.

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST:

PEOPLE WHO LIVE WITHOUT KNOWING WARMTH

.

PROLOGUE:

OMITTED FROM THE REPORTS

.

Author's Notes: As every time before, I dedicate this story, from its first incomplete draft in 2013 to what will hopefully be its final draft, begun today on December 12, 2020; to the now Account-Deleted Mirriem, one of the truest friends who a person could hope to have, whose friendship and writing are among the largest reasons I'm the person and the writer who I am today.


Amestris, Central, Central Command Center

February Nineteenth, Nineteen Fifteen

.

First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye wasn't certain how to deal with her current situation.

That was nothing, new, however, where Führer King Bradley was concerned.

Even as early as the first day of working in her new assigned position as the Führer's secretary, she hadn't known how to serve him. She hadn't known what to say or do so she'd have the best chance of protecting her previous superior, Colonel Roy Mustang, and living through it to continue to fulfill her duties, assuming that any of her words or actions would make any difference.

She hadn't been certain what was to become of her as she served Bradley or how she would be treated by him, as she had been assigned to this position to ensure Mustang's continued loyalty in spite of his knowledge of the Führer's true identity, and the culpability of the whole military High Command, in whatever the Führer and those he served and worked with sought to accomplish.

But those times, though she hadn't known how to react, she'd at least been reasonably sure what, if there were any, the solution was. The Führer was well known for his dedication to his responsibilities, so she'd been reasonably sure he would just treat her professionally as though she was another regular subordinate and one who was working directly under him, and the answer was thus to be herself, the best subordinate that she could think of being.

So far, it had appeared that she'd been right.

There had been conversations, from time to time, where she was reminded of the reality of her position, but even then he'd spoken to her professionally. Even during the conversations where she was reminded of why she had been reassigned as his personal assistant, the Führer hadn't once said a harsh word to her. Until now, it had looked as though, if she was making a difference for the Colonel or herself, she was correct about how what she'd needed to do was just to be herself.

There had been other hardships.

She'd been reasonably sure how to serve the Führer in and of itself, even when he brought up the reasons for her reassignment, but she'd been much more unsure how to respond to other snares.

Such as what the Homunculi and the Amestrian government intended to do with her once they had no further use for the Colonel.

She was still attempting to develop strategies and tactics for protecting the Colonel, his other closest subordinates; and, if all of them could afford her to, herself; when the Homunculi no longer had a use for him.

The revolution that she was assisting the Colonel and Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong in setting up wouldn't be enough. If it was successfully suppressed, she needed one or more contingencies to ensure the Colonel and the others weren't taken down with it.

The messages that had been passed to her through her contacts as Briggs and Eastern Command prepared for the coup had informed her of the presence of a transmutation circle the size of the entirety of Amestris that the Homunculi intended to activate to convert all of its people into souls contributing to an exceptionally large Philosopher's Stone. That, however, didn't tell her whether the Homunculi and her government would publicly or privately execute her after the Colonel was no longer useful, having fulfilled his duty as a State Alchemist either as a chosen sacrifice or a rejected one; or whether she would be required to become an ingredient in the Stone. There was the possibility that Bradley would honorably discharge her soon enough to give her a chance to leave Amestris before the nationwide transmutation circle was activated, if he no longer saw her as too much of a danger to the person he called 'Father' or anyone else he was working with when he had no further use for the Colonel. Bradley was ruthless in war, but, while he governed the ethnic majorities of Amestris with a firm hand during peacetime, it was a lenient one. There was a genuine chance that he'd just discharge her once he had no use for the Colonel, and then leave it up to her to choose whether or not to stay in Amestris and risk death by further defying him, the Amestrian government, and the Homunculi; risk being transmuted into the Stone; or leave the nation and saving herself.

Riza had no intentions of abandoning the Colonel and the others even if she had the opportunity to, but the Führer might give her the option. The Father she'd heard about, from Bradley and from the messages, most likely intended to sacrifice whichever alchemists he chose on the forthcoming Promised Day around the time that he activated the Amestrian circle, so she extremely highly doubted she'd have the time to escape even if she was willing to try to, but the Führer might give her the option.

