The rest of the car ride is icily silent. Roy can play that game with the best of them. He tries to hell himself that Prentiss doesn't know what she's asking by asking him to sacrifice his alchemy again, but he's not sure if he just doesn't believe it or is at the point where it simply doesn't excuse the demand. He's not exactly in a charitable mood after all.

Fortunately, the car ride really isn't that long, their destination only a bare hour's drive from the backwater town they've been in. Eagleton is honestly almost indiscernible from the place they've been, an hour not near far enough away to change the geography meaningfully, and neither is it closer to any larger cities. It could be any one of a million tiny US towns, with only a single stoplight in it.

The police, like they are back in the other town, are obviously in over their heads and eager to hand over the mess to the FBI. If Annabelle Crawford was out of sorts, it's nothing compared to Eagleton's sheriff. He has a dozen people dead, and unlike Deputy Crawford, his losses are all locals, which makes it all an intensely personal loss. He isn't prepared to be picking up pieces of people he knew and cared about.

To be fair, Roy is rather certain that no one is ever really prepared to be picking up pieces of people, whether they know those people or not. It's just even more terrible when they're known quantities.

Prentiss waves him off as "with them," letting him wander over to the epicenter of the explosion. There are still bits of people around, the scent of an explosion and the vague tang of blood in the air with the lingering smoke. The locals aren't organized enough to have cleaned it up and gathered all the pieces yet.

"You going to be all right?" LaMontagne asks, stepping up to his side.

Roy raises an eyebrow at him, surprised at the concern. "I'm a soldier," he says. "I've unfortunately seen worse." Been the perpetrator of worse, he thinks but doesn't say.

There are several cars nearby, thrown and torn up, which is somewhat unexpected and makes Roy's stomach sink as he approaches the crater that was once part of the main road of this little town. He crouches down at the edge, not touching anything, eyeing the indentation.

Prentiss comes up behind him. "So, apparently one of the local officers recognized a man matching Kimberly Zolf's description from our BOLO. He called into Sheriff McCoy, trying to stop him. Sheriff McCoy just talked to him and was heading this way when the explosion hit," she explains, a pained expression on her face. Roy can sympathize. "So… it looks like this is probably our guy."

Eyes tracing the shape of the crater, Roy says, "This is definitely Kimblee's work," he says. "Worse, it's alchemy, not an incendiary device."

Cursing under her breath, Prentiss says, "I'm going to have to set the expectation for the techs that the device may have vaporized." Roy doesn't envy her the lies she's going to have to tell. "At least the sheer size of the explosion makes that plausible."

She motions to the thrown cars, the shattered store windows, the still-scattered body parts. It looks like a piece of serious artillery went off here, not something someone could make in their garage.

"It's powerful, but contained," Roy points out. Though the crater is several feet deep, the blast wave had been powerful, causing most of the damage.

"Well, they aren't going to find anything."

"I imagine that the analysis will produce something more like gunpowder than C4," he says.

"How much do you know about explosives?" Prentiss asks, and, much to his surprise, it doesn't sound like an accusation, just honest curiosity. "Morgan is our explosives expert," she adds, as if sensing his surprise. "We've got experts on the way, but if you can tell us anything helpful, I'd appreciate it."

Roy looks out around the crater again, takes his hands out of his pockets, and touches them together. He can feel the energy of the array he imagines rushing through him, though it's a little more… sluggish? than at the other town. It seems to take more effort to gather the energy to fuel the array, and he lets it dissipate, unused.

"I don't know if it helps, but we should consider that Kimblee's recently had his arrays tattooed on his hands," he says. "If he has, that means he can use alchemy wherever he is, which…"

"Isn't great," Prentiss finishes with a sigh.

"No, it's not," Roy agrees.

Seaver wanders over to them. "He did this with alchemy?" she asks, looking a little overwhelmed.

"Explosions were his specialty," Roy says. "On the plus side, it means he's not as versatile as me. Most alchemists are highly specialized. We'll spend lifetimes learning and perfecting our specific niches. The most obsessed will often tattoo their arrays on themselves to have instant access to their alchemy."

"So your fancy clapping thing—" Prentiss begins.

"Isn't something most alchemists can do," Roy confirms. "But if Kimblee has tattooed his arrays on his hands, then it'll be almost as good as what I can do, at least for his explosions, which means dealing with him close-up is going to be a challenge." He stands from where he was crouching.

