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…

23. Father Dearest

Amelia, Alphonse, and Edward left the room to see Colonel Mustang coming over to greet Ling, holding out his hand to the young man as he hadn't moved from where he had been sitting.

"I'm with the state military, the name's Colonel Roy Mustang." He introduced himself. Instead of taking his hand, Ling stood up, pressing his hands together and giving him a small bow as his greeting.

"And my name is Ling Yao, the twelfth son of the emperor of Xing." He introduced, and as Mustang started to pull his hand away from it being left out, Ling reached down and shook it from his offered gesture, giving him a grateful smile, "I appreciate you finding a doctor."

"It was no problem. Thank you for helping us with the Ross incident," Mustang replied, letting go of Ling's hand to turn to shine his lantern light in the next room, "And also for bringing this thing in." Gluttony was still wrapped up in the metal cables that Ling had tied him in hours ago. He wasn't able to get far, though he did squirm a little bit, and one could easily hear the metal creaking and straining from his movements, but there was no sign of anything breaking apart.

The trio came over to the room, and Doctor Knocs came over to see what everyone was looking at. "Hey, what do we have here?" He was curious as to why they seemed to have a very fat man bound up into a ball with metal cables.

"That's Gluttony, he's a homunculus," Ling answered, which startled the doctor a little bit, it would undoubtedly be unusual to hear something like that in a place where it was considered almost impossible to make a homunculus with alchemy.

"He and his friends have connections among some of the military's senior staff," Mustang added.

Ling gasped, looking over at him, "Just some, you say? It goes far deeper than that!" Mustang looked over at him, as did Edward and Alphonse, "Your Fuhrer, King Bradley? I believe it's possible that he's a homunculus, too."

Collective gasps were heard from his accusation, and Amelia nodded, "It's true," She spoke up, "He attacked us with Gluttony, and Ling and I both saw his eye - the one he hides under his patch. He had the mark of the ouroboros there, just like Gluttony does on his tongue."

"No way…!" Edward gasped.

"Our ruler? A homunculus?" Alphonse sounded just as shocked at the news.

Edward looked over at Amelia, "You didn't think to mention this sooner?"

"I tried to tell you, but everything's been happening so quickly, I wasn't able to say anything!" She defended.

"Although… Bradley didn't have the same inhuman presence that you get from Gluttony," Ling said, "At his core, he still feels like a regular person."

"Another thing," Alphonse said, "If the fuhrer is a homunculus, how can he possibly have a son? It said in that book that the homunculi have no reproductive capabilities."

"He has a kid?" Amelia had no idea.

"No," Doctor Knocs spoke up, looking troubled by all of this news, "The Fuhrer's son Selim is adopted. There's no direct blood relation between him and his father."

Everyone took a moment to soak in this news, the ruler of the nation of Amestris was a homunculus, playing the role of a politician and a leader, complete with a fake family of a wife and son.

Mustang let out a small huff of a laugh that drew everyone's attention, "Whether he's monster or human, either way, these new developments will make it easier to remove him from the seat of power." He had a smirk on his face as he said it, he was still taking it all in, but he saw a clear benefit from this rather shocking news. He looked over at Gluttony, who was still struggling, "First, we get information out of this one. Then I'll take his stone, it may prove useful in treating my man."

Ling walked over to him, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket in his anger, "Hey, you! Lan Fan lost her arm to get him! He's our captive, we're taking him back to Xing!"

"Hold it! He could help us get our bodies back!" Edward stepped in, putting his hand on Ling's arm to get him to calm down, "We've been working on that for a long time, I'm not gonna let you just waltz off with him!" Ling didn't seem to care as he tried to pull Mustang in closer as Ed tried to push the two of them apart.

"That's right," Mustang agreed, "Think about it, Ling. You're an illegal alien, you think you can move Gluttony out of the country without our help? It's never going to work, listen to me!"

Doctor Knocs sighed, seeing a fight brewing between the men present, "I'm getting too old for this kinda thing," He said, turning and lifting his hand as he started to leave, "Good luck, Mustang. I'm going home."

"But Lan Fan could've-! She lost her arm!" Ling snapped back in his distress, all the while Amelia seemed to notice that Gluttony seemed to be saying something, but it was too quiet for her to make out.

"Uh, guys?"

"We need him if we're going to figure out a plan!" Mustang shot back, "We can just take a vote to decide this!"

"A vote? Then we'll win!" Edward said, grinning since he knew between the five of them, Edward had at least 2 votes on his side with Alphonse and Amelia.

"But we should have priority! The emperor could die at any time!" Ling shot back.

Meanwhile, Gluttony's body was starting to shake and tremor as it pushed against the cables as everyone kept bickering, "Guys!" Everyone looked over at Amelia, and she pointed to Gluttony, and everyone stopped as they watched his body expanding more, pushing back against the cables even more until he was able to stand up.

"Roy Mustang!" He shouted, and they watched as his belly seemed to move, opening up and revealing some kind of giant mouth that began to tear open Gluttony's stomach, with a grey eye showing inside of it. While the eye looked familiar to Amelia, it wasn't quite the same one she had seen when she was in the portal, though that didn't mean the sight of it didn't send a chill down her spine. This eye more closely resembled a snake's than a human's, if the pupil was anything to go by. There was a flash of light as Gluttony tried to turn to face them, but couldn't quite manage it, and there was a sudden gust of wind as if from a storm, the sound of wood breaking and tearing in a powerful explosion.

Everyone looked up when it seemed to stop and backed away as they could see a massive hole in the side of the room as if part of the house had suddenly vanished, and Gluttony didn't look the same anymore. The cables were gone, and something was sticking out from around his stomach that they couldn't quite make out in the dark.

"Colonel!" Hawkeye's voice drew Gluttony's attention, coming over to see what the hell just happened.

"Hawkeye, stop!" Mustang ordered as Gluttony reached out with his stomach, and there was that wind again, the rushing wind and the strange, deep noise that came from Gluttony as he started taking in everything with his stomach again. Once it stopped, the house shook and started to collapse. Ling ran back to get Lan Fan, and everyone else started to run out of the room to try and get outside, though the front part of the house collapsed before they could really get the chance, though Edward managed to push himself and Amelia outside before they got caught in the worst of it, tumbling onto the ground outside with their feet getting the tail end of rubble, though they managed to get out without any injuries beyond what was already there.

They looked up once the sounds of the crumbling house had stopped, and they could see Gluttony standing at the corner of the hole he had made, his mouth seemingly extended over his entire stomach, a black darkness empty save for that one grey eye, and his tongue lolling out, the outside of the circle covered with sharp, curved teeth.

Over to the side, some of the rubble moved to reveal Alphonse had used his body to shield Doctor Knocs and Colonel Mustang, as well as the little cat he had kept hidden away. The rest of the house was still standing, so Ling and Lan Fan were able to come out together, unharmed. "Colonel!" Hawkeye exclaimed upon seeing him there, glad to see he was alright, even if his face was covered up from the terrified panda cat that clung to his face. He reached up and pulled her off, tossing her back to where Alphonse easily caught her.

"Lieutenant, don't provoke him!" He ordered, "I'm the one he wants!"

"Mustang!" Gluttony roared before he did what he had done again, swallowing up everything he could reach with his stomach and taking away more of the house as everyone backed up. They were fortunate that his reach seemed to extend in only one direction at a time, and his aim was terrible for moving targets.

Amelia looked up once he had finished, staring at the image of Gluttony before them. It was hideous, looking at a monster like that, and at the same time, it was haunting. She had no doubt she would see him again in later nightmares, given she survived this experience, of course.

"Let's go, we have to bring him down!" Mustang said as he took off one of his gloves to pull another one out of his pocket, one that bore an alchemical circle on the fabric.

"But we worked so hard to catch one of the homunculi!" Alphonse said, hating that all of their work was going to nothing if they had to kill him now.

"Survival is our first priority," Mustang said, thinking like a true soldier in the heat of battle, "Besides, he knows our names and faces now. It would be foolish to let him leave here alive!" He put on his glove and snapped his fingers, Amelia watching with wide eyes as she watched a spark shoot out from his hands and travel to Gluttony with lightning speed and exploded around him. She flinched when she heard the explosion and felt the heat, looking back to see Gluttony was lit on fire from his actions. She had forgotten that Alphonse told them the story of how he had killed the homunculus Lust by burning her to death over and over and over again. Had he done that all just by snapping his fingers?

They could all hear Gluttony's screams of agony as they rose to their feet to watch this happen. It was true that he was dangerous at this point, and they were left with little choice but to kill him. However, something changed. The air shifted, and the flames changed direction, and they seemed to get sucked into Gluttony's stomach… until they had all disappeared. A small belch was heard, and everyone stood in shock at the sight of Gluttony still standing, unharmed.

"...He swallowed it?" Edward couldn't believe it.

"Uh-oh," Alphonse stepped back, and the four of them turned around and ran as Gluttony started trying to swallow Mustang again. They sprinted off into the woods.

"Hey! That worked well!" Edward couldn't help the sarcastic comment to Mustang as they ran for their lives.

"Think you could do better, be my guest!" Mustang shot back.

"Or we could just leave you behind, Colonel! You're the one he really wants!" Alphonse snapped.

"Who wants to take a vote?!" Amelia asked with her own sarcasm, that only made Mustang grimace.

"Those trees over there, spread out!" He ordered, and Alphonse broke away from him, Edward grabbing Amelia's arm and pulling her with him in the opposite direction as they ran through the woods together.

"Wait, what about Al?" She asked as they ran.

"He'll be fine! We just need to focus on where we're going!" Edward replied, and they jumped as they heard the sound of gunshots, and Gluttony's screams of pain. He had followed them into the woods to chase after Mustang, and it sounded like he had been right on target, save for the Lieutenant shooting him. Edward skidded to a halt, and Amelia took a moment to catch her breath, as did Ed. "The colonel can't be too far from here."

"Well, we only just started running," Amelia replied

"Come on, he can't get too far in his condition, he's not supposed to be out of the hospital," Edward said, taking Amelia's hand and running again in the direction of where the blast had come from, and they came across the colonel pretty quickly, hunched over in pain. "You alright?"

"My injuries are opening up again…" He said with a frustrated grunt, clearly still in pain from all that sudden running, which he really shouldn't have been doing after just getting out of the hospital that day.

"Come on, we'll get you out of here," Edward said, putting the colonel's arm around his shoulders and standing up. Amelia could hear Gluttony's yelling in the woods, and he was far, but he could close in quickly enough. They needed to buy themselves some more time to get the colonel out of here safely.