Still another possibility was that she herself would be required to learn a small amount of alchemy, enough that people experienced in it could walk her through the process of performing a human transmutation, and then chosen to perform human transmutation and become a sacrifice herself; with or without being promoted to a State Alchemist in the process.

That was very unlikely, but it was the possibility that Riza hoped for the most. If she was chosen, that would give her the best means of protecting the Colonel, Havoc, Fuery, Breda, and Falman.

The Colonel had reminded her of the importance of not giving up, but, as she'd attempted to convince Ed when she'd told him what she knew of what happened during the Ishvalan Civil War, there was a difference between self sacrifice through giving up and self sacrifice through carrying out a duty. If she was chosen as a sacrifice herself, she wouldn't perform human transmutation, but she would be in a very good position to sabotage the selection of the sacrifices, and she might even have a small chance of preventing Amestris' oppressors from acquiring a single sacrifice.

Her most likely fate was to be used as a means of attempting to maneuver the Colonel into performing human transmutation through one or more threats to her safety and life, and if that happened, she'd most likely need to convince the Colonel to let her be injured or die, so Riza doubted that she'd end up in much of a position to protect the Colonel or any of the others when the Colonel had fulfilled his duties.

But, as the Colonel had reminded her after their failed sting operation, no matter how hopeless things appeared, if you gave up, you wouldn't be able to protect the people depending on you.

She'd joined the Amestrian military to find the Colonel and protect him, and she'd remained in it since then, even during and after the Ishvalan War of Extermination, for the same purpose.

There was one single way that she was willing to give up now, and that was if she or one or more other people couldn't convince the Colonel to let go of his hatred for Brigadier General Hughes' murder, and he took that hatred too far.

If he did, she wouldn't be able to justify staying alive any longer, especially if she was required to protect him by shooting him in the back, as he'd requested her to if she felt and thought it was necessary to do so to keep him from becoming corrupt.

But otherwise, she was not going to give up once more.

Even if the Colonel and everyone else in Amestris became ingredients for the special Stone or died, she'd continue the battle against the Homunculi on her own, and win it so that their efforts hadn't been for nothing, or die endeavoring to.

The Colonel and the others needed her to come up with a way to protect them once the Colonel had been chosen or passed over.

That was all that there was to it.

She hadn't thought of one yet, but she would.

The military bases in Amestris wouldn't be enough. Briggs itself, as well defended as it was, wouldn't be able to hold off a sizeable portion of the Amestrian military. The Colonel's best option to keep himself, and the others, safe was to conceal himself in a safe house among the people.

But most of Amestris' people believed in Bradley. The Colonel would be seen as a traitor once it was discovered that he'd launched a coup, and there was no way to avoid–

Of course.

Bradley regularly clashed with High Command over the need not to censor reporters and news organizations. The short-sighted members of High Command believed that it was a good idea, but Bradley understood that if the government did so, there would be popular unrest.

They needed to occupy one or more of Central's news stations during the revolt and convince it to tell the people a cover story about why the Colonel was attempting a revolution.

That would have the additional benefit of ensuring that the Colonel wasn't seen as a traitor if the coup did succeed.

Riza loathed the concept of lying to anyone, and when Al found out, he'd continually try to convince them not to use this strategy. He'd see it as them being no better than Bradley and High Command in how they themselves had lied to their people, and he'd be right.

But if she didn't recommend this, the Colonel, Havoc, Breda, and Fuery would pay the price, whether the revolution was won or lost, and Major General Armstrong and thus Falman and Major Armstrong would as well.

She refused to shoot anyone fatally during the coup unless there was no way to avoid doing so, but otherwise, Al's morals would need to be pushed aside for practicality.

This was war, and you didn't avert your eyes from its realities.