"How does he not blow himself up?" LaMontagne asks, sounding a little stressed. Roy doesn't blame any of them for being stressed. Kimblee is extremely stress-inducing at the absolute best of times, and these don't qualify.

"Care and expertise," he says. "He's not transmuting himself, he's transmuting the chemicals and components around him to create the explosion. He does have to be close to it, but he can set up the explosion to blast away from him." He points to the edge of the crater. "You can see that he was there, and he set off the explosion in this direction." He tucks his hands back into his pockets. "He probably used the force to propel him away and took off running that way."

Seaver crosses her arms. "Are we sure that he used alchemy?" she asks. "That there isn't another device?"

"I think Ed has sent me enough pictures of explosions to be certain that this was alchemy-fueled," Roy says. "Besides, I've seen the fallout of Kimblee's alchemy before. This is textbook for him."

Prentiss rubs her hand down her forehead. "Well, if he likely ran off in that direction, Mustang, I want you with me. Will, Seaver, if there's anything you can get out of any potential remaining witnesses?" she asks.

The street probably only runs a few more blocks before the town falls away and forest seems to grow up along the sides of the road. Roy shrugs but follows Prentiss, walking down that way.

Once they're far enough from the others not to be overheard, Prentiss asks, "Is there some personal vendetta between you and Kimblee I should be aware of?"

Again, it's curiously nonjudgmental, just… knowledge she knows. After the antagonism on the ride, it's hard to reconcile except seeing what Kimblee is capable of may have made her re-evaluate how useful Roy actually is. Regardless, it's in both of their best interests that he's candid with her. "Kimblee wasn't well-liked or well-respected when we were soldiers," he begins. "He was arrested for war crimes—mostly for wonton overzealous execution of orders. I've never known anyone who actually likes Kimblee."

"But?" Prentiss prompts, sensing more.

Roy remembers the night they played the explain the scars game. He remembers how horrified he was when he realized how close he came to losing Ed before he'd even had him. The image of that awful scar that still mars Ed's abdomen is clear behind his eyes. "He nearly killed Ed," he says shortly, trying to blink away the image. "I'm sure it's no surprise that I take attacks on my partner quite personally."

"If he was under arrest for war crimes, how did he manage to attack Elric?" she asks as they cover the distance toward the treeline.

Rather than answering immediately, Roy considers all the incredible things that they lived through in their world and how much he can actually tell Prentiss without sounding utterly insane or opening up the path to even more uncomfortable questions.

"Our government was… extremely corrupt."

Prentiss looks at him and raises a questioning eyebrow. "On a scale of Denmark to the US to China to North Korea, how corrupt?"

He thinks it over. His international politics aren't the greatest—he follows a bit out of curiosity and his own natural political tendencies, but the insanity and vastness of this world tends to make his head ache. Amestris had political dealings with less than half a dozen other countries. Part of him relishes the challenge and the game of it, but he would need years of dedicated study to really be able to keep up with it. He barely even remembers most of these countries' names, much less where they are. "Which one of those would be likely to murder millions of their people?" he asks.

The sounds of Prentiss's footsteps stop, and he turns to look at her. She stares, silent, her eyes pleading with him to say something else, to make it a joke. He doesn't say anything, letting her process that. After a long minute, she says, "North Korea. Probably. There are a few African countries that are arguably worse…"

"Then that," he says, continuing to walk, though he pulls his hands out of his pockets. He wouldn't have expected Kimblee to linger so close to the attack site; he doesn't think the destruction would be beautiful enough to appeal to Kimblee's aesthetics and compel him to admire his handiwork, but he'd rather be safe than sorry. He has Ed to get back to after all, and he isn't going to make anyone explain to Ed that he let some Kimblee knock-off kill him.

Prentiss's footsteps speed up to catch up with him. "Kimblee was arrested for war crimes under that kind of regime?" she asks.

"Yes," Roy says, not adding that Kimblee's war crimes took place during a government-endorsed genocide. It's tempting, just to shock Prentiss a little bit and pay back some of her antagonism. Unfortunately, she's far too intelligent and it will open him up to far more uncomfortable questions than it's worth.

