How to Get What You Work For

by PurpleTurtle21

After a friend attempts to perform alchemy from one of her favorite anime shows, Amelia finds herself on military property and about to go to prison for trespassing, until the Fuehrer offers her a chance: She gets a one-year trial period learning under a certified alchemist and if she passes, she gets a get-out-of-jail-free card. Now if she could only find someone to teach her…

22. Memories of Truth

Amelia stood in a white void, confused and uncertain. She looked to her right, and Kate stood next to her, standing in her coat, her brown hair only a little disheveled, and her eyes wide as she looked a mixture of terrified, and thrilled. A smile broke out onto her face, pushing back the freckles on her cheeks as she said, "It… It worked…! I did it!"

"Did what?" Amelia demanded, afraid of where they were and what was happening. Where were they? They had been somewhere else just a second ago, and now they were here…

"Hello," A voice that seemed to be many blended together spoke up, and both girls turned their heads to see a strange figure just ahead of them. It looked like a person, and yet wasn't… It was about their height but had no discernible features, they were just a little white person, white as the void around them, with some kind of optical illusion which made them stand out instead of blending into the background. "You two are unusual, aren't you?"

"Oh my God, it's you…" Kate said.

"What the fuck is all of this?!" Amelia was panicking, her heart was pounding, she didn't know any of this, or what was happening, but Kate did, and it was only freaking her out more, "Who even is this guy?!" She gestured to the figure before them.

"Oh, who am I?" The figure with so many voices tilted their head, seemingly grinning at the pair of them, "This is my favorite question." The form brought its two hands together in a delighted clap, "One name you might have for me is The World, or you might call me The Universe, or perhaps God, or perhaps the Truth. I am All, and I am One." It pointed one finger at Amelia, "And so, of course, this also means that I am you."

"He did the speech…!" Kate said in an excited whisper.

"That makes no fucking sense!" Amelia snapped, angry, confused, and scared of what was happening. "I don't know what this place is, but we're not staying! We have to get back to… to…" They were doing something before this… what had they been doing? Amelia couldn't recall.

"However, this is unusual. It seems you two have forced your way here." The figure said, "And it seems, without a door, there's nowhere for you to go." The being simply shrugged indifferently.

"What does that mean?!" Amelia demanded, "How is there no door?!" Her voice only got higher with every question, and she turned to Kate, who just looked concerned as she saw Amelia's panicked state, "What did you do?! Why is that thing saying we can't leave?!"

"Well… I mean, neither of us have a gate, so-" Kate was cut off by Amelia grabbing the collar of her coat and looking her in the eyes. Kate could easily see Amelia's terror in her gaze, her confusion, she could feel her hands trembling, even as she gripped her jacket to try and threaten her.

"I don't know what that means, but you got us here, and you're getting us home now!" She shouted at her, "I don't care what you have to do, but we're not staying in some fucked up void with some creepy-ass dude just sitting and watching us!" She was so afraid, she didn't know what this place was, and couldn't remember how they came there, but she knew Kate had something to do with it because she was just so excited to be there, it only infuriated her more that she was left out of the loop.

"I-It's okay, Amelia!" She said, reaching up for her hands and squeezing them, "I can fix this, I will. I promise." She slowly pushed Amelia's hands down and she released the girl in front of her, "I can fix this, I can get you back home. It's… it's just going to take a minute." Kate still held onto Amelia's hands as she spoke. Amelia looked up at her, she hadn't moved in what was likely only a second or two in silence, but to her, it felt like a small eternity.

"Well?! What are you waiting for?" Amelia asked, and Kate nodded, her expression shifting from her excitement to her own kind of fear as she let go of Amelia's hands and stepped forward.

"I want to pay the toll to make a gate for my friend." She said, and the being smirked, somehow expressing their intrigue despite not having a face, "I… I should be able to, right?"

"It's a viable toll, but it will cost you everything," The figure that called itself God said, "Are you prepared to pay that price? Think carefully." Kate paused, her hands reaching for the sleeves of her jacket.

"I'm… I'm really scared," she admitted, "But I know that's our only option right now. We don't have much else…" She looked back over her shoulder at Amelia, "And I know she'll come back for me."

What was she talking about? Come back for her? Was she leaving her here? Amelia didn't know what to say, but if she had the chance to go home, she would take it.

"Very well," The thing that said it was God held out its hand, and red lightning sprung up around Katie's form, and both girls watched with wide eyes as Kate's hand began to disintegrate, being torn away from her like a loose string from a shirt, leaving in thin ribbons that soon began to take from her other hand.

"Katie, what's happening?!" Amelia cried out in a terrified voice as she watched her friend getting torn apart like she was a paper doll. Kate just turned around, giving her a smile that trembled from her fear as she was taken apart like this but still trying to be reassuring, even with tears in her eyes.

"It's okay… It doesn't hurt." She looked over at Amelia, "Just… make sure you have a great adventure for me, okay?"

"What?" Amelia didn't understand but was horrified as she saw lines appearing on Katie's face before it flew away, watching as it painted itself onto the other figure that was standing there, now Katie, bearing a neutral expression that somehow looked nothing like the person Amelia had become familiar with.

Within only a second of seeing this, a pair of huge doors appeared out of thin air, and they began to open. Amelia could see one great grey eye peering at her from the blackness inside, and the Other Katie watched as black tentacles with tiny hands started reaching out from inside, "Don't worry, your journey will be quick, but do try to pay attention on your way there."

Amelia only screamed and turned and ran from the black tentacles that tried to grab her, feeling the tiny fingers reaching for her clothes and wrapping around her arms and legs. She tried to shake them off, but they wouldn't let go. Before she knew it, they had grabbed her tightly and she was being lifted in the air as she screamed, being pulled towards the gate as it opened wider for her. "Quiet, child. This is a unique gift you've been given. Don't waste it." The Other Katie said, giving her a smile that only made Amelia feel uneasy, and even more afraid as she was dragged into the inky darkness of the gate, pulled in further and further until she saw the gates closing, the last bit of light from the void disappearing with a loud SLAM!

Amelia jumped straight up out of bed, panting for breath. She looked around her, seeing the furniture that was still piled up with clothes from the Armstrong family. She put a hand over her chest, trying to calm down from waking up in a cold sweat. That nightmare again… It wasn't real, just a dream, it wasn't real. This was the mantra she kept repeating in her head until her body calmed down a little more. She sat back and took a heavy sigh, glancing over at the clock on the wall and seeing it was a little past 2 in the morning. She could feel that she was thirsty and figured she might as well just get a drink and go back to sleep.

She got out of bed and went over to the door, only to see Edward with an outstretched hand, as if he had been reaching for the doorknob, and Alphonse behind him. She stared at him for a second, it was unusual to see him with his hair down like this, even more in just a tank top and a pair of shorts, "Uh… hey?" Amelia greeted them, "What's up?"

Edward lowered his hand, "We heard you… it sounded like you were in pain." He said, and Alphonse's armor clanked a little bit as he nodded.

"We thought something might have happened." The younger brother sounded worried.

"Oh… no, that's…" Amelia stepped out of her room, moving between the two of them as she went to the kitchen to get some water, "I just had a bad nightmare, that's all."

"A bad nightmare makes you scream like you're being killed?" Edward asked, and Amelia sighed.

"I've only had night terrors once before, it was… it was a vivid nightmare, okay?" She said as she reached for a glass to start filling it up from the tap, "It's just this recurring nightmare I've been having the last few months."

"What is it?" Alphonse asked, "Maybe if you talk through it, we can figure it out some more." Amelia sighed, knowing he was just trying to be helpful, though she didn't really want to talk about it, she just wanted to drink her water and go back to bed.

"Dreams aren't really something you can figure out," Amelia said as she turned off the tap, turning back to the two of them as she took a sip from her drink. "It's just a bunch of mindless information your subconscious collected from your day and just adds in some emotional problems on top of it all."

"I don't want to be woken up by your screaming again, so we may as well just talk it through." Edward said, "At least that way, you won't have it again tonight."

"Ugh, fine." Amelia relented, "It's just a nightmare, but it's me and Katie standing in this white void, and there's this… guy there. This creepy little white guy who says that he's God and the universe and the truth and whatever, and then Katie dissolves and-"

"What did you say?" She looked up at their words, seeing their faces in the dim moonlight of the hotel window, Alphonse's body had gone stiff, and Edward looked like he had seen a ghost.

"Uh… which part?" She asked.

"What did the guy say his name was?" Edward asked.

"Oh… I asked him who he was, and he said he was the world, and the universe, and god, and the truth, and all, and me." Amelia said, and she only saw that expression on Edward's face get worse as she brought it up, "What is it…?" She let out a nervous laugh, "It's just a dumb nightmare, it doesn't mean anything."

"Amelia, I think it means a lot more than you realize." Edward said gravely, "Tell us everything that happened in your dream, don't leave any details out." Amelia grew a little uneasy as she came out of the kitchen to face the two of them in the living room. They knew something, and in the pit of her gut, Amelia knew it was something she didn't want to hear.

"It was just a nightmare…" She tried to insist, her voice quiet, as though her energy to protest was leaving her in the face of someone who knew what she was talking about.

"It wasn't. I think it was a memory." Edward said, and he brought his flesh hand to her shoulder to lead her to the couch and sit her down, he and Alphonse sat across from her, "Now, start from the beginning. Tell us everything."

Amelia hesitated, but she did just that. She told them what she remembered of her dream, of how it began, and how it ended. If there was any part that was left vague, the brothers demanded details, so they could be certain of everything, and at the end of it, Amelia described seeing the light disappearing as the doors slammed shut behind her. She looked up at the two of them, both of them hunched over where they sat, looking incredibly serious as everything she said was considered.

"Amelia… I think you might have gone through the Portal." Alphonse said.

She was a little shocked at the suggestion, "But that can't be right, the only way to open the portal is through human transmutation, right?" She asked, turning to Edward. "I didn't perform it, neither of us did."

"No… and I'm not sure how you would have gotten there, either." Edward said, resting his chin on his hands as he tried to think, "And… the Truth said that you forced your way in somehow…" He looked up at her, "Did either of you perform any kind of transmutation? Do you remember what it was?"

"No, neither of us…" She paused, remembering the moments in the garage when she and Katie were leaving her house. She had drawn it on the floor of the garage, "Well… actually, Katie tried to… to perform some kind of transmutation." She admitted, "But, it… it shouldn't have worked. Where I come from alchemy was useless… there wasn't any alchemical theory because it was a science that we considered to be nothing. There was no reason it would have worked."

"Well, there must have been some alchemical theory if she performed it." Edward said, "Where would she have gotten that knowledge from?" Amelia glanced over at Edward and his automail arm. She knew the answer, she had recognized his title at one point, and it occurred to her that she had somehow entered a world that wasn't meant to have her in it. Fullmetal Alchemist was a series Katie had adored, and she knew that her dream/memory gave her the explanation as to how they had gotten there, but not really why it had worked. But how could she explain that the only reason Katie could have known about alchemy was because of a series that was meant to be fictional, that revolved around Ed and Alphonse's lives? "Amelia?"