Additionally, if she was called to account for war crimes in Ishval if Amestris was demilitarized, by that point Roy might have proved himself trustworthy enough in the new government that they could then reveal their lies. If they were sentenced to prison or death for their crimes, they could afford to reveal the lies even more.

Another form of snare happened much less often, but it was just as dangerous, both for the Colonel and the others and herself.

During one of their earliest conversations where she'd been reminded of the truth of her position, the Führer had brought up how his Father had given him his power and position, and had then made it a point to say he chose his wife by himself.

He'd made similar comments on a minority of occasions later on that implied that he didn't fully believe in serving his Father, but Riza had no idea if they were lies meant to test her to see if she was willing to defy Bradley and his Father further or trick her into revealing whatever new strategy for defeating the Homunculi that he doubtlessly knew the Colonel and she were working on, or whether he was being honest because, for the first time in his life, he had a chance to talk to a potentially sympathetic ear who knew the truth about his life and position.

If Bradley was being honest, Riza doubted that she could convince him to become a true Führer and deploy the Amestrian military against the Homunculi, but Riza couldn't pass up the chance it offered to research Bradley's weaknesses.

Not to use what might be true love for his wife, Cordelia, against him. Major General Armstrong had recommended that they take her hostage to lure High Command into ordering her shot as collateral and thus convince her to back them in assuming the reins of the government and afterwards in the eyes of the people, but she'd been as against it as the Colonel. Major General Armstrong had pointed out that if they didn't take Cordelia hostage, she'd most likely head to the Central Command Center when the revolution began and then die as collateral during the battle, so they'd reluctantly acquiesced to the recommendation. But Riza didn't need to know how the Colonel felt and thought about threatening enemies' loved ones and friends to goad them into leaving themselves open to be against doing so intentionally. Cordelia would be taken into protective custody, not be used as a hostage, and as Riza was going to recommend that they occupy one or more news stations, she'd recommend to the Colonel that they attempt to convince Cordelia to speak on their behalf when they did.

No, Riza knew what to do with this information, now that she was thinking in terms of unscrupulous tactics.

It was as underhanded as taking a hostage in its own ways, but not the same thing, so Riza would recommend this, as well.

Regardless of how they were attempting to find a faster method, they had no means of launching the coup until shortly before the Promised Day and on the Promised Day itself because they needed to exploit the forthcoming joint Northern forces and Eastern forces exercises to get into position, Bradley would be focused on convincing himself that he wasn't betraying Cordelia when they launched the revolt, and not at his sharpest.

Grumman was a skilled military strategist himself, and the Colonel and Major General Armstrong had seen it as best not to inform him about the Homunculi's regenerative capabilities. He'd undoubtedly endeavor to make a power play for himself during the revolution, so they needed him partially in the dark to keep his power play from doing as much damage to the coup as it otherwise might.

Bradley would undoubtedly want to oversee the joint exercises himself. He must have assumed long since that the Colonel, Major General Armstrong, and Grumman would try to exploit them to strike at the Homunculi or the government, or both.

If they convinced Grumman to lure the distracted Bradley into a trap before he returned to Central to take command of the effort to suppress the revolt, Grumman would most likely go for a kill that he couldn't gain, and do so well enough that he'd set up a trap that did delay Bradley from returning to Central.

Central's military had little to no true combat experience. Without Bradley personally leading them and inspiring them, the Eastern forces and the Northern forces, veterans of Ishval and Drachma and very experienced at offensive warfare and defensive warfare, respectively, would have relatively little trouble outfighting Central's military. If the revolutionaries could keep Bradley away from Central for most of the revolt, its success was far more likely.

That would also most likely provoke Grumman into making his power play through using the presumed dead Bradley as a pretext to keep most of the Eastern forces and the Northern forces unassociated with Briggs out of the revolution, so he could then march into Central with them and restore order.

But Miles, who had offered to lead the Northern forces unaffiliated with Briggs, could contain that in one way or another, and they didn't need those forces to succeed in the revolt if they stalled Bradley.