"Wait, give me your coat." Amelia came over to the colonel and took it without waiting for his answer, bringing it over to the ground, clapping her hands together and pressing them down into the dirt. She found with her knowledge from the portal, her alchemical transmutations were not only faster without a circle but immensely improved. She was able to make a quick dummy that looked like Mustang hunched over, though his face was admittedly a little fat and he wasn't too detailed. At a glance, he would look like the real Mustang, but up close one could easily see the fake face with his tongue sticking out and missing a nose.

"You really did open the portal…" Edward said with a small gasp, having been unsure from when she said it before, but seeing it now was something else. Amelia stood up and came over to the colonel.

"Okay, that should buy us some time." She said, and as she and Edward walked out with the colonel, Lieutenant Hawkeye came over to them, guns ready to fire, but when she saw who they were, she lowered them right away.

They handed him over to her, and they got out of the woods, coming out to see Ling putting Lan Fan in the car with Doctor Knocs at the steering wheel, with Alphonse off to the side, having found his way out without trouble.

"About time!" Doctor Knocs said from the car, "Hurry up and get in here!"

They started walking towards the car with the colonel, and they could hear shouting from the forest as Gluttony seemed to have found something, "Mustang!" and then another shout as he realized it wasn't the real Mustang, "Nooooo!"

"Perfect, he fell for the Mustang decoy." Edward said, smiling at Amelia for her quick thinking, "Nicely done."

She smiled back at him, "Thanks, though he doesn't sound super happy about it." She said, a little worried now that he seemed to be enraged.

"Right… Now get in the car, invalid." Edward said, giving the colonel a small shove to get him into the passenger seat of the car, still holding his injuries.

"Lieutenant, please take care of Lan Fan," Alphonse asked, and lieutenant nodded before getting into the back seat with her, helping her to lie on her back so she would be more comfortable. This left Alphonse, Edward, Ling, and Amelia outside of the car.

Mustang glared up at the group of them, "You expect me to run away and leave this to you, Elric?" He growled out.

"If you stay, you'll just get in our way!" Edward snapped angrily.

"Yeah, leave!" Alphonse agreed. The colonel was in no condition to help them, especially not now.

"They're right. You won't be any use here, sorry." The Lieutenant's words really seemed to drive it home for Mustang, as he looked ready to fight both of the Elric brothers when they had spoken, but when his trusted right-hand partner tells him to knock it off? He was quiet and didn't say a word, though he did look extremely disappointed in himself.

"Right now, you need to go and do your job." Edward said to him, "The head of the military is a homunculus, don't you think you should do something about that?"

"The head of the military…? You aren't talking about Fuhrer Bradley, are you?" Lieutenant Hawkeye asked.

"We can talk about it later," Doctor Knocs dismissed it before looking at the others, "Now, get in!"

Amelia stepped forward to do that, but Edward reached out and stopped her, holding onto her shoulder. She looked over at him, and he gave her a small smile, and she was a little surprised as she realized he planned on staying behind but more that he wanted her to stay with him to help. She smiled back at him, glad to know that she had his trust for this kind of a fight.

He looked up at Alphonse, who nodded as well, and Edward looked back at the others, "The car looks full, you go ahead."

There was a stunned second of silence before Doctor Knocs yelled, "You dumbasses!"

"You can't really believe we'll let a couple of children fight this battle for us?!" Lieutenant Hawkeye demanded, furious that they would even think to do such a thing.

"With the senior staff involved in this, you're gonna need all the help you can get," Ling said.

"And that would include getting whatever information we can out of this Gluttony guy, wouldn't you say?" Edward added on.

"We'll stay here, and find out what we can," Alphonse continued, "I don't think it matters much that we're children."

"This was our mission to begin with, and we're going to see it through," Edward said, putting his hand on Amelia's shoulder, including her in that statement, which made her much happier than she cared to admit. "We appreciate your help up 'til now, though." None of the adults in the car looked happy at the idea that a bunch of teenagers were going to risk themselves against a monster that they couldn't face, but no arguments seemed to be made against them.

The Lieutenant reached for something, checking her gun's magazine before holding it out to them, "Here, Edward." She offered him her handgun, "I want you to take this, you do know how to use it, don't you?"

Edward stiffened a little, hesitating to go near it.

"That's a weapon… for killing people." Alphonse shared a similar hesitation, it seemed. Amelia didn't think the brothers had ever gone through and killed someone, they seemed to lack that military experience, but she didn't think they would turn down a means of protection like a gun, it was definitely a valuable way of protecting yourself where she came from.

"Yes, but it's also a weapon for protecting your lives," Hawkeye said, and Edward stared at it for a long moment, remembering his speech to Winry about how her hands weren't meant to take lives, but give life back… however, she also asked them not to die, and he wanted to keep that promise to her so he could keep his other promise of making her cry tears of happiness.

He reached out and took the gun from the lieutenant, "I'll take it." He jumped as a sound rang out, and they looked back to see the air shifting strangely in different places in the forest, it seemed Gluttony was getting antsy and angry, swallowing up whatever he could.

Ling went over to the car window to the lieutenant to ask, "Look after Lan Fan." And he was met with a solemn nod from the lieutenant before he turned to the brothers and Amelia, the four of them running into the woods to try and find Gluttony, and hopefully get some good information out of him, with Edward tucking the gun into the back of his pants.

"Wait…! My Lord!" They could hear Lan Fan's shouts for Ling as they went inside, which only made Ling grimace, but he kept moving. This was their mission, they were seeing it through, and Lan Fan couldn't do much in her condition to help, despite how badly she wanted to.

Once they were in the woods, it wasn't too hard to find Gluttony. He was searching the forest by swallowing up everything he could in the hopes that he would find Mustang's hiding spot, mistakenly believing he was still here somewhere. After taking a hiding spot to observe him a good distance away, they watched as he turned away from them, swallowing a massive area of trees and bushes, leaving behind curved stumps and dirt.

"Mustang… where are you, Mustang? You killed Lust! You will paaaaay!" He roared out in anger, and everyone couldn't help feeling a little scared of him.

"I know we said we'd stay and all… but that's seriously freaky…!" Edward whispered to the others, who were all in agreement with him on that.

"He seems to be a bit angry…" Ling commented.

"How are we going to catch him?" Alphonse asked.

"Well, we need some kind of plan. He shouldn't be too difficult to distract if he's this angry, so we at least have that." Amelia said, trying to figure out something. They might be able to set up another decoy to get his attention, but if he just eats it… there would need to be something more, something to trap him and hold him still, "Maybe we could-" She cut herself off when she heard something rustling the branches of the bushes behind them. Ling suddenly turned around to face behind him with his sword raised, and the panda cat on top of Al's helmet did the same thing.

"What was that?" Alphonse asked.

Everyone looked back behind them to see a large dog standing behind them, "...Why is there a dog out here?" From this distance, and the darkness, she couldn't see any kind of collar on him or any sign that he belonged to someone. Maybe it was a stray?

"Stop it! Now, Gluttony!" The dog commanded, and Gluttony stopped as he turned around to face the voice, and everyone was shocked at the sound of a dog giving orders.

"A talking dog?" Edward was so confused at this, the dog looked over at him and seemed to grin.

"Hey, long time, no see." It greeted them, and red lightning of a transmutation lit up around them, watching as the dog's body shifted, growing larger, standing up on its back legs and shifting into that of an androgynous homunculus with long, dark green hair. He grinned at Edward once he had transformed into himself. "How are ya, Fullmetal Pipsqueak?"

The greeting just sent Edward into a rage and he ran towards him, "Damn it, I told you before, don't call me short!" He shouted, jumping up and going to kick him in the face, which he rather nimbly dodged so he only hit the tree behind him.

"Hey, calm down!" He replied quickly, "I'm just here to get Gluttony back, nothing more than that! I don't want to fight you, pipsqueak!"

"THAT'S FIVE NOW!" Edward shouted and ran to punch him, though again he just hit the tree that had been behind him and crushed the bark under his automail hand, while Envy jumped off onto a tree branch to avoid him.

"What are you talking about?" He demanded.

"That's five times! You called me 'pipsqueak' twice here, and three times in the laboratory!" He accused, and Amelia was a little shocked that he remembered that so well… then again, he had a pretty bad Napoleon complex… "Don't tell me you've forgotten already?!"

"Impressive, you've got a short memory there." Envy replied, seemingly underwhelmed by the anticlimactic reason for Edward's anger. He jumped down from the branch, jumping over Alphonse, Amelia, and Ling and went over to meet Gluttony. "You're becoming bothersome." He said to the huge homunculus.

"Mustang was here! Must avenge Lust! Swallow, swallow, swallow him up!" Gluttony said.

"You don't get the colonel," Envy snapped, making Gluttony calm down, "Or the Elric brothers." Edward came back and joined the others to hear their conversation, and Amelia couldn't help noticing that she and Ling weren't included on the list of people Gluttony couldn't eat. Maybe Bradley hadn't seen that she had performed alchemy without a circle, but whether this was a good or bad thing, she wasn't sure.

"Why not?" Gluttony whined.

"I've sensed this multiplicity before," Ling said, stepping a little closer so the two homunculi could see him, "How many people are inside you, homunculus?"

Envy frowned, glaring at Ling for a minute before he relaxed, taking a more nonchalant pose as he rested his arm on Gluttony as if he were a shelf to lean on, "I know you." He smirked, "You're the kid that crossed swords with Wrath, aren't you?"

"What do you mean, kid?!" Ling put his hand to his chest, "I happen to be the twelfth son of the emperor of Xing! My name is-"

"Eat him." Envy cut him off by giving Gluttony a command, putting his hand on top of his bald head as a sign that he could go. Gluttony ran towards Ling, who quickly took off in the other direction screaming, "No! No! No! No! No! No!" While Gluttony just laughed gleefully to himself at getting someone to eat.

Edward looked over at Alphonse and Amelia, who had been saved from Gluttony's desire to eat for the time being. Amelia glanced over at Envy, who still grinned at her, and was a little surprised to see him winking her way. Did he recognize her?

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Edward asked, oblivious to the gesture from Envy as he spoke to Alphonse.

"Looks like they really aren't allowed to do anything to the two of us," Alphonse said, and Edward cracked the knuckles on his flesh hand eagerly. Up until now, the idea that they were untouchable had only been a theory, but now they knew for sure.

"In which case…!" Edward clapped his hands together as Ling and Gluttony started to run back to them, transmuting a huge wall between the two of them and separating them, but leaving Ling and Envy on the same side. "Ling, you get that one!" He said, and he and Alphonse went after Gluttony, who was the more dangerous of the two, but at least they could focus on capturing him since he wasn't allowed to eat them.

Amelia was left behind, thinking maybe that was best until Alphonse shouted, "Amelia, come on!" And she went with them.