"I don't know." She decided it was better to leave that be, and lie about it, "But she was invested in that stuff, I guess." She sighed, and looked up at the two of them, "I don't know how, but it must have done something…" She sat back on the couch, sighing again as she looked up at the ceiling, "I'm so tired…"

"Amelia, this is important," Edward insisted to her, "Do you remember what it was like in the portal?"

"No." She said, "I just remember going in, I don't remember seeing anything."

"If your friend paid the cost of a body and soul… you must have been able to see what that toll paid." Alphonse said, and Amelia only grew more uncomfortable, "Maybe you saw a way to get our bodies back."

"I don't know, I don't remember." She was getting annoyed by all of this, standing up, "Look, it's late and I'm going to bed." She left her glass on the coffee table and started to walk towards her door.

"Wait a minute!" Edward reached out and grabbed her sleeve with his automail hand, yanking her back to him, "Amelia, I don't think you understand what this means."

"It's not real!" Amelia insisted, yanking her hand out of Edward's grasp, "It was just a stupid dream! A bad nightmare! None of it is true!"

"It is real!" Edward insisted back, "Al and I have both seen the Truth and opened the Portal, and we know-"

"No, you don't!" Amelia snapped, feeling her heart racing as she looked at him, her hands shaking. "You don't know anything! You opened this portal once, so what? That doesn't make you a goddamn expert in it!" Her breath was coming faster, "It wasn't real, it was just a stupid nightmare! Just leave it alone!" She turned around and dashed for her room.

"Amelia, wait!" Edward called after her, she slammed the door and locked it, walking into her room and gripping at her head as she tried to collect her thoughts together. Her eyes stung as tears welled up in her eyes, and she heard Edward knocking on the door, "Open this door, Amelia! We need to talk about this!"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Amelia's voice trembled as she covered her ears, crouching down next to her bed as she tried not to hear him, "It was just a nightmare! It wasn't real! It wasn't real!" She could feel her tears running down her cheeks, and a sob slipped out of her, but only for a second. Edward kept pounding on the door for a while until she could hear the clanking of Al's armor, and the soft murmur of his voice. She didn't hear what they said, but she was grateful when the knocking stopped. She felt her body shaking as she leaned against the bed, holding herself as much as she could as tears kept coming. Why was she crying? Why was she so scared? She didn't understand it, but her body was reacting and all she could do was feel it. She kept crying for a while longer, and a longer while still until she finally calmed down.

She took a deep breath, sitting back on the floor as she wiped her eyes and her nose. She was still trembling, and she was afraid of something that she couldn't articulate, but she was also exhausted. She climbed up into bed and covered her head with her blankets, trying to force herself to sleep.

---

The next morning, Amelia woke up. She sat up as she squinted in the sunlight that came through the curtains of her room. She slowly let herself wake up, and then she remembered last night. She didn't understand it, but she just wanted to hide under her covers again, she didn't want to be awake and have to face the brothers again about her memories of the portal. She could at least acknowledge it was a memory now, and if she concentrated, she could probably see what came after the doors closed… but she found that she couldn't, and she just stood up instead, getting dressed and ready for the day that was ahead of her and the boys. They were going to work to draw out the homunculi, and hopefully capture one to get some information.

So, being that was the occasion, she decided to dress for a day where she would be moving around a lot with Ling. She went for a good pair of trousers that were a little loose at the hips, but otherwise fine. She found a belt to use and put on a clean shirt, pulling her hair back into a ponytail so it would be out of her face. She looked at herself in the mirror, seeing someone who was ready for the day, if exhausted by what happened last night. She let out a sigh, knowing she couldn't just stay in her room waiting for the brothers to go on and start their adventure out without her. She wasn't allowed to be left alone.

She went to the bedroom door and stepped out into the living room, seeing Edward and Alphonse together. Edward had a plate in front of him, for what she could have only guessed was for his breakfast that he had finished, and Alphonse looked over at her as she came out. "Good morning, Amelia."

"Morning." She greeted him as she closed the door behind her. She looked between the two of them, waiting for someone to say something about last night, but neither brother did. She waited a few more seconds before looking around and asking, "Has Winry left already?"

"Yeah, she went to go and visit Gracia a while ago," Edward said.

"She didn't take the train?" Amelia asked as she went into the kitchen, getting a glass of water just for herself.

"No, she's staying after I asked her to last night," Edward replied, looking over at her from his seat as she came to sit at the couches with them, sipping from the glass and getting comfortable. She looked up at them, and they seemed to be waiting for her to say something, as she waited for them to say something. She chose to be quiet and chug down the rest of her drink before wiping her mouth and standing up.

"I'm starving, we should hurry and meet Ling for breakfast," she said, and Edward nodded, he and Alphonse getting up to start heading down to the dining room to eat. The way down was awkwardly silent, both sides expecting someone to say something about what had happened last night, but neither did. They were avoiding the elephant in the room because they were focused on finding the snake in the grass; that's one way to describe how Edward looked at the situation. They had bigger things to deal with than Amelia's denial about her experience with the portal. He didn't know why she was making a big deal out of it, but if he had to guess it was probably to do with her friend sacrificing herself to make a gate for her, giving up a body and soul so that she could be given a gate and transported safely through. Maybe there was a part of her that didn't want to believe that she had lost her friend - come to think of it, she never really mentioned her. She never talked about her friend Katie, assuming she even was her friend. There was nothing to indicate they had been enemies, and Edward didn't understand why she just never talked about her. He decided he would look into it later when he got the chance.

---

After breakfast, Amelia separated from Edward and Alphonse to follow Ling and Lan Fan to the observation point. They would be watching out in the distance from where Ed and Alphonse would be wandering around the city, getting as much attention as an alchemist could by performing random good deeds for everyone. They figured it was their best option to get attention and make it seem somewhat inconspicuous because not many people question good deeds.

She walked with the two foreigners, looking back at Edward and Alphonse over her shoulder as they separated in an alleyway. She looked back as they went off down the road to get started on their display, and Ed glanced back once to see her doing the same. She sort of just waved, silently wishing him luck, and he blushed a little when their eyes met and turned back around, quickening his pace with Alphonse following him.

"I take it you're close?" Amelia jumped at the question, turning to Ling.

"What? No, no. We're not close." She answered quickly.

"Really?" Ling looked a little surprised, "Admittedly, I haven't spent a great deal of time with Edward to get to know him very well, but he certainly seems to like you more than he likes me."

"To be fair, I'm pretty sure Edward secretly hates anyone taller than him." Amelia joked. As they rounded a corner, she watched Lan Fan jump up to the walls of an alley, then to the next, and wall-jumped all the way up to the roof of a building. Amelia's face instantly fell, "Uh… I can't do that."

"That's alright!" Ling said with a friendly smile, "She's going to do some scouting for us, and we'll find a safer way up." He kept smiling and the two of them started walking around the building. Eventually, they came to a fire escape set up on the side, "Ah, perfect." Ling jumped up to get to the ladder, which had rusted into place, and wouldn't easily come down, so he simply climbed up it with great speed and no hesitation. He got to the top and looked down at Amelia, "You can make the jump, right?"

"Um…" Amelia wasn't so sure, but she supposed she could at least try. She was no acrobat like these two, though. She got a running start and leaped at the ladder, feeling her hands grabbing at it, and she gripped it, but slipped right through and fell to the ground with a grunt. She let out a small sigh and she got up, "Let me try that again…!" She wasn't used to trying to hold onto her own weight like that, but she felt a little better about it this time. She went back a little further, stretched out her fingers, took a deep breath before she took another running start, jumped up a little closer, and clung to the bottom rung of the ladder. "Ha!" She was glad for this small victory and started to try to pull herself up, which was much more difficult than she thought. Ling watched as she struggled, and admittedly Amelia was worried since she had never really done pull-ups before, and she managed to get to the second rung before she could feel her arms straining and she looked up at Ling, "Okay, I can't do anymore, please help."

He let out a small chuckle, reaching down for her hands and pulling her up with a surprising strength she hadn't expected from the lithe prince. He helped her up to where she could move up onto the floor of the fire escape and let out a big breath before looking up at all the stairs they would have to climb to get to the roof. "Well, at least I could use the cardio." She said before she started climbing up with Ling following with her.

"Have you never done this before?" Ling asked as they walked up.

"Uh… well, I've done some cardio training with the Major, but I haven't really done anything like that with Ed." She said as they kept walking, "He mostly had me running, and I guess some of the weight training helped… I've never done a pull-up before." She was a little proud of herself for that to help her get up to the second ladder rung, even though it wasn't much progress.

"I see." She and Ling reached the top of the roof where Lan Fan was waiting for them. "We should have a good viewpoint from here." He said, and Amelia went over to the edge. She looked out and could see the faint light from Edward performing some big transmutation, but she couldn't quite see it from this distance. She took a moment to look at their surroundings before checking her pockets, letting out a quiet curse and turning to Ling.

"You wouldn't happen to have something I could write with, would you?" She asked, and was surprised when Lan Fan held out her hand, producing a small stick of what looked like… charcoal, maybe? She took it, "Thank you," And she drew on the floor of the roof, recognizing enough elements that went into the cement which should have helped in making something pretty basic. She drew out a quick transmutation circle good for inanimate objects and cement elements before activating it, watching as the ground twisted and shifted until it turned into a pair of binoculars (nothing fancy, basically opera glasses) and she brought them up to get a closer look at what Edward and Alphonse were doing. She could see him transmuting a food stand back into a normal look, and now was fixing up a car that seemed to have crashed into it. She watched as people gathered around him, seeing him grinning, and Alphonse just seemed to be gathering more people around. She let out a small laugh, "Wow, the little guy's really hamming it up." She still watched them, getting comfortable on the roof.

"You're an alchemist, too?" She looked up at Ling as he asked.

"Oh, yeah. I'm Edward's alchemy student." She said, "It's kind of part of this whole… program I'm doing with the Amestrian government."

"They're teaching you alchemy?" Ling asked, and Amelia let out an uncertain "Ehhhh…" while shifting her hand in the universal signal of "kinda-sorta"

"I'm kind of getting a pardon for trespassing on military property by getting formal alchemy training so I can apply for state certification," She explained, "If I pass, I get a pardon from jail and I don't have to serve time." She went back to watching Edward at work as he seemed to be repairing and fixing anything that was brought to his attention from the crowd around him with alchemy.

"Is that a normal program?" Ling asked, "If I had gotten into that, maybe I wouldn't have had to escape from prison here."

"No, they made a special case for me…" She paused and then looked back at him, "Oh, wait, that's right! You were arrested, and Barry got you out!" She had completely forgotten that story from what Alphonse had told her and Edward.

"That's right," Ling confirmed, "It wasn't a very nice place. Why did they make a special case for you?"

"Because I trespassed using alchemy they hadn't seen before… well, they called it teleportation alchemy, but I never actually did that." She said, going back to Edward and Alphonse as they worked. "What about your alchemy? Or… no, that's not the right name, is it?"

"It's alkahestry," Ling said, "And it's something we use over in Xing for medical purposes. It's mostly made to heal wounds, and most alkahestrists are very familiar with the general biology of a person."