Alphonse and the Colonel would take issue with this, as Bradley would almost certainly have noncombatants accompanying him and they wouldn't approve of using Cordelia against Bradley in any way, but there was even less choice about applying this strategy than about occupying one or more news stations.

If Bradley returned to Central soon enough, the revolution was much less likely to succeed. If the Führer could be kept out of Central for long enough, they had a very good chance of pulling it off.

Riza would recommend this, as well, and deal with the fallout.

Assuming that she lived through this conversation.

Because this was a pitfall that she had no idea whatsoever how to deal with.

She hadn't believed that it would come up in the first place. Sheska had assured the Colonel and Riza that she had successfully hidden the most sensitive information about the Milosian revolution in the records archives where no one but the Colonel and Riza knew how to find it, but an overeager glory seeking Sergeant had decided to poke his nose in the archives when no one was aware that he was doing so in search of a scandal that he could uncover and thus perhaps gain a promotion, and discovered them.

The Sergeant had been arrested for dereliction of duty by the military officers who he'd self-importantly approached with the records and revealed their existence to, and he was now in prison in Central Command awaiting a military trial, and Sheska had been acquitted of any misdemeanors without having been arrested.

But the damage had been done.

Bradley now knew that the Cretans and Milosians had been researching the Philosopher's Stone, and if Riza didn't tackle this conversation properly, she didn't just have herself to worry about.

The Colonel, Ed, Al, Winry, Pinako, Hohenheim, Havoc, Falman, Fuery, Breda, Major Armstrong, and countless others might suffer for Riza's failings.

Honesty might be the best answer to Bradley's most recent question, the most dangerous inquiry yet. If she was evasive in this answer and Bradley recognized this, the even more dangerous following questions would be far harder to outmaneuver.

"I have no idea precisely how the citywide Table City transmutation circle for transmuting the Milosian Philosopher's Stone was arranged," Riza responded. "Or about how many human souls it required as ingredients. I first learned of it when the Colonel and I arrived in Table City with Winry Rockbell. As you know from the reports that you have seen, around this time the Colonel and I arrested Major Peter Soyuz for insubordination, mismanagement, and causing a series of unprovoked international incidents with Creta. This delayed us from investigating what had just happened. And then the Colonel and the rest of our forces and I were required to investigate Creta's, and Lieutenant Colonel Herschel's, incursion into Death Canyon, as they hadn't warned Major Soyuz or anyone else in Amestris that they were about to embark on it, and it posed a potential danger to well being of the people of Amestris.

"All I can tell you is that, when we met Miss Crichton ourselves, she was already in possession of the Milosian Philosopher's Stone, having commandeered it along with Edward from Lieutenant Atlas. She had swallowed it to prevent anyone from separating her from it and removing her ability to transmute with it, and she then used its ability to break the Law of Equivalent Exchange to perform a transmutation that the Colonel and I are unfamiliar with, partially because no transmutation energy was generated inside or outside her body as she performed it. She then prevented us from asking her any questions by jumping down to the floor of Death Canyon from the top of the cliff and landed safely."

Riza was surprised to see Bradley's eyes widen, and she felt slightly sick to her stomach. She must have just revealed something that she hadn't been aware of, but that Bradley was.

Bradley inclined his head. "By way of thanks for your honesty, as it does no harm for you to know this, that was not a transmutation. Miss Crichton was not in possession of a regular Philosopher's Stone. She had a virtually indestructible and virtually immortal body at that time." Riza pushed all emotion away and wholly composed her face. "This also tells me precisely what form of transmutation circle the Milosian citywide circle was, though not exactly how it worked.

"Miss Crichton did not possess an ordinary Philosopher's Stone. She possessed one that was, at the least, similar to the one that Edward or Alphonse no doubt informed you that Father possesses," Riza pushed the new surging emotions away, both the anguished ones and the hope that this was what she'd revealed without her knowledge, and she kept her face composed, "But that was more likely the same form of unique Philosopher's Stone that you no doubt know by now that we are endeavoring to transmute within Amestris."