"Right!" She ran behind them and Alphonse clapped his hands before transmuting the ground to come up around Gluttony's feet to try and hold him in place.

"Just stay behind us, okay?" Edward said, and Amelia nodded. They were acting as a human shield, but she would be able to safely transmute from behind them, the only issue was distance and whether or not she could even reach Gluttony, but it was worth a shot. She bent down and transmuted a pair of short swords, something simple, but double-edged to hopefully give herself a better defense. Gluttony saw what was happening and started to run away, so Amelia ran after him, putting her hand on the wall and moving the transmutation to extend it, reaching out and blocking Gluttony's way out from them, forcing him to turn around and face them. He just seemed worried, looking between the two brothers and whining like a child.

"Ed! Try to trap him in the ground!" At his size, it wouldn't be easy for him to make any vertical climbs, and Edward nodded, reaching down to transmute a well beneath Gluttony's feet. On the other side of the wall, Amelia could hear the sounds of fighting from Ling and Envy going at each other.

"You scum!" Envy's hateful voice spat out, "A mere human like you can't condescend to me!"

"You seem to underestimate humans, and that's a mistake!" Ling shot back before the fighting began anew. She watched as the well that Edward made went deep into the ground, the three of them rushing over to see that Gluttony was definitely trapped.

"Nicely done!" She complimented, seeing how she couldn't see the bottom of the well, making Edward grin before they heard something, and a mass jumped out of the well and over them. They looked back to see Gluttony had actually managed to jump straight out of whatever depth the well was, and he let out a small sigh of relief.

"Phew… that was a close one." He said.

"I've had enough of you!" Edward growled as he went after Gluttony, punching and kicking and trying to fight him, but Gluttony just dodged and tried to avoid him, not fighting back at all.

"Get away! I can't eat you!" He said as he danced around Edward. "Just let me take a bite of the other guy!"

"Not today!" Alphonse said, coming up behind Gluttony and grabbing him, moving his arms so that he could trap him by his shoulders. Gluttony reached up and grabbed the neck covering of Al's armor, pulling him and throwing him out of the way, and right onto Edward, pushing him through the wall he had made and out to the other side where Ling and Envy were still fighting.

"Guys!" Amelia ran after them, running around the wall to go and make sure they were okay, but also to get away from Gluttony before he realized he was allowed to eat her, too.

"Stay out of my way, guys! I'm busy!" Ling said and managed to duck just in time to avoid Envy's punch, moving under him and slicing off his leg, knocking him to the ground with a loud groan of pain.

He fell deep into the ground, pushing up a lot of dirt around him, and Amelia thought it was strange since he didn't seem very heavy, but she didn't have much time to linger on it as Ling stood over him, ready to strike and kill him with his blade, and Envy's form shifted to look like Lan Fan with her bandages and arm cut off, looking up at him fearfully. It was enough to make Ling hesitate before he could drive his sword through the image of his friend.

Envy disguised as Lan Fan smirked, getting exactly what he wanted, and he shouted, "Go for it, Gluttony!" The large homunculus came around, ready to eat him.

"Ling!" Edward ran towards him to try and tackle him down to avoid Gluttony's range, and Alphonse behind him, and Amelia behind the armor.

"What?!" Envy got up, reaching with the one arm he had as Lan Fan to grab Edward's leg before he was swallowed up to try and get him out of the way, he was a sacrifice, they couldn't lose him.

"Brother!" Alphonse reached out to try and grab Edward, but it was too late. Gluttony's stomach reached out, and in an instant, the three of them were gone. Envy's body was all that was left, half-destroyed and curved from leaning in. Alphonse was left standing, reaching out with the remains of his arm, his hand had been taken in the swallowing.

Amelia stood, stunned where she was as she looked at the remains of where Edward, Ling, and Envy had been. There was nothing but a ditch, and she could hear nearby trees cracking and breaking apart from suddenly losing so much of themselves, crashing onto the forest floor. She looked over at the remains of Envy's body, hearing it coming apart before it disintegrated completely into dust.

"...Swallowed them…?" Gluttony's voice broke the silence, and Alphonse turned to him, rushing over and grabbing him by his long teeth, tackling him to the floor.

"Brother! Ling!" He shouted into the darkness of Gluttony's belly but got no reply. He looked up at the homunculus, "You! Spit them out! Spit them out now!"

"I can't, I swallowed them." Gluttony replied, and Amelia watched in horror as his mouth started to close, the teeth disappearing inside Gluttony's stomach, sealing up his new mouth and hiding the grey eye within until it was completely gone.

"But… Ed was just…" He had just been standing right there, he was just there… and now he was gone? Amelia could feel a lump forming in her throat as the weight of what was happening was dawning on her.

"Impossible…" Alphonse was in a much worse state, staring at Gluttony's stomach, "It can't be… Brother…!" His voice trembled as he called out for his brother, realizing the same thing that Amelia was, and he pounded his fist into the ground, screaming out in an agonized wail as he realized his brother, the only family he had left, was gone. Once he had finished, he stopped, and sat back on the ground, completely silent.

Amelia stepped forward to look at the spot where Edward had been, "He can't just… be gone…" She said, bending down to run her hands over the smooth dirt, breaking it apart with her fingertips as she tried to look for some kind of clue about where he might have disappeared to, "He can't have just… just left us here…" She could feel those tears that had welled up in her eyes starting to spill over. He was gone. Just like that, he was gone. "He can't have just…! Just…!" She heard her voice break and she let out a sob, gripping the dirt in her hands. "He can't have just left us here like this! Ed, you fucking bastard!" She cried out, so angry and guilt-ridden, crying as she stayed on her hands and knees in the spot where Edward had just been. "Why didn't I do anything…?!" Why didn't she jump in with him? Why didn't she try to pull him away? She should have done something to stop him, she should have tried to fight, to try and close up Gluttony's stomach sooner.

She looked over at the fat homunculus, who just stood up and looked between the two of them with his own uncertainty. She stood up, and he jumped, startled, before he started to run around the wall. She looked over at Alphonse where he just sat there, "There… there has to be something we can do to fix this." She said, her voice still trembling, "Some alchemy… Can we transmute his stomach open? See the inside and just pull them out?"

"I don't know how to do that…" Alphonse admitted.

"Well, try it! Who cares if you fuck it up, he can regenerate himself back together!" Amelia insisted, "We can't just leave him here like this! What are we supposed to do?!"

"I don't know…" Alphonse replied weakly. Amelia felt her lip trembling and she looked back at Gluttony, who seemed to have disappeared.

"He's gone?!" She ran around the wall to see that he had indeed disappeared from sight. How could someone so big and heavy just vanish like that? "Gluttony! Come back!" She shouted for him, but got no response, "Gluttony! You have to bring him back here! Gluttony!" She screamed at the top of her lungs for him, desperate to try and get the homunculus back. What was she supposed to do if Edward was gone? She couldn't go back to the military, she couldn't request a new teacher. After everything that had happened with the Major, she couldn't go back to him either and burden him with her alchemy, and worse yet she knew she would be under the Fuhrer's watch. Everything she did would be reported back to him because of how diligent the Major is, he would know her every move, he could easily make it so that she was killed in some kind of accident when no one was looking.

She fell to her knees as she started to figure out what was going to happen to her, "Please, I don't want to go back…" She begged the air around her, "I can't burden him again… I can't do this again…!" She sobbed as she felt the same weight around her from Hughes's murder. There was so much she could have done but didn't. "Don't leave me like this… I can't do this again… I can't go back, please…!" She fell over onto her side, going into the fetal position as her thoughts began to spiral out of control. She had lost everything, she would lose her chance to survive here, she would be killed by Bradley for knowing his secret, or he would find ways to punish and torture her to destroy her mentally. The Armstrong family would never know what happened to her because she would just disappear from the face of the world, she would be left unknown, with no one missing her. Was anyone back home missing her? Would her mother even care that she was gone? "Please… Someone…"

She felt something poking her cheek and she looked up, seeing the little panda cat that had been with Alphonse had come over to her, looking worried. She just cried more, and she could feel the panda cat coming up to her side, tapping her arms with her paws as she tried to get her to calm down, trying to pet her in a strange way was Amelia's guess. She just continued to cry, to get out her fears and her mourning as she lay in the grass, sobbing and pleading for someone to make it so Edward could come back, though she knew it was pointless.

Before she realized it, her fatigue had caught up to her in her break down, and she cried herself to sleep.

---

Amelia woke up early the next morning, the sounds of the nightly forest giving way to chirping birds calling to one another. She woke up, sitting up straight as she looked around her, confused at first before she remembered last night. She looked back, seeing Alphonse still sitting in the same spot he had been before, but he had changed his position from stunned on his knees, to sitting cross-legged with his hands in his lap. She looked down at her hand, feeling something warm there on top, and saw the little cat that Alphonse had been carrying around had stayed with her. She gently moved her hand to wake up the cat, who moved off of her and looked up at her. She could still feel the dryness of her eyes as she reached up to rub the sleep away, she was still tired… but what could she do now?

She looked over at Alphonse, who was as still as a statue. What options did she have now? She couldn't just leave him here like this, not sweet, kind Alphonse who had been nothing but nice to her. However, she also couldn't just sit and wait for him to do something, her stomach growled insistently for food, and her body was stiff from sleeping on the ground, she still had bits of grass clinging to her skin. She looked around her, seeing just the woods. She could check back at the house to see if there was any food, though it wasn't likely at all… and even then, where would she go? Who could she go to?

She stood up, going over to Alphonse and looking down at where he was sitting. He wouldn't even acknowledge her, and given what he had lost, she didn't blame him. She opened her mouth to say something, but she closed it soon after. What could she say for him? There wasn't anything that could be said to comfort him in a time like this. All she could really do right now was move forward, even if that meant leaving him behind.

"Alphonse… I'm leaving now." She said, "I can't… I can't go back to the Major… no one else will take me…" She didn't want to go back into the fuhrer's custody, she couldn't. "I have to leave."

Alphonse didn't say anything, and she felt that lump in her throat again, "You're not going to stop me…?" She was a convict, it was his brother's job to make sure she couldn't escape, but she had at least hoped he would do something when she told him she was going to leave, or at least say goodbye. But with Ed gone, and Alphonse left… she supposed he had simply given up. She took a step to leave, heading away from the town, but stopped when she heard bushes rustling. She looked up and saw Gluttony coming through to them, and she backed up. He hadn't left? After last night, she would have thought he ran away to his base or whatever, but it seemed he hadn't gone anywhere after all…

She hid behind Alphonse, and he looked up at her, and then at the armor before looking down and twiddling his fat fingers together, "What should… What do I do?"