"Yeah… Ed's been trying to teach me bio-alchemy and I'm not exactly great at it." She said, putting down the binoculars as she and Ling talked, "I started learning because… well, something kind of happened to someone I knew, and I couldn't really do anything to help…"

"A friend of yours?"

"No, not exactly. But he was a good guy, he didn't deserve to die like that." She said, "I wasn't able to help him, and I was able to feel him taking his last breaths… by the time we got him to the doctors, it was too late."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ling moved to sit beside her as they talked, "I can't imagine that was easy to go through that."

"I'm over it." Amelia said, "Well… mostly. I mean, it's not something you can get over in a day, and I guess I still have some issues…" Not exactly from that one moment, but that didn't need to be addressed with him, "But… I mean, I made it, you know?" Ling nodded.

"I'm a bit familiar with that feeling." He said, "In my country of Xing, there are over 50 clans that make up our entire nation, with the emperor ruling over all of them. And each clan's chief sends their daughter to be one of his wives and bears his children." Amelia's eyes went wide, "Of those children, I'm the twelfth. He has nineteen daughters and twenty-four sons. And plenty of those other clans have tried to assassinate me since I was young."

"...How do you figure out who's to succeed him, then?" She asked, since having that many heirs must have made things complicated.

"The emperor's health has begun to deteriorate recently," Ling continued, "And with each clan doing what they can to curry favor, I'm thinking bringing him the key to immortality will secure my place as the next Emperor of Xing, especially with a being that's made from a Philosopher's Stone." He turned to her, "That's what makes them so immortal, right?"

"Uh… well, yeah." She said a little surprised that had been his goal, "That's a hell of a way to go about it, though."

"I know, it's a little ridiculous, but in the race for power, you have to be willing to take risks," Ling said.

Amelia shrugged, "I guess so."

"By the way," She watched Ling take her hand from her binoculars, holding it in both of his, "When I become emperor, I'll be looking to curry favor with our foreign friends, and I think a good way to do that would be to take an Amestrian woman as my queen, what do you say?"

Amelia just stared at him, wide-eyed for a second or two, before she burst out laughing and pulled her hand away, cackling for a few seconds as she laughed at his sudden marriage proposal. "Ha, ha, ha! You're nothing if not ambitious, I'll give you that!" She said between laughs, though her reaction didn't really seem too pleasing to Ling, and Lan Fan asked him something in Xingese (Shall I strike her for laughing at you, My Lord?), which he replied to (No, I think that's unnecessary.), but Amelia had calmed down from her laughing by then, "Man… Alright, I won't say 'no' outright to marriage to a potential emperor, but I'm not about to get married at 16. Give me a couple of years before that happens."

Ling smiled, "Alright, fair enough." He agreed.

Though, something lingered in Amelia's mind from their brief conversation, before it had been derailed by his proposal, "They don't have anything like the Philosopher's Stone in Xing?"

"No, oddly enough it's only something that can be found here in Amestris." Ling said, "I could only ever find vague mentions of it in Xing, and everything pointed to Amestris being the best place to find it."

"Well… I guess that's a good thing it's not in Xing…" She muttered to herself as she went back to watching Edward, seeing him repairing some part of a partially-constructed building by fixing a support post.

"Why's that?" Ling asked.

"With how it's made, that would be a pretty bad way to become an emperor," Amelia replied with a dry chuckle, and it was very quiet for a moment or two.

"How is it made?" She looked up to see Ling looking at her very seriously, "Do you know?"

"Uh… you don't?" She hoped she hadn't just tipped him off to something he didn't need to hear, the philosopher's stone wasn't exactly something that should be made easily. "Ed didn't tell you?"

"He outright refused when I asked," He smiled, "But if you can tell me, then I can tell the emperor how to make it." Amelia went pale and she shook her head.

"Nope, no, no, no. Trust me, you do not want to know how they're made." She said firmly, Ling just came in a little closer, too much for her comfort, and she backed away, "Dude, I'm serious. Back up."

"Dood?" He didn't understand that part of her language but did back off when she asked.

"Look, that information is… it's just not something you want to know." She said, "I mean, I know that's your goal, but the way to make it is actually pretty gruesome. I would have been better off not knowing it, and if I could unlearn it, I probably would." She tried to be serious with him, so he would take the message, "And if Ed doesn't think it's a good idea to tell you, I trust his judgment on that."

"Oh, very well." Ling replied with a small huff, "I don't know why it's so important you keep that a secret, but you can keep it that way. I'll figure it out soon enough once we have this homunculus."

"Yeah… let's hope not." Amelia muttered that more to herself as she went back to watching Edward and Alphonse. They moved around the town, though were never too far from the main roads where they could keep an eye on them and their surroundings. After about two hours, she could see them taking a break at a cafe, and her own stomach rumbled, begging for lunch. She let out a small sigh as she heard it, patting her stomach and wishing she had packed something to eat. She looked over at Ling and Lan Fan, "I don't suppose either of you has any food you're willing to share?"

Lan Fan glanced over at Ling, and he nodded, so Lan Fan produced something for Amelia. She was given what, at first glance, she would have thought was some kind of protein bar. She took a bite, and was met with a bitter, salty taste that crunched between her teeth, "Um… what is this?"

"It's an emergency food supply for me." Ling said, "I have a body that burns through energy pretty quickly, and I need to eat a lot of food, or I risk collapsing." He laughed a bit about it.

"What's it made with?" Amelia asked, "It's… bitter, and salty at the same time." It was a really strange combination.

"I believe it's an edible form of herbal tea, wrapped in seaweed," Ling replied, Amelia grimaced a little, and she went to break the bar in half, giving the other half to Ling.

"Here, we'll split it." She doubted she could eat the whole thing anyway, but she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, even if the food didn't taste very good at all. Ling happily ate his half and she ate hers, looking through the binoculars as she watched a car pull up by the cafe, "Now who is this…?" She couldn't really get a good look, but she watched Edward and Alphonse get into the car after a minute or so. She backed up from the roof as she watched the car drive down the road, and stop just around the corner, in an alley connected to the building where she and Ling were watching everything.

She could clearly hear everything that was being discussed as Ed and Al got out of the car with Colonel Mustang, and Lieutenant Hawkeye, apparently picking up from a conversation that had just started in the car.

"Doctor Marcoh's gone missing?" Ed asked, "Are you sure?"

"Looks like it," Mustang said as he leaned back against the car, "They probably took him captive." Amelia was a little shocked at this news. She remembered Doctor Marcoh, the alchemist who was on the run from the military, he was a good man, and he really cared about the people in the village where he lived, and he had gone missing? He was the one that led Edward to discover the truth about the Philosopher's Stone, could they have captured him for that, as some kind of punishment? "There's something else we need to talk about," Mustang continued, ending that train of thought, "I'm sure you've heard that Scar's back. So, what's with the showboating? Do you want him to find you?"

Edward grinned and turned to him, "Yeah, that's exactly what I want. I need to fight him, and you can't talk me out of it."

"Have you lost your mind?!" The Colonel snapped at him, "Did you forget the way he tore you apart in East City?!"

"Oo~ooh! Sounds like the Colonel's scawed of Big Bad Scar!" Edward mocked him, "I'm not surprised, considering how useless you were against him! Heh, heh, heh, heh!"

"That wasn't my fault, it was raining that day!" The Colonel snapped at him, and Amelia started to notice some movement from the alley adjacent to them, looking closer with her binoculars while Edward and Mustang bickered on the street. She could easily make out a dark-skinned man, with an X-shaped scar on his forehead, despite trying to hide it under a hood.

"Was it raining when you got beat up and sent to the hospital? Heh, you're still useleeeeeess!"

"Shut your mouth, Fullmetal-!" They stopped as the Lieutenant drew her gun, seeming to notice their visitor before the others did. "I guess he got your invite."

"You okay? You'd think it was raining the way your forehead's dripping." Edward got in one more jab at him, watching the Lieutenant aim her gun, and he quickly stepped in front of her to block it, "Hold it! Don't shoot, Lieutenant."

"What?! You can't be serious!" Lieutenant Hawkeye didn't understand his stopping her at all, which was normal, in all fairness.

"I'm trying out the Colonel's sport, think I might be able to catch a few fish!" Edward said, looking over at Scar as he threw back his hood, bringing out his hand and putting it to the ground, watching it all break apart into massive spikes as Edward rushed him to avoid them, while Alphonse put up a wall to defend the Colonel and Lieutenant. Even over the fighting between Edward and Scar, she could still hear what they were saying.

"We're using Brother as bait to lure out the homunculi." Alphonse explained to them, "He's too important to them, they can't afford to just let him die."

"That's crazy!"

"We're not going to let anyone else get hurt!" Alphonse insisted to the Colonel, "Using ourselves as bait was our only option!"

"And what about his student, where the hell is she in all of this?"

"She's safe and tucked away somewhere." Alphonse assured him, "She wasn't left unmonitored."

"What are you going to do if Scar happens to get shot?" The Colonel continued his questioning, "The MP's might get here before the homunculi."

"But you can stop that from happening, can't you, Colonel?"

"So now I take orders from you, is that it? You've got a lot of nerve." His words were harsh, but his tone was jovial, seemingly happy to be part of this plan, "You had better plan on sharing what you catch!"

"Of course!" Alphonse promised, getting up and running around the wall to help his brother in his fight to make sure he could keep it going as long as he needed without dying. Amelia looked up at Ling as the Colonel and Lieutenant took off for a townhouse to start work on stopping the MPs from getting too close to the fight.

"It's started." She said, coming over to join him as they looked over the tops of the buildings.

"Any time now," Ling said, getting comfortable, but in a ready-stance for whenever their targets would show up. Amelia moved her binoculars around the area, trying to keep an eye out for any potential homunculi as the battle raged on nearby. They waited for a while, with Amelia glancing back at Edward and Alphonse as they fought to watch the fight with Scar, seeing them dodging him very well, and keeping enough distance from him to be safe, but still close enough that a smart officer wouldn't shoot. It was tricky, and Amelia could tell that it was really starting to take a toll on her teacher.

"If he dies because of this, I'm going to bring him back to kill him myself." She muttered to herself as she watched the fight. She watched Ed jumping back and forth, performing quick transmutations to defend himself by getting the walls and pavement around him to jump out at Scar, who blocked them with his own methods. It was intense, and she was more focused on him than she should have been on looking around, and she did try to do that more, but she couldn't help worrying over him. The fight had only gone on for a short while before Ling and Lan Fan both straightened up.

"Well, that's a strange presence," Ling said, looking over at Lan Fan, "You can feel it, too, right?"

"Yes," Lan Fan nodded.

"What is it?" Amelia asked, looking around the area, but not really seeing or… feeling anything.

"It's hard to describe…" Ling said, "But it almost feels like there's millions of people condensed into a single area." Amelia looked again, using the binoculars as she walked around the roof.

"I'm not seeing anything like that at all," She had no idea how they were able to "sense" a presence like that, but it definitely wasn't normal. She did notice something as she looked around the city, "That's a lot of guards for one car… must be Fuhrer Bradley's." She said though she kept that more to herself than anything. It's not like that information would change anything about their situation.

"We should get moving." Ling said, and he turned back to her, "How experienced are you with combat?"

