with their mother and also reminded Al that Pinako and Winry had wanted them to visit whenever they had gotten the chance.

"Brother, we're almost to the last train stop." He lightly tapped the blond to wake him up and received an angry groan as golden eyes flickered open.

Ed immediately shielded his eyes from the setting sun and sat up, "How did we end up at Resembool?"

"It seems that this was where the homunculi were heading with Duo, but I don't know why. Maybe they went farther than Resembool?"

"Maybe so, or maybe this was just for their own fun. They're probably going to fight us here... Either that, or they're going to kill Duo here and leave another death for us to think about..."

Ed remained quiet for a long time after that, and Alphonse couldn't think of anything to say either. Together they sat in the silence and watched more of the scenery blur past them. Al fidgeted uncomfortably because of the tense feeling in the air; he could only hope that what Edward guessed was wrong and that the homunculi would keep Duo alive.

"We're here." Ed pointed out the obvious and hastily moved out into the aisle and towards the door. Al tried to follow but had some trouble once again because of his size.

"Brother, wait!"

Instead of listening to his younger brother, Ed ran off the train but stopped almost as soon as he did. When he had looked around, the one thing that had caught his eye was a cat that was watching him intently. As soon as the blonde started towards the cat, it started to leave in the same direction as his house.

"Edward! You're gonna leave me behind!" Al called again, but his older brother ignored him.

Envy continued to weave between people until he had finally made it out to where all of the crop fields were. Even though he wasn't all too familiar with the area, he didn't have much trouble finding the place he'd been looking for. Supposedly, Edward and Alphonse had burned down their house years ago but he had only forced Duo to tell him that with a bit of torture.

The eventually came to a path that led away from the small town of Resembool and out to the even quieter area where some farmers and other people who preferred it out there. As far as the homunculus knew, there was only one house that had ever been burned down and so he went towards those ruins.

It didn't take too long to make it there, and it was secluded enough to where he could change without worry of other pesky villagers. He leaned against the tree beside the blackened ground where there were still some traces that a house once stood there. He grinned as he saw Edward running up the path towards him, and when his eyes widened in realization of what the homunculi had planned.

"It's familiar isn't it? I got a bit of information about this house and all that went on in it... Your mother's death and then you're pathetic attempt at a human transmutation to ressurect her... Memories are so wonderful, aren't they?"

Edward's golden eyes were more enraged than Envy could remember, and it just made the green-haired homunculus more excited.

"Shut up! Don't act like you know everything because you don't Envy!" Ed began to charge at Envy, but Envy suddenly jumped out of the way to reveal what he had apparently been hiding the whole time.

It was Duo.

He smirked at Edward with unusual contempt before slowly walking towards him. Ed couldn't quite place where he remembered seeing that smirk before, but he knew Duo had never gotten that look before. "Duo? Do you feel alright?"

"Oh, I feel great, but the name's not Duo... it's Greed."

Ed was speechless for a brief moment before snapping out of his trance, "What do you mean? There's no way Greed could be alive!"

Duo walked a few feet closer and stuck his arm out so Ed could get a good look at it. His arm began to change into the diamond-like material that Ed remembered the original Greed having. He had called it the 'Ultimate Shield', and it was just as it name said; the only thing that could penetrate it was alchemy.

"I'm alive and well Fullmetal, but you might not be in a while." With a sudden movement, Duo was already attacking the alchemist who still wasn't prepared to believe what was obviously true.

"There's no way that Duo is gone!" He just wished that Duo would stop acting and pretending to be Greed and return to his usual self with a playful grin on his face. "I'll make sure he comes back!"

Edward changed his automail into the long blade and held it up to defend himself from the relentless attacks of the new Greed. While he was being attacked, the blonde tried to think of a way to either awaken Duo who surely wasn't dead or of a way to find out what exactly happened to Duo. The distraction of the fight didn't help Ed's thought process any, but he was still figuring it out as he kept dodging and guarding himself from getting hit by Greed's claws.

"Why don't you actually try hitting me, Fullmetal?" He taunted while the new Greed's amethyst eyes danced, "It might actually make this fight more entertaining for our spectators."

Edward whirled around to see that there indeed were villagers watching, including Pinako, Winry, and he saw Alphonse running up the path to come help. When he turned back to look at Greed, he was suddenly punched in the face and landed among the burnt house where his house once stood. As Greed walked slowly toward the blonde who still was lying on the ground he watched the villagers out of the corner of his eye.

"Do you always attract such an audience?"

"No, but I'm sure they're expecting the good guy to win."

"Whoever said I was a bad guy?" Greed shrugged and came ever closer to Edward, "I'm just doing this for fun and after I kill you then I'm going to go out and do whatever I want. None of those damn idiot homunculi are gonna control what I do."

As he stood beside the blonde alchemist and was about to kick him again, the ground lit up and he found that Edward was using his alchemy to surprise him. It worked and Greed had to jump back to escape the stone spikes that came out of the ground.

"I suppose we'll have to finish this another time," Greed said as Alphonse made it to where they were, "but don't think you've won."

Al went immediately to his brother, and Greed took the time to run while most of the villagers remained down at the bottom of the hill. For some reason, none of them seemed to really believe what they had just seen and none of them moved, but it didn't really bother Ed at all.

"What the hell happened to him?"

Sorry for the wait everybody! A lot came up that prevented me from getting much of a chance to write, but I promise the next chapter will be sooner.

Also, if there's anything that's getting to WTF, please let me know so that I can start correcting it before it gets to where you're always getting confused. (And also, don't start asking about how Winry magically appeared just yet because I will explain in the next chapter.)

Please R & R!