"You're asking us…?" Amelia asked, and Gluttony nodded. She wasn't sure how to answer him, and there was a silence for a moment. He seemed like a child, scared and guilty. He had been too afraid to go anywhere because he knew he had done something wrong, something he could be punished for.

"I have no idea…" Alphonse spoke up, surprising Amelia with his voice since he had been so quiet.

Gluttony kept twiddling his fingers nervously, "What do I do…? I'm scared. I don't want Father to be mad at me."

Alphonse lifted his head at that, and Amelia looked down at the suit of armor as he seemed to move for the first time in hours. "What did you say?" He asked Gluttony, "You have a father?"

"Uh-huh," Gluttony confirmed.

"Is he the one that made the homunculi?" Alphonse asked.

"Father made us," Gluttony confirmed again, stepping closer. Alphonse straightened up, seeming to come back to himself as he heard all of this. He reached out and put his hand on Gluttony's stomach, feeling for that mouth he had seen before, but couldn't find it. Gluttony stepped back, confused from the sudden prodding as he touched over the spot Alphonse had touched, and Alphonse looked back at his hand.

"If he made them… maybe he knows how to bring Ed back…?" Amelia spoke up and jumped as Alphonse stood up, looking down at the homunculus.

"Gluttony, will you take me with you? Will you take us to meet your father?" He asked.

Gluttony took a moment to think before he replied with a smile, "I guess so." Well, that was easy, "He'll be happy since you're a human sacrifice!"

"Oh… sure, right! That's why he'll want to meet me!" Alphonse said, playing along. Gluttony nodded and started to walk.

"This way!" He said cheerily, and Alphonse followed after him, Amelia did the same.

"You okay?" She asked quietly, trying to make sure Gluttony couldn't hear them.

"I think so." Alphonse replied, "Now that there's this father person… maybe he can open Gluttony up and pull Brother out."

"I hope so…" Amelia said, the two of them walking with Gluttony out of the forest and into the grassy fields outside the abandoned house they had left from last night.

"And… I'm sorry about this morning," Alphonse said softly, "I wasn't… After losing Brother, I didn't even think about what you must be going through…" Amelia smiled sympathetically, she hadn't exactly been thinking about Alphonse in that moment, either, "But… you're not hungry or anything?"

"I'm starving," Amelia replied with a small laugh, "And I really need to go to the bathroom… but I can hold it for a while longer." She looked at Gluttony's back, "I'm sure… if we can find the person to deconstruct him, we can find Ed." It made sense, alchemically speaking, that if you took in someone, you might still find that someone if you break down the person that took them in, or absorbed them, or… whatever it was that Gluttony had done. "I just hope we're not wrong… Edward's got to still be alive, right? I mean… where would everything he swallows go? He hasn't gotten any bigger."

"I noticed that, too." Alphonse said, "It doesn't look like he's gained any mass, so everything he swallowed must go somewhere else, the question is where?"

"Who better to answer that question than the guy that made him?" Amelia added, and Alphonse nodded. She looked ahead of them, feeling her gut twisting in her nerves. She had no idea if any of this was true, but there had to be some kind of trick to it, Gluttony didn't gain any weight as far as she could tell, but there was no guarantee that they could find Edward by taking him apart alchemically.

Soon enough, they made a turn and they could see what lay before them, and Alphonse had to stop as soon as he saw where they were heading.

"Are you sure this is the right way, Gluttony?" He asked. The homunculus looked back and nodded, "But this is the way… it can't be…" He looked out over the skyline of the city before them, seeing the building he and his brother had entered a hundred times before. "Your father is living in Central?"

He had been this close to their leader the whole time? He had been hiding right under their noses in Central? All signs pointed to them having some kind of hold on the senior staff, and a majority of them were stationed at Central command… it made sense, though it was still shocking to know that the enemy of mankind was hiding in your backyard.

"Okay, if we're going to be heading all the way back to Central on foot, I need to use the bathroom now," Amelia said, and Gluttony looked over at her, and Alphonse nodded.

"Oh, uh, me too! Just give us a couple of minutes, okay?" Amelia looked up at Alphonse confusedly as he said that, putting his hand on her shoulder and pushing her away to another place where they could hide outside and talk a little. "He's in Central…! I can't believe he's been here the whole time! If we can figure out his hiding place, maybe we can take him down after he gets Ed back." He said in a quiet voice, and Amelia walked away from him, "Where are you going?"

"Al, I wasn't kidding, I have to go," Amelia said insistently, going around a bush.

"Oh… Oh, sorry." Alphonse turned away, a little embarrassed to know that she had been serious, and he had decided to take this time to try and talk strategy with her. She squatted down and tried to go, though it was a little awkward to do it outside with Alphonse standing nearby. There was silence for a minute or two before she looked back at him.

"Can you just go wait a little farther away?" She asked, and Alphonse started to step away without any more words. She waited until she heard the clanking of his armor stop, and then asked in her normal voice volume, "Al, can you still hear me from there?" When she got no reply, she assumed he was far enough away to give her some privacy, and it still took her a while, and she was still very uncomfortable, but she did manage to relieve herself after a minute of trying. When it was done, she reached for some grass, transmuting it into some toilet paper before she cleaned herself up, and then transmuted the stained paper back into the ground with the mental note that alchemy was probably really good for camping. She came back to Alphonse, "Okay, I'm done, but I think you were onto something." She said, getting his attention, "If we know where the enemy is hiding, then you're right about it being easier to take them down, but the thing is we don't know if that's his only hiding place."

"Right…" Alphonse said with a small sigh, "But we can figure something out, right? I doubt he would be hiding in a civilian's home."

"I doubt that, too." Amelia agreed, "But if he's hiding underground, maybe we can figure out how to topple the building he's under?"

"Hello?" Gluttony's worried voice cut through their talk, "Did you leave?"

"Oh, no! We're still here!" Alphonse called back, and he and Amelia left their talk where it was for the time being. They went back to following Gluttony down the road back through the streets of Central.

It was a long trip, and Amelia could feel her feet starting to hurt. After a while, Alphonse offered to carry her, since he could do that without too much trouble. It was a little awkward trying to climb up on his back so he could carry her piggy-back style, especially when the little panda cat had claimed one shoulder for herself and growled as Amelia got closer, but he managed to calm her down and continue their journey with Gluttony. As they walked past the market, Amelia could smell all the delicious foods that were being sold, as well as some restaurants that were opening up for an early brunch. She could hear her stomach growling eagerly at the thought of breakfast food, pancakes with syrup, or toast with sweet jelly on top…! But she tried not to think about it too much for the time being.

"I'm sorry, I don't have anything to eat." Alphonse said, "But do you think you can transmute the grass into bread? That should fill you up." He stopped outside of a small park, and Amelia shook her head.

"I don't think Gluttony knows that I've… you know." She didn't want to say that she had opened the portal outright, "Would you mind? If I can keep this secret from them, maybe… I don't know. It could give us some kind of upper hand against them." Alphonse nodded and set her down before he reached for the grass on the ground, clapping his hands to transform it into a small loaf of bread, and with another quick transmutation, he created a glass of water to wash it down with from the pipes below their feet. "Thanks, Alphonse." She walked beside him as she ate her breakfast, which wasn't much, but it was enough to keep her on her feet with the two immortals for a while longer.

"You're welcome," Alphonse said, and the two of them continued to walk, "You know… If somehow… if Brother can't be brought back," Amelia looked up at him, "I could talk to the Colonel, or maybe Fuhrer Bradley. I can make it so I'm a state alchemist, and then you could still stay with me… so you wouldn't have to go anywhere or go back to the Major."

"Alphonse… that's really sweet of you to offer," She said, smiling up at her friend as she reached over and gave him a friendly nudge with her elbow, "But I don't want you to have to be under the military's control if it can be helped… I don't want you enlisting just for my sake. I don't think there needs to be any more child soldiers in wars." He was only 14, after all. She didn't want him to have to go through that and traumatize him on top of everything else, "Besides, if word gets out about your… condition, what do you think they'll do to you? I mean, not everyone knows about that trick your brother did."

"I know… but maybe we can still try." Alphonse said, and Amelia shook her head.

"I would rather go back to the Major than have to burden you with that kind of responsibility." She said firmly, and Alphonse deflated a little bit at her refusal, and she smiled up at him, "But when that happens, you can come and visit me as often as you want. I'll be more than happy to have you around, and we can stay up late and talk if you stay overnight."

Alphonse's armor couldn't really make any faces, but the way he moved, and from the energy he gave off, Amelia could swear she saw him smiling, "Thank you, Amelia." She smiled back at him, going back to eating her breakfast as they continued to move through the streets of Central. A few people looked over at Alphonse, but no one really came up to them or said anything. He must have been well-known through the city, probably mistaken as the Fullmetal Alchemist himself, so even if he was of some notability, it wasn't like that of a celebrity where people would try to get his autograph. And after Edward spent all that time fixing up other people's stuff? Most people would know him as his brother, hopefully.

They kept going until they reached the part of town that was near a manufacturing district, filled with factories and construction work. They moved down through one alleyway after another to avoid people until they got to one place that had a small, metal gate. Was that all that was really standing between them and the homunculi's father was a metal gate?

Gluttony opened it and smiled, pointing inside, "Father's down here, but it's easy to get lost, so just follow me." He said, and Amelia and Alphonse did just that, following him down the stairs, down past the second metal gate and further in still. The dark staircase led to a rather dim tunnel, but there was enough light for them to see where they were going. At first, Amelia thought it might be a sewer, but with walkways big enough for them to step on comfortably, she thought maybe it might be some kind of maintenance tunnel for pipework for the larger factories above them.

They heard whimpering and looked over to see the little panda cat shivering as she clung to Al's helmet. "What's the matter?" he asked, "Are you cold?" He held up his finger to gently pet her cheek, "It's okay…" The cat jumped up, wrapping itself around his offered finger and stayed close. Amelia looked at the reaction she gave and looked up at Alphonse.

"I think she's just a little scared, poor thing." She said sympathetically. She was scared, too, but admittedly not trembling and cowering.

As Gluttony rounded a corner, he waved them on, "This way!" He said, and the pair looked at each other before following him around the corner, and through a door marked "No Entry" before following him inside to yet another tunnel. However, this one was much larger than the last, with clean, flowing water rushing down in between the walkways for miles ahead and behind them.

"Whoa… I didn't know there were tunnels like this under Central." Alphonse said as he marveled at it, and Amelia did the same, until she heard something crunching under her foot. She looked down and saw the remains of a bloody jawbone, and she jumped back with a gasp.