"Um, I know some boxing, but that's about it…" Amelia said, "I think if it comes down to fighting, I don't know that I'll be much help." Ling nodded seriously, and he stood up.

"Then keep up as best you can, it's coming this way, so we'll try to meet it before it gets to the fight." And with that Ling and Lan Fan leaped off the roof, and Amelia just watched them go with wide eyes before sighing to herself, tucking her binoculars away.

"Jesus Christ, is everyone from Xing just some kind of acrobat? Who jumps off roofs to another roof?" She didn't really see any way faster than that, though… She looked around, taking the charcoal she had been given and drawing a quick transmutation circle on the roof. She was getting better at them the more she practiced, and she was able to make herself a convenient bridge from one roof to another, rushing across to do the same to the next building. Once she got onto the third roof, she was able to see Ling and Lan Fan just ahead on the next one, Lan Fan leaping mid-air to hit something rather large that crashed back into the building opposite them. She drew another circle and made her way over to join them on the roof, though she was still a safe distance away behind the door that led downstairs.

As the dust cleared away, Amelia could make out a large, short, bald fat man that Lan Fan had kicked through the brick wall of what must have been the empty floor of a building. His arms were massive and gorilla-like and she was a little surprised to see him wearing… what looked like a sleeveless footed jumpsuit? It didn't look like it was made of normal material. The more she looked over him, the more everything about him seemed to be big, with the exceptions of his beady eyes, small ears, and surprisingly tiny legs. It was like someone decided to make him with nothing but upper body strength and had him completely miss every single leg day… or maybe that was just because his fat hovered down to his very stumpy knees.

"Hi! How's it going?" Ling greeted him cheerily, "That is one pretty unusual body you've got there! Just how many people are inside you?"

The man just looked at Ling and Lan Fan, clearly confused, "Who are you?" He asked in a voice that came out surprisingly meek.

"Don't bother running," Lan Fan said, "I sense your presence, and I can follow it."

The fat man smiled, tilting his head to one side, "Follow?" He tilted it the other way, "Me?" He straightened, his voice changing from the calm meek one, to a much more intimidating growl as he opened his mouth, "Then I'll just eat you now!" On his massive tongue sat the symbol they were looking for - the mark of the ouroboros. Amelia shuddered a little at the sight of his mouth, he was salivating at the idea of eating them to where he was visibly drooling, and it was disgusting to her.

"So, you're able to detect his presence, are you?" Another voice came from below, and Amelia's eyes widened to see Fuhrer Bradly approaching them from the street, with both of his swords drawn. He didn't seem to notice Amelia, his one good eye focusing on Lan Fan, "Well, that's quite the nuisance. Let's take care of it!"

Within a second, the older man was dashing at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a man his age, and before Amelia could even look, Ling shouted out, "Lan Fan! Run!" But it was too late, he had gotten to her first and her mask broke apart from the impact of his attack, "No! Lan Fan!" She fell back onto the building behind her, and Amelia could hear the clatter of metal, and again before she looked back at Fuhrer Bradley to see his sword had been cut through. Lan Fan hadn't acted fast enough to run, but she had managed to break his weapon.

"Clever," Bradley praised as he examined her work, "You took a swipe at me with your kunai." Although he was complimenting her quick thinking, he clearly didn't do it in that friendly way that Amelia was so used to. This was an entirely different man than the old war-guy she had met months ago, who gave her raspberry tea and talked about giving her a pardon. At best, he had always come off as a little eccentric, if intimidating because of his title. Now he was intimidating for an entirely new reason, one that kept her pinned to the wall to hide. If he saw her now, she would definitely be killed! There's no way she would be able to get past him and have his secret get out that he was working with the homunculi! When he had warned them back at the hospital that they had been infiltrated by the enemy, she had no idea they had already gotten to him. He must have been acting as a double-agent when he came to see Edward that day after the fifth lab!

"Can I eat her now?" The fat man's voice called out, eager.

"Just make it quick," Bradley said, and the fat man cheered as he leaped out of the building and over to where Lan Fan lay unconscious, and he jumped clear over Bradley, but he didn't manage to land on the roof unscathed. Ling met him from behind, his blade slicing through both of the fat one's massive hands, and his head, a completely clean cut that left ribbons of blood in the air as Ling ran over to his bodyguard.

"Lan Fan, please stay with me!" He called out to her, going to pick her up while the fat body landed just behind them in a heap. He put her over his shoulder as Fuhrer Bradley came over to them, holding out his other sword and pointing it at Ling.

"If you thought you could escape from me that easily, I'm afraid you'll find you're sorely mistaken!" Bradley charged him, Ling dodging and parrying his sword. Amelia watched all of it from the building across the road, her eyes wide. What was going on? Why was Bradley working with these people? And why had he joined the homunculus that had been sent out to stop Scar from hurting Ed?

Ed! In all the hubbub, Amelia had forgotten about their fight, and she looked back to see that it was still ongoing. But the better question was how long could they last against Scar? They would need to finish this quickly, draw out the homunculus to where they could catch him and bring him in for their own reasons. This was a lot more dangerous than she originally thought, a trap won't work so well if you haven't set up everything in place, and she had no idea that the homunculus they were looking for would bring back up.

"I see you're no stranger to combat," Bradley said as he commented on Ling's fighting, the two of them jumping and circling each other as Ling kept his distance from him, still holding onto Lan Fan's unconscious body over his other shoulder, his free hand doing the parrying with the Fuhrer. It took Amelia a moment to figure out Ling was trying to stay in his blind spot, where his left eye was no good, and she mentally praised his forethought there. "Gluttony!" The fat man whose head had been chopped in half was now fully back to himself, and he cried out as he jumped around Bradley, bringing his hands together and knocking Ling back into the building where Amelia was, sending him careening through a window and shattering it.

"Oh no!" Amelia reached for the door, thankfully finding it unlocked and started to rush down as Gluttony and Bradley went to meet Ling on the second to the top level where he had fallen in, unaware that Bradley had seen the door flying open and someone going inside the building after them.

She rushed down the stairs to the next floor, and she could hear Bradley's voice carrying from the stairs, and she slowed her steps to be quieter. If she could hear him from however far away, he would definitely be able to hear her coming, and she needed to keep some kind of surprise. "Excellent, we should have some privacy in here. If you don't mind, I have some questions." His voice was almost pleasant, the smooth voice of an experienced leader who had dealt with so many powerful people over the course of decades, the one Amelia wouldn't have thought was terrifying until just now. "First, I'd like to know who you people are, and how you found out what's inside Gluttony?" Amelia rounded the corner, and Ling could see her through the open doorway, and she put her finger to her lips to indicate that he be quiet, holding up the charcoal stick in her other hand to show that she was going to draw a transmutation to try and help them out. "You're looking for an escape? Even now? You don't give up, do you?" Bradley's voice drew Ling's attention back on him, and he shifted Lan Fan, knowing that he would have to keep the old man's attention on him, so he wouldn't notice Amelia's sneaking to try and help them. "You might stand a fair chance of getting away if you'd only abandon the injured girl because she's just excess baggage at this point."

Ling had to grit his teeth from attacking him that exact moment, "Excess baggage?" He glared at the man, looking over the uniform he wore, recognizing it from his time around Central, "I can see all those stars on your uniform, you're the ruler here. Fuhrer King Bradley, unless I'm mistaken." Amelia could hear him talking, moving behind the wall, being careful as she shifted, trying to remember how much of a distance there was between Bradley and Ling as she started to draw out a circle that would hopefully make good use of the plaster in this wall. "A ruler's duty is to his people! Without them, he is no king at all! "King" Bradley, you're no true king! Not now, or ever!"

"Naive boy…" Bradley said, "Don't you understand there are no "true kings" in this world?"

Ling didn't answer, Lan Fan had regained consciousness, and threw out a flash bomb, tossing it back in Bradley's direction where it shot off. Amelia jumped when she saw the sudden light coming out of the room and realized Lan Fan must have gone ahead and made their escape distraction herself, she stood up, going to the door to try and get Ling, but as the light just began to fade, a blade shot out and hit the door frame, blocking both Ling's exit and Amelia's entrance to find them. She looked back to see Gluttony writhing on his back, hands covering his blinded eyes, with Bradley crouching on one knee, a hand covering his eye from where he had thrown his sword. Amelia was frozen as she realized he could easily see her from his vantage point.

"Nice try," Bradley lowered his hand, and Amelia's blood ran cold at the sight of the eye he had hidden behind a patch for so long, instead of sharing the same color of green as his right eye, this one was red, bearing the mark of the ouroboros instead of a pupil and iris. "But your flash bomb didn't succeed in blinding this eye!" He glanced over at Amelia, standing up. "Well, I can't say this is a surprise, now we know the fullmetal alchemist is meddling in things he really shouldn't." Amelia couldn't say anything, she was petrified as she looked at him, her hands trembling fiercely, and her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn't be still, she had to move, she had to move and do something! But her legs wouldn't listen, neither would her hands.

Ling could see the fearful expression on her face as she looked Fuhrer Bradley in his eye, revealing himself as a homunculus as well as his companion. He stepped out, looking at him, "Keep your focus on me." He said, and Amelia looked at him, grateful that he was still trying to protect her, even at this moment when he had another girl slung over his shoulder. She reached for the sword in the door frame and yanked it out, pointing it in her trembling hands at the Fuhrer. He stood up straight and glared at Ling, his other eye slowly opening as he started to recover from his temporary blinding from the flash bomb.

"I don't know what you're up to, but don't go thinking we'll just let it happen." Bradley said, looking directly at Amelia as she held his sword with her shaking hands, his eyes narrowing scornfully, "How dare you handle that blade in such a way. You're shaking a like a leaf, do you genuinely believe you can fight me, Amelia?" Hearing her name said in his voice, with his new person that he was, sent a shudder through her, but she had to be brave at this moment, she had to be ready to fight.

"I said, focus on me!" Ling said, charging him, and Bradley easily knocked back his attacks with his broken blade that he had brought with him from Lan Fan's attack. Amelia glanced over at Gluttony, who was getting up from the ground. He blinked, and his eyes looked over at Amelia, and a spine-chilling grin broke over his face.

"It's a girl!" He said excitedly and charged at her, Amelia ran back as he came to the door frame, going to her transmutation circle that she had drawn, only to smear it when her fingers touched it.

"No!" She panicked, and she looked up to see Gluttony approaching her with his massive hands outstretched, his mouth opening wide and showing his ouroboros on his tongue.

"Girl flesh! So tender and sweet!" He said, and Amelia just stumbled back in her fear until she was up against the wall, with Gluttony eagerly closing in on her.

They say that the moment you're about to die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. For Amelia, this was not exactly the case as her mind reminded her of Katie, her time in the void just before the creation of the gate, and the memory of all that she saw within the Portal came rushing back to her.

She clapped her hands, pushed one back against the wall behind her, and a pillar of plaster and cement shot out of the side, going right into Gluttony's mouth and pushing him farther away from her. More came, sharpened to a fine point to shoot through his large body and pin him. She could see him struggling, and in pain, and she glanced down at her charcoal-stained hands for a second before she realized… she could do alchemy without a transmutation circle. She suddenly felt a lot braver, and she dashed around the hefty homunculus to where Ling was fighting with Fuhrer Bradley. With a quick glance around the floor and her surroundings, she could see Lan Fan glancing her way, and she could see the various bombs that lined her belt from where Ling held her.