Either Prentiss's own instincts and sense of self-preservation is as good as Roy's or she's taking a cue from him, but as they pass the beginning of the treeline, she pulls out her gun.

"You were a general under that military?" she asks, almost idly, though her eyes scan the area around them professionally.

Seeing where this is going, Roy cuts it off. "I was a naive idealist when I joined. Then I had the even more idealistic dream to change the military from within."

"How'd that go for you?"

"The coup was a success?" he offers, though as they move farther from the town, he feels more tense. "Is it just me…"

"Or is it too quiet?" Prentiss finishes, raising her gun and taking off the safety.

"The coup was a success, then?" a familiar, drawling voice calls. The rustling of the trees and all of the branches break up the sound, making it hard to pinpoint where it came from.

Roy and Prentiss put their backs together and Roy raises his hand.

"FBI! Kimberly Zolf! Come out and put your hands up!" Prentiss commands. It's a good command, full of force and authority. Too bad Kimblee's ignored better.

"So surprising to see you here, Colonel."

"General, now," Roy corrects. He catches sight of Kimblee in one of the trees and snaps, sending a flame racing toward him. It forces Kimblee to jump out of the tree, and he lands in the street facing them.

"Hands up, Zolf!" Prentiss snaps, quickly turning her gun on him. Roy's impressed with her focus.

Unconcerned, Kimblee dusts himself off. "You've chosen quite the ally there, Miss FBI Lady," he says.

"Get down on your knees, hands behind your back," Prentiss says. To his shock and sending every instinct of his into overdrive, Kimblee actually gets on his knees. "Hands up!" Prentiss repeats, but he just dusts them off.

"Just put a bullet in him," Roy tells her.

"We need information that he has," she says. "And we don't just shoot unarmed suspects."

"He's not unarmed," Roy snaps under his breath, having caught a flash of ink on Kimblee's palm. It may not even be a tattoo. A permanent marker would do in a pinch.

"Easy for you to say," Prentiss snaps back. "You're not the one who is going to have to explain to Internal Affairs that you shot a man for having drawings on his hands." She begins to walk toward Kimblee, turning her attention back to him. "Hands up, I said!"

Roy has a heartbeat where he stares at her in disbelief before he grabs her shoulder and pulls her back. The jarring yank causes the gun to go off, but it also probably saves her life because Kimblee lunges forward, hands outstretched toward them.

There is no thought, no instant of bringing his trusted flame array to mind-he doesn't need to, not with it embroidered on his gloves—he just snaps, sending up a column of flame between them and shoves it toward Kimblee. An explosion happens, killing Roy's flames and throwing both him and Prentiss a good ten feet.

Ears ringing, Roy sits up, only to be hit with another blast wave. When he gathers his senses enough to look for Kimblee, he sees him go over the guardrail probably close to a hundred yards away. He raises his hand to snap, to put an end to Kimblee, but Prentiss grabs his wrist and pulls it down. He nearly snaps anyway, but then he reads her lips.

The forest.

It's been pouring an hour away, but the trees in this area appear dry. Between Roy's column of fire and Kimblee's explosions, they've already started a fire. How much worse if he targets Kimblee from so far away.

The first sounds that come back are the sounds of sirens, letting him know that they've been noticed. Roy can already see the fire beginning to spread, though, and he knows that there's a good chance that this place could go off like a tinderbox. He adjusts the array in his mind and snaps, stealing the oxygen from the flames to help smother most of them and contain them, at least long enough for the firefighters to get to work. It takes long minutes of exhausting concentration and pulling on energy that feels like it's fighting him every step of the way—alchemy with gases has always been more challenging than liquids or solids—but this feels like he's hauling a car on his own. When the fire truck finally gets a good half of the worst embers out, he lets go of the transmutation. Across the road, the fire starts flaring back to life, but the firefighters are able to make relatively quick work of it.

He startles and almost snaps again when Seaver squats down in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Are you okay?" she yells, and he finally thinks he hears her.

"I think so…" he says, but realizes he can't hear himself. He's not sure if it's because of the explosion or the noise around them. Still, he lets her help him to his feet, and both he and Prentiss let themselves be escorted to the firetruck, which appears to be their makeshift first aid as well.

As soon as his hearing comes back, the first thing he's going to do is tell Prentiss, "I told you to just shoot him."