She and Alphonse looked around, seeing the floor was littered with bloody bones that had been broken apart, not even the remains of a whole human, but rather many scattered remains of many humans and not much was left of them.

"Jesus Christ!" Amelia clung to Al's arm as she looked at them all, and the pair of them quickly caught up with Gluttony. "Hey, what's with all these bones?" She asked as they came closer to their inhuman guide. Gluttony looked back at them.

"Huh?" He looked down around them, "Oh, the gatekeepers did all that."

"The gatekeepers?" Alphonse repeated confusedly.

"They won't rip you up as long as you're with me!" Gluttony said, and Amelia looked around. She didn't see any sign of anything down there with them other than Gluttony… so where would the gatekeepers be hiding?

At the same time, they both looked up and saw a massive number of eyes looking down at them from the grating in the ceiling. They couldn't make out what they were, but they were many and hungry. Amelia clung to Alphonse's arm a little tighter and he kept walking with his friend.

"It's okay… just pretend they aren't there." He tried to comfort Amelia, who nodded.

"Easy for you to say… no offense Al, but you can survive being ripped apart a lot more easily than I can." She said, and Alphonse picked up the pace so they could walk a little closer with Gluttony.

"Do we have much further?" Alphonse asked, trying to get their minds off the monsters ahead of them, waiting for a chance to eat.

"Not too far, it's just ahead now." Gluttony said.

"You said your father made you, does he know what happens to the people you swallow?" Alphonse asked.

"I'm sure he does, Father knows everything!" Gluttony said.

Amelia couldn't help grimacing a little bit at his words and tone, "He's like a child…" She muttered under her breath, unsure of what to make of such a massive… well, she supposed Gluttony could be the literal incarnation of a man-child.

"Father can make anything!" Gluttony continued, "He made all of us, he did! He made me, and Lust, and he made Envy!"

"Has he made anyone else?" Amelia asked, wanting to know just how many homunculi they were up against.

"Well… he made Greed, but he unmade him, too." Gluttony said.

"Unmade?" Amelia repeated, "What does that mean?"

"Father unmade him because he was bad," Gluttony answered, "So he went back into Father until he can make a new Greed."

"He went back into him?" Amelia didn't understand at all, from what she knew Greed was another homunculus like Envy and Gluttony that Ed and Al met before, but he had been slaughtered. Was that what he meant by saying he was unmade? She wasn't sure, but she didn't really like that answer as they continued on the path that Gluttony led them down.

Soon enough, they came to a large pair of doors, lit by a small light just above. "We're here!" Gluttony said happily as he walked in front of the doors.

"So, this is it?" Alphonse asked, "Your father's on the other side?"

"Mm-hmm, that's right!" Gluttony answered, going to the doors and starting to push them open. The doors creaked as they were pushed, and they were led inside of an incredibly strange room. It was dark, the only light they could really find came from above - sunlight, maybe? - and a candle inside of what looked like a skull. Pipes were hanging from the ceiling and covered the walls, all leading to a chair in the middle of the room that could better be described as a throne. Amelia couldn't deny that now she was here, she had a bad feeling, not just as an intuition, but she also felt like she had a bad case of heartburn. Something in her body was physically telling her that this place wasn't good by giving her a burning sensation in her chest. As they walked in further, she couldn't help but look around the strange place.

"This place couldn't get any creepier, huh?" Alphonse asked.

"Yeah, no shit." Amelia agreed.

"Hello, Father!" Gluttony's voice called out, startling both of them as they watched him wave both of his massive hands at a figure just outside of the light, "I've brought you a human sacrifice!"

"Your father? Where? This is all happening too fast!" Alphonse worried, looking around the room.

"Is that him?" Amelia asked, looking at the strange figure, but she couldn't make him out from the light there. Alphonse and Amelia both looked at him for a moment, and Alphonse stiffened, and Amelia wasn't sure if she recognized him, the beard looked familiar… and so did all the blonde hair.

"And who is this?" he asked, looking over at the two of them from his place on the stairs, having just exited another room.

"...Dad?" Alphonse wasn't sure, but he looked so much like him…! Could it be Hohenheim? Was he really the father of all the homunculi?

Before he could ask anything, Gluttony let out a confused sound, and then shouted out in agony, calling everyone's attention towards him as his body started spitting out blood, forcefully breaking apart as his stomach opened up and revealed that grey eye from before, twitching and moving wildly, Gluttony's entire body spasming over and over as he tried to deal with whatever was happening, spitting out blood and having it come out from the outside of his second mouth as well. With all the pain he was experiencing, he bent over and grabbed a pipe so hard he broke it, steam shooting out as he continued to scream and howl in pain, and suddenly something started coming out of him!

Alphonse and Amelia backed up as they watched a giant, green claw stretch its way out of his stomach, and another hand joining it. Amelia couldn't help screaming in fear at the sight of it, it was like watching a horror movie, only this was very much real, and very much terrifying. A foot pushed its way out of him, and the whole room was lit up with the red lightning from the transmutation before something huge came out of him! A massive, green monster with six arms and a huge tail pushed its way out of his belly and collapsed onto the ground. When it had stopped, Amelia and Alphonse were able to get a closer look at the beast, seeing his skin writhing with… people? They were stuck in his skin, moaning and reaching out as they murmured nonsense together, squirming in ways that Amelia couldn't help but find revolting.

"Envy?" The man known as Father spoke up at the sight of it, and Amelia and Alphonse couldn't believe what they had just heard.

"Envy?! That thing?!" Alphonse repeated, unable to believe this monster was the same androgynous person they had seen in the forest not even 24 hours ago.

As they looked over his body, Amelia immediately saw something that wasn't like the rest of him, "Ed?!" She ran over to him, seeing where he sat covered in the skin of Envy's people, draped over him as if they were trying to make him part of the giant monster. She ran down in front of him, Alphonse kneeling behind her as she pushed some of it away, "Edward, are you okay?"

He grunted, opening his eyes and looking up at her, "Amelia? You're here…" His eyes widened, "So that means…" He looked over to his side, and smiled, bringing up his automail hand to his right, and Ling reached over and knocked his fist against it.

"We're back in the real world," Ling said with a grin, and Edward returned it.

"Guess so," He replied. While the two of them were celebrating their tiny, exhausted victory, Amelia and Alphonse were overcome with a mix of emotions at seeing the people they thought they had lost the night before.

"Ed!" Amelia wrapped her arms around him tightly, surprising him.

"Brother!" Alphonse wrapped his arms around both of them, and both teenagers cried out as his armor poked both of them in different places on their bodies as he held them both tightly.

"You're hurting me!" Edward cried out.

"You're safe! I'm so happy you're alive!" Alphonse said, hugging his brother close, so glad to know that he was alive and well.

"Al, take it easy!" Amelia cried out.

"Your spikes are poking my ribs!" Edward grunted, trying to get out of Alphonse's grasp. He let them go, getting on his knees in front of both of them as they sat on the ground.

"I'm sorry, but I thought… I thought you were dead." His armor trembled, and Amelia knew that he was so happy that Edward was back, and he wouldn't have to continue to deal with the idea that he wasn't alive, that he had lost all that he had left.

Edward smiled sympathetically at his brother, "But I'm okay, Al… I'm sorry. I'm sorry I worried you." He reached up and pat his head with his automail hand, and Amelia noticed his other arm was bandaged up with a splint.

"What happened to your arm?" She asked, and the more she looked over him, the more she noticed was wrong, "And why are you covered in blood? What happened to you?"

"It's kind of a long story…" Edward said, pushing himself up, and Amelia followed, as did Al. "Where exactly did we wind up, though?" He asked as he looked around their strange and creepy surroundings.

"This is somewhat surprising," A voice shocked him, and they all turned around to see Father approaching them as he came into the light. Once he was in front of him, there was no doubt that Amelia recognized him, he looked exactly like Hohenheim, Edward and Alphonse's father! Except… well, his clothes were a little strange, wearing some kind of white robe, and his hair was left down instead of in a ponytail, and he didn't wear any glasses, either… Was this actually him? "People emerging from his stomach…"

Edward's expression set into a scowl at the sight of him, "What the- Hohenheim?" He recognized the face he hated more than most right away.

"Steel appendages, hm?" The man said aloud as he looked over Ed, and over Alphonse, "And an armored body… Hmmm…" He took a step closer to Edward to get a closer look at his face, making Edward jump back from the sudden closeness. "Are you two the Elric brothers?"

"So you're… you're not…?" The way he was acting, this wasn't Hohenheim at all, he clearly didn't recognize them, or know them, and he referred to them by their surname. It wasn't their father, but he was basically his twin.

"Have you mistaken me for someone else?" He asked, and straightened up, looking away from them as he started to think, rubbing at his chin with his hand, "Well… Hold on… Hohen…" He turned back to Edward, "The name you said," He pointed to him, "By any chance do you mean Van Hohenheim? And how is it the two of you are acquainted with him?"

"Well… he's our father." Alphonse answered.

The man let out a low hum and looked back at Edward, and he suddenly reached for his face and looked it over, turning it one way, and then another, "He's your father? This is indeed surprising, I had no idea he had children!" He laughed as he condescendingly patted Edward's head, which only made him angrier as he glared up at this man that had his father's face, but his laughter suddenly stopped, "If you are indeed his progeny, then why is it that your family name is Elric?"

Edward reached up and pushed his hands off of him, "Elric is our mother's last name!" He shouted.

"Oh, is that so?" He replied, "So where has he been spending his time?"

"Who cares?!" Edward snapped, "Just forget him, who the hell are you?! And why do you look exactly like him?!"

The man turned away, talking to himself, "I know that he can't be dead…" Edward was shocked as he was suddenly pushed aside as this old man talked to himself. He seemed to take his sweet time thinking on his own, barely acknowledging their presence except when it was convenient for him, "But to think that he has children now…"

"Listen!" Edward growled out, furious at being ignored like this, raising up both his hands in anger, his automail fist clenched tightly.

"Brother, this guy's the one who-" As Alphonse reached for his brother's injured arm, he cried out, getting the attention of the nameless father as he looked over to see Edward holding his broken arm.

"It would appear that you're injured," He calmly commented, and he glanced over at Alphonse to see what state his body was in, "And you're missing your left hand, aren't you?" He reached out, putting his hand over what was left of Alphonse's arm, and as he pulled away a new hand was suddenly transmuted into place, almost exactly the same as the one Alphonse lost. "There, how is that for you?" Before he got an answer, he grabbed Edward's arm, "Your arm is broken." A transmutative light sparked around it for a moment before he pulled away, and Edward snatched his arm back. He looked down at it, moving his hand and quickly ripping off the splint before he started clenching and opening his fist.