"Throw me a bomb!" She called out to him, and he glanced back at her before parrying again with the Fuhrer and jumped around him again and again, and Lan Fan heard her call, grabbing one and tossing it to her. She had no idea what kind of bomb this was, and Lan Fan was barely conscious, so she might not have been fully aware of what she had done, but she had an unlit bomb thrown at her. Even if it was just a smoke bomb or a flash bomb, there was bound to be some gunpowder in there. She looked back at Gluttony as he was starting to pull himself off of the spikes she had made, and his wounds were starting to heal quickly. She put the bomb against the plaster of the wall, her mind working to convert the elements from the wall into the bomb, making quick work of it before she pulled off the trigger and shouted to Ling, "Run!" as she threw it towards Bradley.

Ling ran towards her, grabbed her by the hand and dashed for the window he had been thrown into. Behind them, the bomb exploded, and the force was enough to push them out of the window and Amelia miraculously landed on her feet, though it was a harsh landing and she could feel the painful shockwaves racking through her legs and forcing her to squat down for a moment before Ling pulled her up. He had recovered a little faster than her and he dragged her along down the alley and streets as they ran from the homunculi.

She quickly kept pace with him, thankful to the Major for the cardio work he had made her do since now she could keep up with Ling as they ran away. "Do you think they're following us?" She asked, glancing back over her shoulder, seeing no one following them on the road, though she could see droplets of blood coming from Lan Fan, and definitely leaving a trail behind.

"They're definitely following us!" Ling said, "Don't stop running!" She nodded and ran with him through the streets, both of them randomly deciding which turns to take to try and outrun Gluttony and Bradley, though there never really seemed to be an end to it. They had been running for about four minutes, all the while looking back now and then to see Gluttony following behind them, "They won't give up…"

"We'll be okay, I think." Amelia tried to stay hopeful in all of this, though she wouldn't lie and say that she wasn't on the verge of soiling herself at the thought of getting caught by them. "Here, this way!" She led Ling down one alley, and they ran up to a wall, no sign of another way out. "Oh, shit."

"A dead end…" They immediately turned around and went back to running another way, and Ling led them down another road, "This area looks deserted." He commented as they ran.

"I think it's been cleared for construction, mostly." Ed had mentioned this area was still in development for government-funded housing, but nothing was finished yet. It was why he had picked it as his battleground for Scar, that way as few people were hurt as possible.

They ran down yet another turn and came to yet another dead end, "Another one. We're trapped." Ling said before they turned and ran again, still seeing Gluttony following them at his leisurely pace along the roofs of the different buildings. They could hear something that sounded like thunder as they ran, but with no storm cloud in sight, it was clearly an explosion, likely from Ed and Scar still fighting each other. After a few moments, Ling gasped, and Amelia looked over at him.

"What? What is it?" She asked.

"That inhuman presence from Gluttony is getting farther behind, but I think the other one is still coming," Ling said.

"Well, at least that's the one that you can deal with," Amelia said, and she was starting to get exhausted. She didn't have the stamina to keep this up for very long, and although her adrenaline was still running, it was still exhausting to have to keep running like this to try and find cover. It didn't help that Lan Fan was leaving a trail of blood behind them, but she wouldn't bring it up. Ling had been insistent on keeping her close, even when he was fighting Bradley, he wouldn't dump her just because she would mention it now. "Maybe we should split up? I can head down another way, we might be able to do something with Ed and Scar?"

"What happened to me…?" Lan Fan spoke as she started to wake up.

"What's wrong?" Ling asked, hoping she would be alright.

"My arm… My Lord," Lan Fan reached up with her right arm to her left shoulder, her left arm still flopping about as Ling continued to run, "I'm useless to you, now…!" She sounded like she was about to cry. It only took Amelia a couple of seconds to realize she meant she couldn't feel her arm. Bradley must have caused more damage than they originally thought, he must have severed the nerves in Lan Fan's arm somehow, and it wouldn't be easy to put them back together.

"What are you talking about?" Ling ignored it, he wouldn't hear of it.

"You cannot burden yourself with me, if you do they'll only get you, too." Lan Fan warned, "A king is no king without his people, but a people without their king would be lost as well! You can't do that to them! My Lord think of our clan! You must live for their sake!"

"I won't leave you!" Ling firmly stated.

"Ling, she's leaving a trail and we can't keep running forever…!" Amelia said between heavy breaths.

"Don't you dare say it!" Ling snapped at her.

Lan Fan was only quiet for a moment before speaking again, "Sometimes, someone must be left behind," She lifted her collar and gripped it between her teeth, "for the greater good." Amelia watched her pulling out one of her kunai.

"Lan Fan? What are you planning?" Ling asked, and got no reply, and immediately feared the worst, as did Amelia. Was she really going to kill herself then and there? "No! Don't do it!" Lan Fan drove the knife into her shoulder, crying out as she buried it deep, and her arm fell off behind her.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Amelia shouted at the sight of seeing her taking her arm off. She and Ling immediately stopped, Ling taking her off of his shoulder, his eyes widening at the sight of the bloody stump left behind. Without waiting, he took off his jacket, leaving him without anything above the waist for clothes and tied it around Lan Fan's shoulder, "That's not going to stop the bleeding completely." Amelia said, and she looked back at where Lan Fan's arm lay, seeing a stray dog coming over to sniff at it, and maybe eat it, "No, get away from that!" She yelled at the dog.

"No, let it come…!" Lan Fan spoke, looking up at Amelia determinedly from where she sat, her hand going up to put pressure on her wound to help stop the bleeding as best she could, "I have a plan…"

---

Amelia tried not to gag as she, Ling and Lan Fan walked through the sewers, heading to the sources of the rumbles and explosions from where Ed and Scar were still fighting. "You're sure this is the way?" She asked Ling, being careful of Lan Fan as they walked through the sewer water. It was washing away any trail of blood left behind from Lan Fan, and though she felt really bad for the poor dog they had tied Lan Fan's arm to, it was doing them a big favor by leading the Fuhrer somewhere else.

"I'm positive, this way," Ling said as he hurried down the water and Amelia followed behind him. They were following the presence that Ling could sense in Gluttony, since he was the one that left from following their trail, he assumed it was to go after Scar and as the sounds of small earthquakes and explosions seemed to go louder in this direction, it was a fair assumption that he was right., "Can you make another bomb?" He asked.

"If I can borrow one of Lan Fan's again?" She looked over at the other woman, who nodded and she reached for one from her belt, "What's this? What's in it?"

"It's a flash bomb…" Lan Fan said, "There's magnesium… and gunpowder." Amelia looked around them and nodded.

"Okay, I can work with that." She said, looking over at Ling, "If you can grab me some of that wall, I'll use it. It should have limestone in the mix somewhere." He nodded and quickly rammed the butt of his sword against the wall, chipping away at it and bringing it back to Amelia. They could hear and feel the explosions as they came closer to where the fight continued. She brought the ingredients together, pressing her hands together as she focused her transmutation and watched as they lit up with the light and soon became a regular bomb, "This should have some kick to it, so make sure you step back when it goes off." She said, handing it to Ling. As they came to one manhole, the ground shook from the battle above, hearing the sounds of transmutation above them. "We must be just under them…!"

Ling immediately shot up the ladder and Amelia looked back at Lan Fan, "Remember the meeting spot, we'll find you there, okay?" Lan Fan nodded, "Are you sure you're okay on your own?"

"I'm fine, go!" Lan Fan insisted, and Amelia headed up the ladder to where Ling was already above. She just reached the top rung when she heard a rather disgusting explosion and could feel the mist of blood sprinkling over her before she stuck her head out. She could see the fleshy remains of the homunculus scattered around, but they were quickly turning to dust as the body began to regenerate, growing back the torso and arms already.

"Amelia!" Edward rushed over to her as she came out of the sewer, grabbing her and pulling her up. She looked over and she could see Scar, whose eyes flashed with recognition when he met hers for a brief moment, though Ed was quick to pull her away from him.

"Get me some strong cable!" Ling commanded.

"Right!" Alphonse got up and quickly transmuted a few yards worth of cable from the nearby train tracks, watching it fly out and Ling grabbed it. He quickly jumped back onto Gluttony's body, wrapping the metal cables around him over and over again as he continued to grow back his body.

"Your own regenerative abilities working against you…! Your flesh won't stop expanding! It'll keep you tied up nice and tight!" Ling grunted as he wrapped him up more and more until he was able to tangle them up tightly against his body and keep him from moving too much. "You're mine now, homunculus!" When it was finished, they all looked at the ball of flesh wrapped up in cables, even Scar was marveling at him.

"How do we get-?" Amelia's question was cut off by the sound of tires peeling on the road, looking up and seeing a car speeding down the way, the driver pulling something out, and after a shot, she looked and saw Scar had been shot in the leg. They had a gun!

They turned and screeched to a stop, a blonde woman at the wheel in glasses, her gun still pointed at Scar as he collapsed onto his knee, "Put him in, we're getting out of here!" She said to Ling, who didn't hesitate to try and grab the homunculus, crying out from the effort of lifting him up and carrying him a couple of steps over to the car.

"Who is that…?" She asked Edward.

"I think it's Lieutenant Hawkeye…" Edward replied in a quiet voice, watching as Ling jumped into the car with her, and she changed gears to leave, "Hold on a sec! Lieuten-"

"Shh!" She quickly shushed him, and Edward stopped, staying quiet as he watched them speed away.

"Wait, what's going on?!" Alphonse cried out, with Edward reaching a hand out to stop him from chasing after them.

"Al!" The younger brother looked down at the older one, "The MPs are watching, just pretend we don't know her." Alphonse was quiet after that, and soon they were descended on by MPs who were shouting commands to go after the car. "The colonel may be a creep and a jerk, but at least we can trust him." He looked over at Amelia, giving her a quick once over, seeing some bloodstains on her clothes, "Are you injured?"

"No, I'm fine." Miraculously, she had come out of all of that with only some sore muscles that were already starting to ache from all of her running, and treading through sewer water with Lan Fan, which had stained the bottoms of her pants from the calves down and her shirt stained with Lan Fan's blood.

"Then we have something to do…" Edward turned his head to where Scar was limping away with his injured leg, dashing towards him and landing a solid punch across his face, only to be met with another punch from Scar that he dodged, and dodged the one after that. He jumped a distance away, and Scar brought his hand to the ground, destroying a trail to where Edward stood, and he managed to jump out of the way as it destroyed the train tracks in the area behind him. Alphonse came up to his side, ready to fight, and Amelia hung back a little. She wasn't one for combat, and she was definitely not ready to fight this guy.

"We have to get him, Al!" Edward said, determined to end this here and now, and Alphonse nodded in agreement. The two of them clapped their hands together, and Amelia's eyes widened, could Al perform without a circle too? "You killed the Rockbells, and Nina, among many others!"

"You're going to answer for your crimes!" Alphonse said, but before he could do anything, a little colorful blur dashed past Amelia and jumped up to dropkick Alphonse to the ground. Edward looked over, confused, but before he could do anything the blur did the same to him before landing in front of Scar. It was a little girl, dressed in pink and purple clothes, with a tiny panda bear mimicking her, her long hair pulled back into a multitude of braids that came from a pair of buns on her head. Amelia was so confused as she looked at the two incapacitated Elric brothers.

"Are these two giving you trouble, servant?" The girl asked Scar, who didn't respond before she pointed an accusing finger at Edward, "This is the servant of the man who saved my life! You better leave him alone! Puny little boy."

Edward jumped up, infuriated at her words, "WAIT A SEC- WHO'RE YOU CALLING PUNY?!" It was a little weird to have her say it, given that she was actually a bit shorter than Edward. Soon enough, the MPs surrounded them, guns pointed at Scar as they looked at this strange, new arrival on the battlefield.

"Where'd that kid come from?" One soldier asked.

"Get away, girl! It's dangerous!" One ordered.

The girl looked at their surroundings, seeing how many were there with them, all pointing guns at the pair of them (mostly just Scar, though she didn't want to leave him, clearly). "They got us outnumbered." She reached into her pockets, pulling out two handfuls of knives, "It's time for us to retreat!" She threw them out, each handful landing on the train carts across from the MPs and the tracks, one filled with water, the other with coal. She drew out a star-shaped circle on the ground with her foot, placed more knives at each point of the star, and pressed her hand down to it. It lit up in transmutative light, and suddenly the two carts exploded, leaving behind a thick cloud of smoke that caused Amelia, Edward, and many others to go into a coughing fit, closing their eyes from the sting of the bits of coal in the air.

"What kind of alchemy was that?" Edward asked between coughs.

"She did it from that far away?" Alphonse couldn't believe what he saw, either. The carts were so far from the circle, at least a good twenty feet, it was impressive, to say the least!

"I can't see!" Edward said, and he realized that Scar was likely making his escape in this smoke, "Damn it! Where are you, Scar?!"

"Ed, just leave it!" Amelia said between coughing fits, "Let's just go!" They had what they wanted, the homunculus was captured and that was all they needed for the time being, at least as far as she was concerned. She reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him by the wrist.

"No! We can't just let him walk away!" Edward growled.

"Edward, he's already gone." Amelia said, and coughed again, getting Edward to calm down somewhat when he saw her struggling, "I can't see, and I can't breathe, let's just go!"

"Alright, alright." Edward walked out with her, and they could hear the clanking of Al's armor following them until they managed to find a way out of the smokescreen that was left. Amelia took a few deep breaths once they were out and came back to herself, looking back over at Ed. She had seen the blood on his face before, and it looked like it was still bleeding.

"What happened to you?" She asked, coming a little closer and moving his hair out of the way to get a look at it.

"Some rubble got me," Edward said, and he felt his cheeks burning as Amelia brought one hand up to his cheek to pull his face a little closer as she got a better look at it. He really wasn't used to girls being this close! "I'll be fine, I just need to see a doctor."

"Damn right you do." She replied, pulling her hands away, letting out a small sigh. She looked him in the eyes, knowing that he had to be told the truth about what she had seen, and he looked back into hers blankly, confused.

"What is it?" She knew she had to tell him, she had to.

"Ed… when we were going after the homunculus, there was-" Edward quickly shushed her as he looked back over his shoulder, seeing some MPs come back from the smoke that had been left.

"Later." He whispered to her, and an officer came over to them to get them to medical care. As they were walking, Alphonse looked back in the smoke and saw something he wasn't expecting, breaking away from the group to hurry and grab it.

---

After Edward had been bandaged up, and it was confirmed that the blood on Amelia's clothes wasn't hers, the doctor let them go, and the first thing they did was request a car. Amelia listened as Edward explained a little of what had happened in the battle with Scar, Alphonse's excuse to buy them some time by talking with Scar about his murderous exploits ended up with them accusing him of the Rockbells murder - which he was guilty of, they confirmed it - but Winry had stumbled on them at that exact moment. She had pointed a gun at Scar and tried to kill him, but they managed to make it so that she didn't do it and gave her over to the MPs so that she could be placed somewhere safe until the battle was over.

As the three of them got into the car that was provided, Alphonse reached out his arm to show his companions what he had in his hand, "Look what I found, Ed." He held up a tiny creature, and Amelia thought it looked like a panda bear baby, but it really couldn't have been since there was no way that was a thing over here… was it?

Edward stared at the creature, which stared back at them in its own shock before he turned to his brother and exploded, "We're a little busy right now to be adopting PANDA BEARS, AL!"

"I couldn't leave her alone in the middle of all that mess back there!" Alphonse defended.

"First, stray cats, and now this?! Just how many animals can you stuff into that armor of yours, huh?! Get rid of it!"

"What a heartless thing to say!" Alphonse said, pulling the little thing back away from his brother before he looked down at it, pressing his finger to her cheek, "Look at how sweet and gentle she is." Only just after he said that did she decide to bite his finger, looking like she was doing it as hard as she could, growling as her teeth dug into it. Amelia looked up at Alphonse who didn't react at all - after all, why would he when he can't feel pain? He simply let out a gentle laugh, "It's alright, you're safe now." The tiny bear calmed down as it realized it wasn't going to be able to hurt this metal giant.

"What is it, anyway?" Amelia asked, "It looks like a panda, but… I mean, are there pandas in Amestris?"

"No, definitely not." Edward said, "They're farther east. It's just a cat… I think." Amelia didn't really know if she should question it, but she shrugged and let it go for the time being. She looked back at Edward and she began to speak again, meaning to tell him about Bradley, but instead, their car rolled to a stop outside of a building. The car door was opened by another soldier, who saluted Edward once he saw him.

"This way; follow me." He said, knowing he was here for Winry.

"Thanks," Edward replied, he, Alphonse, and Amelia climbing out of the car to head inside. They walked into the building, which turned out to be the Central Command Center.

As Alphonse walked, he looked down at the little panda cat he had picked up, "You can stay in here, okay?" He said as he lifted up his helmet and brought them up to it, letting the panda cat jump in when it was ready. Amelia could hear her hitting the bottom, then moving around to find a comfortable spot inside his torso before stopping altogether.

Soon enough, they came to the room where they were going to, the officer opening the door and revealing Winry sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of her. She looked over her shoulder as the door opened and smiled when she saw the Elric brothers on the other side. Edward smiled back, glad to see she was okay. "Hey, Winry!" He greeted her, coming in quickly and then stopping when he saw she had company with her.

Amelia saw who it was, and she froze again. Fuhrer Bradley sat across from Winry, sipping at his own cup of coffee, and when he met Edward's eyes, he smiled at him in that friendly way, "Oh. Hello there, Fullmetal Alchemist." His eyes shifted to Amelia, who felt her blood running cold again as she looked at him, and he still kept smiling, but everything about him just read as malicious to her in that moment.

"Fuhrer Bradley, this is a surprise," Edward greeted him.

"What brings you here?" Alphonse asked.

"I heard that a childhood friend of yours was under our protection here at the command center." He explained, "As the friend of such an important alchemist, she deserves our every courtesy." He stood up from his seat, taking his sword from where it was resting against the table, turning to Winry with that same smile, "I should be on my way, now. If you'll please excuse me, Miss."

"Oh, of course, sir," Winry said, and she let him leave, with Fuhrer walking past Amelia, his uncovered eye looking directly at her, and she genuinely thought she might shit herself as she looked at him. Would he kill her just then? Stab her through with his blade? Or maybe he would take her from Edward, snatch her away and keep her imprisoned where no one could hear her… she wasn't sure which was worse.

Instead, he took another step past her and stopped in the doorway, "That's a nice, honest friend you've got there. Make sure you both take good care of her." His message was to the Elric brothers, who nodded.

"Yeah," Edward replied.

"And you take care of yourself, Miss Seymour." He said to her, one final message as he turned around and looked right at her again. She didn't reply as he left them all alone, the door closing behind him.

Amelia let out a heavy breath, her body already shaking a little bit from the brief encounter. She was terrified of him, he could have killed her so easily just then, but he didn't. Why? Did he want to wait until she was alone? Was that it? Frame it to make it look like a random murder? Or would he just send someone else after her? He was the ruler of the country, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with her, and that was the most terrifying thought out of all of them.

"Amelia? What's wrong?" Alphonse noticed her shaking and she looked up at him to answer but looked back as Winry's chair scraped along the floor as she stood up, going over to Edward. She never answered as she decided to let Winry speak.

"Ed?" He turned to her when she called his name, "You promised. Tell me everything about my parents. What happened to them?" Edward nodded and they all took a seat around the table, and Edward looked up at Winry.

"A little while ago… I came across this group of Ishvalans that had been there during the war," He began the story, "They told me about how your parents would help anyone that came to them, Ishvalan and Amestrian alike, even at their own expense." He smiled a little, "You would have been so proud of them, Winry. They were the best doctors out there, I'm sure of it." Winry smiled slightly for a brief moment, though it disappeared as she waited to hear the rest of the story, "And… well, one of their patients was Scar. We don't know exactly what happened, because we weren't told, but… The person they described as killing your parents, it matches Scar's description. The way Madame Shan told me, it sounded like he was fixed up by them, and then he went to kill them. I don't know why, exactly, but… I do know that's just what happened." He looked up at her, seeing her looking down at the table as she listened to everything he was saying, "They were great doctors, Winry. They did a lot of good for a lot of people, I know they changed the minds of a lot of Ishvalans because of it."

"I see…" Winry said, lifting her head up with a melancholy smile on her face, "They did everything they could to help others, right up until the end. But… I…" Her lip trembled, "I just wish they could have come back to me alive, is that selfish...?" Her voice shook, and she started to cry. Amelia moved her chair a little closer to her, putting her arm on her shoulder as Winry's started to shake. She took the comfort and leaned onto Amelia's shoulder, tears falling as she sobbed for a couple of minutes before she felt like it was enough, and she pulled away, calming down.

Amelia felt bad for her, it couldn't have been easy to find out her parents had died the first time, and now that she knew how she imagined that didn't make it any easier. When she was calm, Winry just asked if they could go back to the hotel so she could get her things together for her train, and they all went to do just that. Fuhrer Bradley could wait a little bit longer until she was safely on the train back home.

The car ride back to the hotel was silent, with Winry staring out the window, deep in thought with a sad expression on her face. Amelia didn't really know if there was anything that could be said to help her with this, but at least she had closure? She didn't know if that did anything, but she had always been told that some people just… needed to know what happened. Her parents were good people, and they didn't deserve what they got, but it had happened and there was no way to change that. For a brief second, Amelia's mind wandered into whether there was any kind of alchemy that could change time and go backward, though that was quickly dismissed. Chemistry can't really do that, then alchemy definitely couldn't.

She looked over at Edward as they rode, and he seemed to be lost in thought himself, though not while sadly staring out the window of the car, but while looking at Winry. He didn't seem happy to be the one that made her feel like this, but there wasn't really anything he could say to make it better. It was best to just leave Winry to bring her own feelings about it together and figure out what her next step would be for her life and her own goals.