"It's not broken anymore…!" He said, shocked that he was suddenly healed. He looked up as the man reached forward, his hands pressing against Edward's shoulders and chest, watching as he winced when he got too close to part of his torso.

"A few broken ribs as well," He commented before a transmutative light sparked around his chest and he pulled away. Edward felt around the spot there, testing the area that had previously been broken, and it suddenly wasn't anymore. He and Alphonse were completely back to normal, much to their shock as well as Amelia's. "I consider the two of you to be vital resources, you must both remain alive and healthy." As great as it was that they were healed, they all noted something about his use of alchemy pretty quickly.

"That's… not right, he performed a transmutation without any movement." Amelia said to them in a quiet voice. It would be one thing to perform without a circle - that was old news to them - but to perform it without clapping and creating the circle within yourself? To just touch someone and transmute? It wasn't right.

"He didn't… at all." Edward agreed.

"And he didn't even thin out my armor," Alphonse chimed in, the two of them looking back over at the man called Father, all of them realizing the same thing.

"There isn't an equivalent exchange."

It was the work of the Philosopher's Stone.

Ling held up his sword, shaking on his feet as he pointed it at the man, "You aren't human. What are you?! What the hell's inside you?!" He demanded.

The man just looked at him with a neutral expression, though there was something intimidating about his side stare, "I would ask who you are, but I honestly don't care." He replied to his questions, which only angered Ling more. He turned around and started to walk away, facing Gluttony, "You can go ahead and eat him."

"Okay!" Gluttony cheered happily.

"What?! No! Hold on!" Edward, Alphonse, and Amelia all rushed in front of Ling to act as some kind of barrier between him and Gluttony. "Don't! This guy's our friend, and you want to keep us happy, right? So don't kill him! Please!"

"But I have no need for him." He continued as he didn't look back at them once. "Your friendship doesn't make him any less useless to me."

"What did you say…?" Edward couldn't believe the coldness in his words; how could someone be so objectively cruel and heartless?

"Brother, the homunculi keep calling this guy their father," Alphonse said, quickly trying to explain who he was, "I think he's the one who created them."

"What?" Edward looked back at the man, which made a little more sense about his attitude and personality.

"He did heal our wounds, though…" Alphonse said, hesitant at the idea of fighting him because of that act of kindness.

"He didn't heal mine," Ling spat out as he staggered to their side, Amelia looking over at him worriedly. Edward had a broken arm and ribs from whatever happened to him, and Ling didn't look much better off, definitely for the worse. When he stumbled, she went to catch him, and he shrugged her off before he pointed his sword at Father again, glaring at him, "I don't like him. I can tell he looks down on humans and calls us fools!"

Father stopped walking, turning around to face the group, "When you notice an insect on the ground, do you stop to consider it a fool?" he asked a question that made everyone flare up a little in anger, "The life of an insect is so beneath you that it would be a waste of your time to even consider judging it. That would be an accurate summation on my feelings towards you humans."

Before Amelia could even vocalize her growing hatred of this man, to yell at him about how dare he would be so disrespectful to the people he considered 'vital,' Edward clapped his hands together and pressed them to the floor, transmuting a line of concrete to jut out from below and towards him, though it was blocked by a wall made by Father.

"Look! You might've healed our wounds, but that does not mean we're friends!" He snapped at him, "It's pretty apparent that you're the root of all this evil! I'm taking you down! I don't care how many cronies you got!"

"And just who are you calling a crony, pipsqueak?!" The massive monstrous form of Envy shot back.

"PIPSQUEAK?!" His comment only fueled Edward's anger more. He knelt down and pressed his hands against a pipe, transmuting them to shoot out, making it look like it was heading for Envy and Gluttony, but turning at the last second to wrap around Father tightly, "Ha! Gotcha now, Boss Man!" His victory was quickly cut short when his transmutation came undone, shattering around Father's feet in a different transmutation. Before they had a chance to react and strike again, Envy rose up over them, bringing down his hands as if to squish them like bugs under his palms (though admittedly he wasn't quite big enough for that). The group scattered, Amelia seeing Ling limping along and she rushed to his side, helping him away from Envy and hopefully to somewhere safer while Edward rushed his way up over Envy to try and get to Father, only to be blocked by a pillar transmuted out of nowhere.

Alphonse had his own attempt, transmuting the ground to shoot towards him, only to be destroyed upon reaching him. Amelia frowned as she watched the whole thing, hating how easy it was for him to just deflect how he pleased. Ling ran forward and she watched him jump through the cloud of dust created from Alphonse's destroyed transmutation, only to be met with a pillar in the gut.

"Ling!" Alphonse cried out, Amelia running to try and meet him where he landed.

"I got you!" She grunted as she met him on the ground. He managed to land on his feet, but he clutched at his middle and groaned in pain, "Dude, you're not okay. You can't fight like this." She put his arm around her shoulders to pick him up and get him out of there.

"I'm not done-"

"Shut up already!" She cut off his protests as she looked back at Father, "I don't know what's wrong with this guy, but it's like… he can transmute just by thinking about it." It was dangerous, considering they still had to take the time to clap their hands for their transmutations, and somehow it seemed like he could pull up more than they could, which didn't seem right at all… "I don't know that we can beat him."

Father sighed, having heard her speaking as well as Alphonse and Edward trying to figure out how he was doing what he was doing, "This is a waste of time." He said, and he carefully brought up one foot from under his robes, and brought it down on the ground, the soundwave from the action resounded through the room, sending a strange feeling through Amelia's body as she watched a transmutative lightning strike shoot above from Father's head into the ceiling.

It only lasted a few seconds, and Edward and Alphonse immediately went back to transmuting, clapping their hands and touching the ground… only for nothing to happen. There was only the soft sound of their hands hitting the ground and what followed wasn't a fantastic transmutation of a weapon to use against this man, but nothing. They both stared in shock for a few silent seconds before they tried again, clapping their hands and pressing them into the cement floor, only for nothing to still happen. They were only putting down their hands on the ground, and while this would have been a normal sight in Amelia's home, it was a sign that the boys had lost their best (and only) weapon against this man that could actually beat him. Amelia felt a cold chill go down her spine, why couldn't they use their alchemy? She reached for Ling's sword, which seemed a little strange and she would have made a comment on it if she had cared enough, making a quick clap of her own hands and trying to change its shape… only for nothing to happen. None of them could transmute at all.

Before any other reactions could register, Envy brought his hands down on top of Edward and Alphonse, pinning them. "Ed! Al!" Ling got up and rushed over to them, as did Amelia, only for Ling to get tackled by Gluttony, and Amelia was pinned down by Envy's other hand, crying out when she was pushed to the ground.

"Hey!" She glared up at Envy, only for her eyes to meet the ones of one of the many faces bursting out of his skin, the face of someone furious, and laughing maniacally. It only made her feel sick.

"What the hell did he do to us?" Edward asked, grunting as he tried to push himself up from under Envy's massive claws, but was just pushed back down.

"I don't know…! Why can't we use our alchemy?" Alphonse was scared, both of them confused, but Edward was more angry than afraid.

Envy let out a loud laugh at Alphonse's question, looking down at the two brothers, "You lower life forms never cease to amuse me." He said, "You get a speck of power and you think you own the world! And you don't even know what that power is." Edward glared up at him, "And then you have the arrogance to assume that you're the one in control of this power! You're like a bad joke that keeps getting dumber!" He chortled, which was odd to hear from someone so much larger than you, and with a much bigger mouth. Amelia looked over at Father, who was watching all of this go on with an indifferent expression. He really couldn't care less that this was happening. Amelia glanced back up at Envy, trying to process his words. Was he trying to imply that they didn't have control over their alchemy, but rather the homunculi did? Or was it just Father? Either way, it didn't mean anything good to them in that moment.

"What the hell are you bastards planning?" Edward demanded, "You promised to tell me everything if I got you out!"

"Huh?" Envy mockingly played dumb, "Why, I would never stoop so low as to make a deal with a worm like you!" He said, turning up his giant nose at him.

"Liar!" Edward was only more angry that Envy had gone back on his word.

"You talk far too much, Envy," Father spoke up.

"Oh, sorry."

Father glanced over at Amelia, who was still struggling under Envy's grasp, and then turned to Ling where he was stuck underneath Gluttony, "You may prove to be useful to me after all." He said, stepping over to where Gluttony kept him pinned down. "I could always use a new pawn in the rotation." He brought his finger up to his forehead, which split open into a third eye, crying out red tears that quickly manifested and dropped into Father's palm as a red blob.

"Is that… a Philosopher's Stone?!" Alphonse recognized the red liquid right away.

"A what…?" Ling looked up as he watched the stone getting made in an instant just from this man before him.

"You're really gonna do that?" Envy asked, not sounding too pleased about what Father was about to do, but not enough to stop him.

"Do what?" Ed demanded.

"He's going to make a new homunculus." Envy's words caught everyone's attention as they looked back at where Father held the stone in his palm. "The stone is added into the bloodstream, if it's able to merge then a human-based homunculus is created, but it's more common for the stone to overpower the subject and kill them." Gluttony reached down and pulled off the bandage on Ling's cheek, exposing the open scar underneath that was torn open again from the scabbing being yanked off so quickly, dripping a thin line of blood down to his chin.

"I'm not gonna let you do this to him!" Edward said, he and Alphonse both trying to push their way up but were unsuccessful under Envy's grasp as he weighed them down. Amelia didn't have much better luck with that task, either. "What is this?! What's going on?! Why the hell aren't we able to transmute?!" He clapped his hands together, waiting for some kind of reaction, and nothing.

Alphonse kept slamming his hands against the ground to try and get it to move or change, but it wouldn't at all.

Amelia was just trying to push her way out from Envy's fingers, but she kept finding it difficult, and there was a soreness growing in her sides from trying to use her muscles that way, "Let him go!" She hadn't known Ling for long, but she knew he didn't deserve to die by being overpowered from a Philosopher's stone. And even if he lived, would Ling himself just be destroyed by the homunculus?

"He's got people waiting for him to come back, you bearded bastard!" Edward shouted out, "Get off of me!" He stopped as he remembered he had something that might work, at least to get Envy to let him go, reaching into the back of his pants for the gun he got from Lieutenant Hawkeye, turning it around and pointing it at Envy's arm, only to be met with a tearful face of agony from among the cluster of faces in his green skin, making him hesitate.

"Can you really shoot such a sad face?" Envy taunted, his massive lips curling up in a smug grin, "Can you, boy?"

"Damn you…!" Edward growled out, getting ready to pull the trigger just out of spite for Envy.

"Don't shoot, Ed!" Ling shouted, getting their attention, "This is exactly what I want, so you just stay out of it."