As they arrived at the hotel, they thanked their driver and walked in, with the man at the front desk looking up upon their arrival. "Ah, perfect timing," He said, "Miss Rockbell, there's a telephone call for you."

"For me?" Winry was a little confused, who could be calling her at this time? She went up to the phone and the three of them waited for her to finish her call, though they could hear a little of the snippets of the conversation on the other end… well, somewhat, "Yes, hello?" Her eyes widened at the sound of the voice on the other end, "Oh, Mr. Garfiel!"

"I'm sorry about this, Winry. I know you've got a lot going on and I tried to handle it myself, really… But I can't take this anymore! Your customers are so needy!"

Winry's eyes widened a bit as she could hear the chattering in the background of all her customers in Rush Valley, all the different people who had come to her for their automail repairs and quick fixes. "You there, Miss Winry?"

"Tetsu?" It only took her a second to recognize the voice that had taken the phone.

"Please come back to the shop soon, you do a much better job working on my leg than Mr. Garfiel can. We need you here!"

The phone was taken by someone else, "Ah, another thing, Winry: We still need an outer covering for that model leg you made for me!"

"My arm needs work, too!" Someone shouted out.

"Hey, hold on a sec, I was first!" Someone else shouted.

Hearing all the voices of all the people she had come to know in Rush Valley, all the people who were waiting for her and happily waiting for her return… she could feel the weight on her chest growing a little lighter. All this time with Edward and Alphonse, she had been chipping away at herself because all she could do was wait on them, wait on them to finish their fight, wait on them to come to her when they're hurt. She couldn't step in on their fights, and she couldn't stop them from getting hurt, but knowing so many people were waiting for her, as so many of her customers called out for her safe and quick return, she smiled a little bit. The Elric brothers were probably the most important boys in her life right now, but she was someone important in the lives of so many others, others who relied on her and needed her hands that were meant to heal and fix what was wrong.

"I'm sorry, I'll be back home soon…" She promised, she could feel her lip trembling and a lump in her throat, though she didn't let any tears fall just yet. It was so good to know that there were people who needed her, and she had been a little selfish to think that they wouldn't need her at all, so she could stay with her two boys. She was an automail mechanic, a proud one with great skills, and so many people wanted her to come back home. "Just hold on," She wiped away some of the water that had welled up in her eyes, "I won't be much longer. I'll help everyone… Thank you all…"

Edward looked over at Winry as she spoke on the phone, and Amelia let out a small sigh. "Poor kid's on an emotional roller coaster." She said quietly. Edward let out a small hum in agreement. She glanced over at him, wondering if now was a good time to mention what she had seen, but before she could open her mouth, Winry had hung up the phone and she turned to Edward, Alphonse, and Amelia.

"Alright! I need to hurry and get my things; my train will leave soon." She said, with a seemingly renewed energy from the somber moments she had before that phone call.

---

After making sure she had everything, the three of them escorted Winry to the train station. She found her car and she opened up the window to her seat as she got comfortable, saying her goodbyes to them all. "You sure you're good by yourself?" Amelia asked, knowing that traveling by yourself can be a little risky sometimes, especially for girls.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Mr. Garfiel will meet me at the train station." Winry reassured her. Amelia nodded, glad to know she had someone to meet her at the station since it would likely be pretty late once she got back to Rush Valley. "And thank you for the dresses! I don't know when I'll be able to wear them, but I'm sure there will be an occasion or two." Amelia chuckled.

"Hey, if you want any more, just stop by. No need to go to a boutique when I've got an entire store in my fucking closet." She joked, and the two girls shared a laugh.

Winry looked over at Edward and Alphonse, "Thank you both for stopping me back there." She said, "I forgot there were still people who depended on me." Her expression grew a little sad as she felt terrible for having forgotten all those people in Rush Valley, but she was still glad to know that she was needed, "If I had done it… I wouldn't have been able to face them again."

"Of course," Alphonse said wholeheartedly.

Winry got back a little of her energy as she looked up at Edward, "I expect you to take good care of your automail."

"Yep," Edward promised, giving her a thumbs-up with his metal hand.

"Oh, and I'll send you some good polishing oil soon, Al."

"Great!" Alphonse would look forward to that.

Winry paused for a moment, that melancholy coming back, "...And no dying, okay?"

Alphonse nodded, as did Edward, "Right."

"I'll make sure they won't," Amelia promised, earning her a smile from Winry.

"Oh, and… The next time I make you cry, I hope… that they'll be…" Edward spoke up, but his voice trailed off as the bell rang out, signaling that the train was about to depart, his voice drowned out by the sound.

"Huh? What? I can't hear you." Winry spoke over the bell, but Edward's mouth stayed shut even as it stopped. He turned to start walking away, knowing the train staff wouldn't want them so close to the departing cars.

"Ed?" Amelia was a little confused, wanting to know what it was that he said, too, but it seemed he had clammed up.

"Brother? Wait up!" Alphonse wasn't sure what to make of it either, but he just walked alongside Ed, turning around to give one last wave to Winry, "See you, Winry!" Amelia waved goodbye as well as she caught up with the two boys.

"Okay…" Winry waved back, and she moved a little out of the train window to shout, "Come back, Edward! What were you saying?!"

Edward stopped walking, and Amelia could see his face turning a little pink before he composed himself, turned around, took a deep breath before he pointed a finger at Winry and shouted, "The next time I make you cry, I hope they'll be tears of joy! And Al and I will be back in our normal bodies and I'll make you cry out of sheer happiness! That's a promise!" Alphonse, Amelia, and Winry were a little stunned by his sudden declaration, but Winry smiled, laughing as she waved to Edward as thanks for his promise to make her cry out of happiness.

Then Edward turned around, shoved his hands in his pockets and started to walk away, with Alphonse and Amelia walking beside him.

"That was so sweet, Brother!" Alphonse teased him, playfully elbowing him.

"Shut up, idiot!" Edward snapped back.

"Yeah, who knew you were such a softie?" Amelia teased, unable to help poking fun at him.

"I said shut up!" Edward knocked away her hand, and she just laughed.

"Promises are meant to be kept, you know," Alphonse commented.

"When have I ever broken a promise?"

"All the time."

"Name once!"

"I'll name three times." Alphonse brought up his hands to start counting them off, "There was that time during the summer where you promised if I gave you half my pocket money, you'd share your ice cream with me and you just ran off with it-"

"Oh, come on! We were kids!"

"-There was also the time that you promised you wouldn't tell anyone about me keeping a cat in my room, and you told Granny and Winry-"

"Alphonse!"

"-And then there was that time you said-"

"Alright, alright! I get your point!" Edward relented, much to Alphonse and Amelia's amusement. "But I'll keep this one, alright?!"

"Alright, if you say so," Alphonse replied, which left Edward sulking a little bit, though they all were in a much better mood now.

As they headed out of the train station, Amelia looked over at him, "Um… hey, about last night?" Edward looked over at her, "I… I don't know why I acted like I did, I'm sorry." She stopped walking, and the two brothers did the same. "It's just… I mean, I know what you're saying is probably the truth, and I did see the portal." She looked down at her hands, "I remembered it when I was fighting the homunculi… I'm able to do alchemy without a circle now."

"You are?" Edward asked, wide-eyed, and Amelia nodded.

"I just… I didn't want to think about it." She crossed her arms as she thought about it, "Katie gave up her body and soul for me, so I could go through the portal and come here… And I don't even know why!" Her shoulders slumped, "I mean… I didn't even like her. I treated her so horribly… I have no idea why she would think to do that for me. If I had been in her shoes, I would have offered the other person as the toll instead of myself…"

Edward was quiet for a moment, "I don't really know, but maybe she saw something in you… She said she wanted you to come back for her, right?" Amelia nodded, "So… do that. Bring her back from the portal and find out why."

"You make it sound so simple." Amelia scoffed.

"It won't be, but we'll make it simple." Edward grinned at her, "Besides, it'll be good practice for pulling Al's body out of the portal, too." She couldn't help smiling back at him.

"You're making a lot of promises to girls today, Brother," Alphonse commented, and Edward turned back and glared at him.

"Shut up! It's not like that!"

"You know, most people say that guys who make a lot of false promises are kind of skirt-chasers." Alphonse kept teasing him.

"Knock it off, Al!" Edward said, reaching to knock his helmet with his hand, making Amelia laugh. The three of them started to walk away, though that didn't keep Edward from asking questions.

"Do you remember what you saw in there?" He asked, and Amelia recounted her experience a little bit.

"I just remember being pulled in… and it felt like all the knowledge in the world was being pushed into my head at once, like it might explode from it all or something." Edward nodded at her description, "But then… I mean, I don't know, for a split second, it all just clicked. I understood everything, and it was all there, and there were pieces of things that I could probably understand really well at the time, but when I got out on the other side, I was in the military barracks…" She reached up and scratched a spot behind her head, "I must have blocked out the entire memory because of the trauma."

"I think I did the same thing, it's a really terrifying moment," Alphonse said.

"Right? By the way, when the fuck could you do alchemy without a circle?" She demanded.

"Oh, uh… I guess you haven't really seen me do any alchemy since it happened." Alphonse said, feeling a little sheepish knowing that he just never told her that.

As they stepped out of the train station, a car pulled up in front of them, with a familiar face at the wheel.

"Colonel!" Edward recognized him immediately.

"Get in the car." He ordered, and he glanced over at Amelia for a moment as they all started to move in. It was a bit of a squeeze in the back seat with Alphonse, but Amelia managed to find a space while Edward sat up front.

"How did you find us?" Edward asked.

"The concierge at your hotel mentioned I might find you here," Colonel Mustang said as he started to drive down the road, "You might not want to go back there right away, the place is crawling with MPs."

Edward jolted as he suddenly remembered why they would be looking for him and Alphonse, "That's right, we let Scar get away!" He scowled as he remembered that fact.

"They'll probably try to stick us with bodyguards again," Alphonse said with a dejected sigh.

Edward looked over at the colonel, "What happened to the homunculus?" He asked.

"Hawkeye called and said she's taken it to an empty house outside the suburbs." The Colonel replied, "That's where we're headed now." He looked back over his shoulder at Amelia, "Look behind us and make sure we're not being followed."

"Oh, okay," Amelia said, turning around in the seat to look out the back window of the car, while the conversation continued.

"You haven't fully recovered yet, have you? Should you really be driving?" Edward asked, knowing the colonel had only been in the hospital just the other day.

"I'm running short of pawns that I can move, so my only choice is to move myself." He muttered, and Edward frowned.

"You don't have many allies, do you? Maybe you're not as popular as you say."

"Brother, that's so harsh!" Alphonse chided him.

"I don't want to hear that from you." Mustang snapped back.

Amelia turned back around, "We're not being followed, I can't see any other cars or anything."

"Good," The colonel took a turn down the street, "There's someone we'll be picking up on the way."

"Who?" Edward asked.

"An old friend of mine from Ishval," The colonel said, "He's got some medical skills, and one of your allies ended up seriously hurt."

"Lan Fan!" Amelia felt awful that she had forgotten that, "So they got to her okay? We kind of just left her down there…"

"Hawkeye told me she's fine, but in a lot of pain. They're keeping her on bed rest until we get there."

"What happened?" Edward asked.

"In the fight with the homunculus… She cut off her arm."

"She what?!"

"She cut it off! It was the freakiest thing I'd ever seen!" Amelia said, "Apparently, she'd had an injury that just made her arm stop working anyway, and she just decided to cut it off." She sat back in her spot, "Honestly, that's probably what saved our hides, though."

"How?!" Edward was so confused.

"She was leaving a trail behind us, so we used her arm to make a fake trail by tying it to a stray dog. It was all her idea." Amelia said, "I felt really bad for the dog, though. I hope it's okay…" She wanted to think that after that dog was found, maybe by an officer, the arm would have been taken as evidence and the dog would have been cleaned up, and maybe that same officer would have adopted the dog and he would go on to be a heroic dog in the military police force, sniffing out crime and having a loving family to come home to at the end of the day. She really wanted that to be the truth, so that's what she believed for the time being.

The car came to a stop outside of a house in the suburbs, and Colonel Mustang turned off the engine, "Wait here, don't get out." He ordered as he stepped out of the car and went up to the house, knocking on the door and waiting for a response. When no one came, he moved out to just outside the gate of the fence of the house to wait for whoever lived there.

"Whose house is that?" Amelia asked.

"I have no idea." Edward replied, and he looked over at Amelia from the front seat, "But what happened after her arm came off?"

"We started moving through the sewers, so it would wash away any blood trail she left behind." She said, and she glanced outside to see another man approaching the house, an older one with glasses and a cigarette. He was taking a moment to talk to Mustang outside the gate, though they couldn't hear what was being said. She looked over at him, thinking now was a good time to mention it, "Edward, when we were fighting the homunculus Gluttony… he wasn't alone. He had back up."

"What, from who?" Edward asked, the older man leaving Mustang for a moment as he went inside his house.

"From Fuhrer Bradley." Edward's eyes went wide, and so did Alphonse's, "I wouldn't say this if I didn't see it, I swear. You guys have to believe me."

"I mean… we do, but… why would Fuhrer Bradley be working with the homunculi?" Edward asked.

"Do you think they've infiltrated that high up already?" Alphonse asked, "They must have gotten to him pretty fast, maybe even before he knew about what we were doing."

"Yeah, probably…" Edward muttered, deep in thought as he tried to think about this a little more, this tangled web created by the homunculi only getting more tangled by the second.

"Ed, that's not all…" Amelia said, "I… I saw something on him. Something that made it so much worse."

"What?" Before Amelia could give her answer, the front door opened, and the colonel got into the driver's seat, while his guest came in to sit beside Edward.

"Scoot over, kid." He said, taking a seat beside Edward, sandwiching him between the new guy and Mustang, a doctor's bag in his lap. He stunk of cigarettes and Amelia backed up from him. They took off, heading down the road to the next house where Lan Fan, Ling, and Lieutenant Hawkeye were waiting for them.

---

When they arrived, they came in a little after dark. Dr. Knocs took a moment to wash his hands before looking over at Lan Fan's open wound in the only bedroom. The place had been abandoned, so there was no electricity around the house, but the water was still running just because they couldn't remove the pipes. She came over to Ling, who was sitting in the corner of the room as the doctor examined his companion, "How is she?" She asked.

"She's alright, just… in pain." Ling looked up at the doctor, "Do you have anything to numb her?"

"Not without going directly to the hospital and having people ask a lot of questions." The doctor muttered before he lifted up the cover that was over Lan Fan's shoulder, and gasped. He turned to Ling, "You, get out." He looked over at Amelia, "Young lady, go grab me a lantern. I need more light."

"Uh, okay." She went out of the room and Ling left as the doctor told him to.

"Lieutenant get in here!" Knocs shouted for Hawkeye and she came in just after Amelia came back with a lantern, seeing Doctor Knocs balling up a washcloth and holding it in front of Lan Fan, "Here, bite down on this." She did so without questioning him. The doctor gestured for both of them to come closer to the bed, Hawkeye going around the other side while Amelia stayed to the doctor's left as he worked on Lan Fan. Amelia wondered why he had only asked for the women until she saw that Lan Fan was exposed as he examined her, her clothes had been removed to make it easier for Doctor Knocs to work. Her eyes went wide at the sight of her arm, seeing the bloody flesh and bone from her open wound. Immediately her mind flashed images of Lieutenant Colonel Hughes and the blood from his gunshot wound, the sight of seeing the red liquid slipping between her fingers as she tried to give him CPR…

"Hold the light closer." The doctor ordered, and she snapped out of it for a second before doing as he asked. Lan Fan whimpered as he moved his hands over her injury, no anesthetic for her as he started to try to close up the wound. "How long has she been like this?" He asked as he started using forceps to close the skin in different places before sewing it as much as he could, making Lan Fan grunt and groan in pain all the while.

"It's been a while…" Amelia said, "Maybe a couple hours? It didn't seem this bad when we were in the sewers…" Admittedly, Lan Fan's wound had been covered by Ling's jacket then, but now it seemed like she was bleeding much more than from that time.

"What?!" Doctor Knocs looked over at her, "You let her wander around the sewers with her arm cut off?!"

"Um…" Amelia wasn't really sure if there was a way to answer that didn't make him angrier.

"Well, don't blame me if she gets lockjaw!" He went on with his work, putting away the forceps and grabbing another pair since the first got a little bloody. He looked up at Hawkeye, "Hold her shoulder for me, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." Hawkeye came over, putting her hand on Lan Fan's uninjured shoulder, her other hand coming down and holding onto hers, giving her another means of dealing with her pain aside from the towel in her mouth.

Amelia grimaced at the sight of the doctor at work, hearing the nauseating sounds of flesh being moved as he tried to cover up the exposed bone with what remained and close it up tightly so it would stop bleeding. "I'm afraid the only patients I've had lately have been corpses, so this might be a little rough." The doctor warned before he started to push everything together with his hands, and Lan Fan screamed in pain, her voice muffled by the towel. Amelia winced sympathetically, and she glanced over at where Hawkeye was holding her hand, and she was gripping it as tight as she'd ever seen. She could see the lieutenant wincing, though she was trying to hide it and make it seem like it didn't bother her, though it was hard to tell if that was from sympathy, or from the pain of Lan Fan's grip, "Hold her still, Lieutenant." He said, Lan Fan was trying to do as he said, but in that much pain she was bound to writhe a little bit. "And hold that light over her arm more, girl."

"Uh, right, sorry…" She couldn't get too close, seeing the blood staining the sheets and the doctor's hands… she couldn't look right at the wound for too long, she kept seeing too much and kept being reminded of that awful night. The doctor worked, and she screamed again, and Amelia gasped at the sight of the blood pouring out of Lan Fan's arm. She had to turn away, and the doctor noticed.

"Hold the lantern straight!" He demanded, and Amelia straightened up, but she still looked away from Lan Fan's arm. He sighed and looked over at the Lieutenant, "Take the lantern from her, she doesn't know what she's doing." Hawkeye nodded, taking her hand away from Lan Fan's and reaching for the lantern, which Amelia was quick to pass over, "Go and get out of here, you're not much help if you can't handle blood." She was glad to, coming out of that room and rounding the corner to see the Elric brothers and Ling.

"You okay?" Alphonse asked.

"Just… all that blood." Amelia said, "I-I couldn't stand it." The armor came over, offering her a comforting arm on her shoulder to help her get over it, though they could still hear Lan Fan's cries of pain as she was worked on. She looked over at Ling, seeing him sitting in the corner. "Are you… okay?"

"I'm fine," Ling said shortly, and Amelia couldn't help feeling a little guilty for leaving Lan Fan in that room without being able to help.

Edward couldn't help his own guilt, knowing that he was the reason that they had gotten involved to begin with, "I'm sorry-"

"No, don't apologize." Ling cut him off, "I'm the one who suggested it, remember? We both had something to gain out of it, so it made sense." He shifted in his seat, bringing up his knee and resting his arm on it, "When I went in search of immortality, I knew I must be ready to make certain sacrifices…" His fist tightened a little as he could still hear Lan Fan's screams of pain, "But I… I wasn't ready for this… Lan Fan was, though. She made the decision that I was too weak to make."

"...It's okay if you're not ready." Amelia said softly, "Sometimes… sometimes really terrible things happen, and you have to make choices, and not all of them will be good." The boys looked at her as she spoke. "It's really hard to make some calls, sometimes… just don't beat yourself up about it." She looked over at Ling, "You can't let the guilt from this hold you down, you can't change what happened, but you can change how it affects you, and what you'll do now that it's happened." Ling was quiet for a moment before he nodded, and Amelia let out a small breath.

There was nothing that the four of them could do at that moment, so they just waited. Eventually, Lan Fan's cries stopped, and Ling immediately assumed the worst, but Amelia stopped him. "She must have passed out from the pain. It's better that way." If it was something bad, the doctor would have called for help, but at least this way Lan Fan wasn't suffering as much. Ling relaxed, but it was clear he wasn't happy about any of this.

The weight of the room was staggeringly heavy as they waited for the doctor to finish, which wasn't too much longer. The Lieutenant stepped out of the room, and everyone looked up at her, "She'll be fine, she's just resting." She assured them, "He's going to finish bandaging her, and then you can go in if you want." Edward, Amelia, and Alphonse all let out a sigh of relief at knowing she was going to be okay, but Ling remained silent.

Colonel Mustang stood up as he came over to his Lieutenant, "Good work, go ahead and guard the outside of the house, make sure no one's watching us."

"Yes, sir." The lieutenant complied and left through the front door.

"Alright, I'm done!" The doctor called out, and the three kids filed their way into the room, with Colonel Mustang joining them to check on her as Doctor Knocs took some time to clean his hands.

"She's going to be alright?" The colonel asked, seeing that Lan Fan was still unconscious for the time being.

"In a sense… though I never liked that joke." The doctor muttered, earning him a confused look from Mustang before he dismissed it, "Nothing, she'll be fine. She just needs plenty of rest and time to recover. I stopped the bleeding for now, but those stitches could still come undone."

Lan Fan slowly started to come back to them, and they started to crowd around her bed, though the Colonel and doctor kept their distance for the time being. As she opened her eyes, Amelia couldn't help smiling at the sight, knowing she made it through alive and well.

"She's awake!" Alphonse said, and Lan Fan looked over at the boys and Amelia.

"You okay?" Edward asked, "Is there anything we can do?"

Lan Fan's head slowly turned to face him, a shaky smile on her face, "That old trap of yours… worked pretty well." She said, her voice raspy from all of her screaming, no doubt. "But I'm useless without my arm…" She glanced at Edward's automail, "I'm going to need to find a replacement." Edward looked down at his metal hand and smiled as he turned to her.

"You know, I can introduce you to a great engineer." Lan Fan smiled a little more at that before Amelia leaned over.

"You should get as much rest as you can, you've had a damn hard day." She said, and Lan Fan was more than happy to do so, closing her eyes as her body relaxed, and the three of them left the room to let her sleep off what she could. As she fell into a deep, exhausted slumber, Lan Fan wouldn't be entirely aware of all that would happen in the moments to come… but then again, neither would the story's heroes.

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A/N: I ended up writing the next pretty quick, so I hope you enjoy the quick update