"Ling, are you nuts?!" Amelia shouted out.

"I came to your land to find a Philosopher's Stone, and now this guy wants to give me one!" Ling reasoned with them, "I'm not gonna turn this down!"

"Think about what you're doing!" Edward shouted.

"Well, now this is new." Father commented idly, the Philosopher's Stone sitting in the palm of his hand, "But we'll see if your body is as willing as your mind." He overturned his palm, and it fell from his hand and landed onto Ling's skin, finding a scar on his cheek and pushing its way inside.

"No, don't!" Edward fought hard to get up, but it was already too late. Ling was crying out in agonizing pain as Gluttony got off of him. His body writhed in inhuman ways, they could hear his bones cracking apart under his muscles, flashes of red lightning dancing along his skin as different parts of him were ripped apart, only to be healed again by the power of the stone that was now working its way through his body. Every now and then, his body would pulse, as if the remaining heartbeats of the Philosopher's Stone were all beating at once inside of him. "Ling!"

"I told you to keep out of this!" Ling snarled out, and cried out in pain again, trying to push himself to stand, but only collapsing down on the ground as the pain became too much. "Don't you dare interfere!" Amelia winced as she heard his screams of pain, feeling sick to her stomach as she heard him bearing the pain and agony of this unique torture. In the middle of it all, though, Ling managed to lift his head, and point a finger at them, with a crooked, shaking grin on his face from this near-victory for him, "Stay back…! I promise that I know what I'm doing…!" He grunted in pain as another wave struck him, "You're dealing with the future leader of Xing…! Ling Yao-!" He was cut off as he vomited a sinuous pile of blood, showing the stone's effects of what they couldn't see within his body while he was going through this.

He let out another scream, and Amelia could feel her own throat growing scratchy as she heard him crying out. She couldn't help but watch in horror as his body was broken apart, hearing the sickening sounds of his limbs being dislocated and broken, only to be fixed, again and again, blood finding its way out of his mouth, his ears, his eyes, his nose, his body writhing in ways Amelia had never seen, but was sure some horror director would love to recreate.

And finally, with one last red spark, there was silence. Ling's body stood on its knees, completely healed, aside from bloodstains on his clothes. His body twitched a few times before it finally stopped, moving again as his body straightened up, reaching one hand to the back of his neck as if there was some kind of lingering pain there. Was that it? It was over? Ling was still moving, was he alive?

"Ling?" Edward's voice called out, and he looked up at where it came from.

"What? Oh, you mean the guy I took this body from?" An entirely new voice came from Ling's body, and the toothy grin that formed on his face was unlike any expression Ling had ever made as he showed him his left hand, letting the bandages fall away from around his palm, "Sorry, but your friend just checked out and left Greed this body!" The bandages fell away to reveal an ouroboros tattoo on the back of his hand.

"So… you're not Ling…?" Alphonse asked.

"Did he say Greed…?" Edward repeated the name, knowing it was the name of the homunculus that they had met in Dublith some months back, the one who had kidnapped Alphonse with his ragtag gang of human chimeras.

This sudden transformation shook Amelia to her core, and she found herself terrified. The terrible pain he had gone through, and in the end, he had become the homunculus instead of dying, but that wasn't what was scaring her about this one moment. Father hadn't just looked at Ling and called him useful, he had also looked at her.

As the new Greed stood up and walked over to them, Edward continued speaking, "So then… are you the Greed from before?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Greed asked, his eyes open wide, a stark contrast to how Ling always kept them near-closed.

"You don't remember us?" Edward couldn't believe that they were the same homunculus when he had faced this one before.

"From Dublith?" Alphonse tried to jog his memory.

"You must have met some different Greed." He replied.

"He was my avarice before you," Father said, and Greed let out an understanding "Oh."

"Okay, I gotcha," He reached for the back of his neck again, rubbing at it, "That makes sense. But if you want to hear it from me: No, I'm not the Greed you knew." He straightened up, tilting his head one way and another, as if to crack a few bones.

"But… what about Ling?" Amelia couldn't help asking, and Greed looked over at her, giving her that toothy grin again.

"Well, he was an interesting kid," Greed answered, "He gave up his body without any fight at all."

"You're lying!" Edward snapped, "Ling would never give up and surrender himself so easily!"

"Very well, then," Father's voice caught their attention as he put his focus on Amelia, "Now that we have a new Greed, I will be needing yet another Lust." Amelia began to struggle even more under Envy's claw, which just caused him to press her down harder into the floor.

"No! Please! I don't want to die!" Amelia cried out as Father started coming closer, fighting with all of her might to get out from under Envy, reaching up and batting at his claws to see if the pain would be enough to release her, hot fearful tears sliding out from the corners of her eyes.

"Amelia!" Alphonse immediately tried finding his way out from Envy's hand, but it wasn't any use.

"You leave her alone!" Edward shouted with ferocity, "Don't you touch one hair on her head!"

"I do not care what you want," Father said as he stepped in front of where she was, and was about to begin the process again of summoning another stone from his body when the doors to the room opened up with a heavy creak and called his attention away, looking to see a gatekeeper chimera staggering its way through, only to burst blood from its back as it was torn in half, revealing Scar behind him, and the little girl who had rescued him before. What were they doing here? How did they manage to get down here without being eaten alive by those chimeras? Then again, looking at the one that came in with them, that question seemed to answer itself.

While they came in wearing determined expressions, hers suddenly shifted and she clung to Scar's pant leg. He looked down at her, "What's the matter?"

"That feeling… It's coming from that man." She said, looking at Father, whose attention had thankfully shifted off of Amelia to them, these intruders that had found their way past his gatekeepers, "He is a human… but also not…!"

Scar looked up at him, looking around the room to see who else was there. At the sound of the little girl's voice, Alphonse's armor started to stir and clink and scrape as the little panda cat found her way out of his armor and looked around the room.

"No, he's not." Scar said, stepping forward, "It doesn't look like any of them are human." The panda cat turned and dashed off towards the little girl, jumping up and she easily caught her in her arms, beaming brightly at the sight of the little pet.

"Xiao Mei! Oh, thank goodness! You're okay! I was so worried..." She cuddled her in her arms, clearly glad to have her back. Did they come all the way down here just to find her cat?! Who knew Scar would be so dedicated to helping a little girl find her lost pet?

Greed applauded the scene, "Whoa, now that is a touching reunion right there."

While their attention was focused on them, Edward, Alphonse, and Amelia still tried to get out of their bonds, but to no luck.

"It looks like they've also got Fullmetal," Scar said, referring to Edward by his title.

"Where is he?" The girl asked with an eager smile, "Where is Mr. Edward?"

Scar pointed him out, "He's right there."

The girl looked around where he pointed, and then around the rest of the room before looking back at Scar with a pout, "He's not really here, is he?"

"I told you, that's him right there." Scar insisted, pointing again and she stepped forward to get a better look, "That little guy is the Fullmetal Alchemist." Edward visibly winced at that, clearly unhappy with being called out on his size.

She squinted to get a better look at him, and even from where she sat trapped Amelia could see her face shifting into shock, and then a very sudden heartbreak. She must have been expecting something different from Edward because it seemed that just seeing how he was in general tore her apart inside. It wasn't long before her despair suddenly shifted to anger, tears flowing from her eyes as she shouted, "How DARE you toy with the feelings of a maiden, you human microbe!" She shouted.

"What'd you call me, MICROBE GIRL?!" Edward snapped back.

"Brother!" Alphonse's chiding tone eased his hair-trigger temper for a second, "Did you do something to that little girl?"

"Of course not! And this really isn't the time for that!"

"Oh, right… Good point."

"We need to focus on getting out of here and getting out alive!" As the two bickered, Amelia looked over at Scar, and their eyes met for a second. She was reminded of the last time she saw him, in that rain-drenched alleyway, threatening to kill Edward and in a stroke of fear-driven adrenaline she had run up to try and stop him with a blade. It hadn't worked, but it was enough for him to remember her as his eyes flashed with recognition.

"That's the Ishvalan I never got to eat," Gluttony said to Father, pointing to Scar and speaking to him as Edward and Alphonse argued.

"Another human with his own plans…" Father brought one hand up to his chin, stroking at it and his golden beard, "This is the insubordinate who's been using his destructive alchemy to carelessly interfere with our operation."

"Go ahead and eat him." Envy's booming voice cut over the brother's argument as he ordered Gluttony, "He doesn't have his alchemy to stop you right now."

"Okay!" Gluttony happily agreed, leaping over to Scar with a somehow cheerful growl, only to be met with Scar's hand hitting his stomach, and his alchemy throwing him back into a bloody mess.

Everyone was a little shocked, even Father's eyes widened at the sight of him using his alchemy without any issue.

"What?!" Envy couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"You'll pay for this!" The little girl declared angrily as she pointed at Edward, who just looked confused and angry that this girl was going out of her way to declare revenge for something he had never done, "You deceived an innocent girl! And you kidnapped Xiao Mei!" She reached into her sleeves, pulling out throwing knives that landed just behind Envy's feet on a stray piece of rock from Edward and Alphonse's attempts at fighting Father. "You'll suffer for what you've done! All of you!" She made a circle on the ground, connecting more knives to it, and everyone watched as transmutative lightning shot out from that circle to where her knives were, creating a massive stone fist and muscular arm that came up from the ground and crashed into Envy's belly, but also sending Alphonse, Edward, and Amelia flying into the air. The two brothers managed to land on their feet, Amelia stumbled and tripped over her feet before she landed on her backside onto the stone ground.

"About time!" Edward said once he landed, looking over at his brother before the two of them clapped their hands and pressed them to the ground, thinking their time without alchemy was over… only to still be met with nothing. Amelia stood up when she saw their lack of a reaction, and the little girl was clearly still angry at them, so they ran off into the dust of the explosion she had made to hide.

"It still isn't working!" Alphonse said as they ran, Amelia joining them.

"But why is theirs?!" Edward demanded.

"Can we just keep running and find out later?!" Amelia snapped, and the two of them seemed to agree to at least get out of the way as Envy found his way back up, going to find a hiding spot where they might be a little safer. They settled behind a large piece of rubble, and Amelia panted as she came around the side. "That was way too close, if they had shown up a minute later…" She was certain she would be either dead or lost inside of a homunculus right now. She looked down and she could still see her hands shaking, and she reached up to wipe away the tears that had rested in the corner of her eyes.

"We won't let them," Edward said firmly, looking over at her. She met his eyes and saw that fierce determination behind those golden pools, "They won't even get the chance to turn you into a homunculus." She didn't know why, but she believed him. There was no way to guarantee what he said at all, and at best it was an empty promise just made to make her feel better, but somehow, she believed that he would never let them do that to her, not after what they had seen happen to Ling.

"How can you use your alchemy here?" Envy demanded from across the room.

"What do you mean?" Scar was confused by the question, not knowing that the alchemy had been shut away from Edward and Alphonse so they couldn't do any transmutations at all.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Alphonse said as he looked over at the two of them, "How can they still transmute?"

"I don't know," Edward admitted, "I have no idea…" He looked out over them, that determined fire still in his eyes, "But I think this is our chance to turn things around."

"How?" Amelia's question wasn't answered as Edward ran around the rubble.

"Scar!" He shouted out to the man, "You want to know the truth about what started the war in Ishval?! The truth about who shot that child and started the uprising?!" Alphonse came out after his brother, ready to fight, and Amelia stayed behind both of them as Edward pointed an accusing finger towards Envy, "He's standing right there! It was Envy, disguised as a soldier!" Amelia's eyes widened, looking over at the giant green monstrosity that was Envy. The civil war that had started so many years ago… she remembered the story of a soldier that had shot and killed a child by accident, but that wasn't true? "These guys orchestrated the entire war!"

Scar followed his finger to Envy, as well as to Father and Greed. Father didn't seem to care at all about Edward's accusation as he met Scar's eyes, which only seemed to further fuel his anger.

"I'd like to hear more details about this," He said, his hand flexing open into his usual claw that he used for transmuting bodies, while Gluttony had recovered behind him and was making his way up, "In between your screaming." Without even looking, Gluttony charged him, but Scar reached back and destroyed his body again. The little girl beside him looked afraid, stepping back from him as hatred radiated off of his body, glaring and scowling at Father and the homunculi.

Sparks still flew from his fingers as he spoke, preparing his next transmutation, "Now tell me, for what purpose did you choose to slaughter my people?" Father just watched the man, uncaring of his questions or for answering them, "Depending on your answer, I'll send you to join God- No!" His hatred flared even more, the sparks turning into thin bolts of lightning, "You don't deserve to stand by God alongside my fallen brothers!" He lifted his hand up higher, and they could all hear the metallic hum of the electricity from his alchemy, "Your only solace from my wrath will be damnation!" He threw his hand to the ground, and the room's floor was torn apart. The concrete and stone crumbled beneath the feet of the homunculi and Father, as well as the Elric brothers and their companion since they had been too close to the show.

They were thrown back in the shockwave, and Amelia once again landed uncomfortably, but thankfully nothing felt broken… at least for now. She got up and looked around, seeing Alphonse and Edward weren't too far and she let out a small sigh of relief when they seemed to be okay.

"Whoa! Nice!" Greed cheered appreciatively, "He's got some pretty good moves for a human."

"Greed," Father's voice came from beside him, undamaged from the explosion and perfectly fine, "Take care of the outsiders."

"Sure," Greed readily agreed, standing up from where he had been sitting and watching the show to go trotting towards where Scar was fighting Envy. The little girl had gone off around a corner, watching the display of hatred with a concerned expression, holding her little panda cat close.

As he walked by the rubble where Edward had landed, he looked down at the homunculus, who glanced back up at him with a smug smile. "I know you're still in there, Ling." He said.

Greed grinned back at him, showing his hand with the ouroboros mark, bringing his shield around his skin and creating that metallic sheen that Edward remembered, "Nope. Just Greed." In the background, Scar's fight raged on against Envy, destroying the room around him to fight back, and destroying his massive claws as well. Edward jumped down and Greed decided to play along, giving chase to the young alchemist that seemed intent on fighting the homunculus out of his new body.

Amelia watched him go and stood up, gasping as she felt a sharp pain in her leg.

"Are you okay?" Alphonse asked, and she nodded.

"I think I pulled something…" She said with a grunt, trying to stretch it out, but it wouldn't go away so easily. It was a deep pain that felt like it was coming from her bone, but she was certain she hadn't broken anything. No part of her was numb, and she could still move her foot and toes, it just hurt. She reached for her knee and bent over, Alphonse coming over to help her as they could still hear the battle going on.

"Here, let me help you up," The armor reached for her shoulders, trying to straighten her, and she shook her head.

"I can stand fine, it just hurts." She said, standing up, "We need to hurry and get out of here…" She looked around, not seeing any other exit aside from the front doors where they had come in. She looked back and she could see Edward still chasing after Envy, and on the other side of the room, she could see Gluttony chasing after the little girl, who was running as fast as she could from the fat homunculus.

The battle seemed to stop for a moment, the quiet drawing Amelia and Alphonse's attention as they saw Scar speaking with Father. His voice was too quiet to hear what he was saying, but she could only guess he was trying to figure out the mystery behind his transmutations like they were. Scar jumped back in time to avoid the worst of some kind of transmutation, but he was still injured by it. He was thrown back onto the rubble he had made.

"Mr. Scar!" The girl cried out, only to be knocked back by Gluttony's huge fist. Amelia looked up at Alphonse, who met her gaze and she nodded at him, silently telling him she would be fine, but that little girl just took a massive hit and she wasn't going to survive this without help. Alphonse nodded back and started dashing over to her while she started to make her way over to where Edward and Greed were still fighting. Alphonse managed to get to the girl before Gluttony could eat her, kicking him out of the way before looking back at the girl.

"You alright?" He asked, and when her response was to cower and try to find comfort with her little cat, he acted immediately. She scooped her up in his arms and ran out of the place, out of the door and down the hall to hopefully get her to safety. Scar followed them out not too long after in his own escape after realizing he can't beat these people who started the war that changed him into the man that he was now. Seeing an important sacrifice leaving in front of a known killer of alchemists, Envy and Gluttony followed along behind them, too.

She came to see Edward in the middle of his fight with Greed, watching him bring up his automail foot and try to hit Greed's stomach, only to be met with that strong shield. Greed grinned at him, "Yeah! That was a good, solid kick!" He praised him, and it seemed like genuine praise, though with all that was happening it was clear that Edward wasn't hurting him. "This should be more entertaining than I expected!" Amelia hobbled over, though she found it easier to walk the more she moved. Maybe she just had to walk it off…?

Still, her mind was focused on Edward as he and Greed moved around the room, fighting each other and while Ed was doing his best to get him to crack, Greed just seemed to consider it a game. He swiped at Edward with a clawed hand, him blocking it with his automail arm as much as he could. "You idiot prince!" He shouted, dodging one blow and clashing his arm against Greed's, "Wake up, Ling!"

"The name's Greed," he replied.

"Shut up!" Edward snapped, "Give Ling his body back!"

"Sorry, can't do that!" Greed headbutted Edward, knocking him back, he kicked at his side and went to swipe at him again, but Edward dodged. He grabbed onto his shoulder, coming around him and landing a kick at the back of his head. He jumped back as Greed charged forward, swiping at him again and throwing a punch that Edward dodged, landing one on his stomach that was quickly guarded by his shield. As Greed went to punch him, Edward ducked down and swept his legs, knocking him onto his back.

"Give up already, you idiot!" Edward shouted, moving his automail fist down to punch him, only to have his hand be caught by Greed before it could land. "What about your country?! Have you forgotten all about Lan Fan?!" He raised his flesh hand down and instead of meeting metal shield, it met the skin of Greed's cheek, with a glare coming from him. The fight paused for a split second, and Edward was certain there was an expression that he had seen on Greed that wasn't his, the expression of Ling reaching out when he heard the name of his most valued vassal who had given her arm for him to find the Philosopher's Stone he had desperately sought for their clan. It was enough to make Edward pause, not even realizing that Ling hadn't allowed Greed's shield to form as it had on all of his other hits. However, the pause didn't last long, as Greed reached up and took his flesh hand, turning it over and changing their positions so that he had Edward held down with his flesh arm between his legs.

"Edward!" Amelia made her way over to him as Edward struggled from the pain of his holding.

"Hey, Pops! I caught 'im for ya!" Greed said, and Father nodded.

"Upstairs. I want him taken directly to Wrath." He said, and he glanced at Amelia, who froze underneath his gaze, but his attention was quickly called away when he heard the sound of Envy returning. Two of his hands held Alphonse's arms back, the other one carried Gluttony's slightly burnt body that wasn't moving. Envy himself looked like he had been covered in ashes as well. Edward pushed his way out of Greed's hold as he rushed in front of Amelia, ready to fight Father to keep her from changing her into a homunculus, but at the moment he didn't seem to notice it.

"Man, you guys really made a mess of things, didn't you?" Envy berated Alphonse, "If you had simply behaved yourselves, then we would have let you go a long time ago."

Edward and Amelia made their way over to Alphonse, "Brother…" He looked over at him, seeing him holding his arm that Greed had grabbed. Amelia was still limping a little bit as she walked over to him.

"What did you think that was going to accomplish?" Amelia asked Edward, seeing as he lost the fight against the homunculus.

He looked back at Greed, "He's in there," He said with certainty, "I know it. Ling's alive." Amelia looked back at the body that was now a homunculus. She didn't know what Edward had seen, but she wouldn't contradict him for now. It seemed so strange that Ling would suddenly be gone after only meeting him yesterday.

"Pops says he wants them to head up to Wrath." Greed said to Envy, and they watched as the giant green monster's body started to shift and changed down into his smaller, usual form that they had recognized before.

"I'll take them," He said, and he gestured for the three of them to follow him, Amelia looked back at Father, who seemed to be going over to Gluttony. He had completely forgotten to turn her into a homunculus… or rather, and more likely, the convenience of her becoming one had worn off to him. Whatever it was, she was just glad she wasn't being threatened with losing her life to the Philosopher's Stone.

The three of them walked down the tunnels with Envy in silence, the homunculus saying nothing as they were led to an elevator, "Hey, where are you taking us?" Edward asked.

"Just get in." Envy snapped as he stepped through the opening doors. Edward glared at him, but they walked through. They weren't being dragged through, and they were all allowed to leave with their lives, so whatever it was they had to sit through with Wrath, whoever that was, would hopefully be short-lived.

Amelia was the last to enter, turning around and watching the doors of the elevator close. She heard the hum of the pulleys bringing them up, and she could still feel her hands shaking from the entire event. She had watched someone go through agony in having their body torn apart, heard his screams, all of this after the day she was certain she had lost one of the few people she could rely on in this country. She glanced back at Edward, who looked over at her questioningly, wondering what was wrong. She didn't say anything, the silence in the elevator weighed down on the three of them, and it prevented her from speaking in that moment, but now that the worst of it was over, now that they were three once more… she couldn't deny how relieved she felt.

Whatever was waiting for them at the top of this elevator ride, she felt better knowing that Edward was back with them.