Riza could barely suppress her feelings this time, and almost forgot to keep herself neutral.

The population of Amestris numbered approximately fifty million people, and Julia had needed to pay both her Crimson Star and Ashleigh's Crimson Star to the Portal of Truth, as well as her left leg, as the toll for mending Ashleigh's near fatal wounds.

If Bradley was right, this meant that Julia had sacrificed at least around one hundred million human souls to the Portal of Truth, and to death, in her enhanced medical transmutation; and perhaps many more.

Riza dismissed the idea that Ed and Al knew about what Julia had done, or that her Crimson Star, and Ashleigh's, had been unusual.

If they had, they wouldn't have left Milos shortly after the revolution was over or headed to Briggs as soon afterwards as they had, and Al would have repeatedly visited Milos after he'd resigned himself to not learning where Ed had disappeared to after the failed attempt to assassinate Kimblee at Baschool.

Assuming that they'd have left it at all.

Julia herself almost certainly didn't know.

Edward and Alphonse had told the Colonel and her that Julia didn't regret that she'd transmuted with the two Stones, and if she'd known precisely how many souls had been involved in her last transmutation with them, whether it was around one million or around one hundred million, Riza extremely highly doubted that Julia would have said that.

Or whether she would have been willing to leave Ed and Al.

She might have chosen to accompany them into Amestris, rather than risk revealing to her fellow Milosians what she'd done for Ashleigh, and what the cost of their independence was.

"I apologize for not telling you earlier, sir," she replied. "But yes, I am aware of the nationwide transmutation circle. I will offer no objections if you see fit to penalize me for not informing you of this."

"There will be no penalty so long as that information does not leave this room without my express permission," Bradley answered.

Riza didn't incline her head.

They both knew that it would have been a lie.

"However," Riza went on, "Our later investigation revealed that most of the Amestrian forces and civilians within Table City were accounted for. A small number of Amestrian soldiers, one Milosian Black Bat, and the Cretan officer who had deserted Creta together with Lieutenant Atlas were discovered dead at the location where Edward and Alphonse informed us that Atlas had performed the transmutation, and many Amestrian soldiers and Milosian revolutionaries had been Killed In Action or were Missing In Action due to the combat.

"But the dead or Missing In Action numbered as less than twenty thousand.

"How could Lieutenant Atlas have transmuted more human souls than that, much less around fifty million or more?"

"How was the blood of the slain combatants distributed where Atlas performed the transmutation?" Bradley queried in response.

"It was concentrated around the bodies of the slain combatants and the center of the transmutation circle."

"Then I was correct," Bradley spoke, and Riza kept the surge of genuine sickness inside her body from showing in her face or posture.

Bradley had no reason to deceive her about this.

Atlas had imprisoned around fifty million human souls, or more, in an unusual Philosopher's Stone, and the Philosopher's Stone transmuted before Creta had conquered Milos had accomplished the same thing.

And Julia had sacrificed most of the about one hundred million souls to protect Ashleigh, with the exception of the ones that she'd already fully used up in earlier transmutations.

"The citywide transmutation circle itself stores the souls until the Philosopher's Stone has been supplied enough ingredients to fully form," Bradley elaborated. "It must have been comprised of tubes, pipes, or other similar constructs that spread throughout the city and the Milosian city the Cretans built Table City over. The purpose of these tubes and pipes were to store the blood of hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of slain Milosians, Cretans, and Amestrians as they died during Creta's initial invasion of Milos, their indentured servitude to it during the subsequent centuries, and other battles and hardships under Cretan and Amestrian oversight, as well as the war when Amestris forced Creta out of Milos. Due to the nature of the transmutation circle, that blood would store the tens of millions of human souls as they accumulated over between three and four centuries, until enough souls had been gathered that the Stone can be transmuted. The Hill of Milos thus gathered tens of millions of souls over around three and four centuries, and then Atlas provided the circle with its finishing touches and transmuted the most advanced form of a Philosopher's Stone that there is."

The first Crimson Star must have been transmuted through similar means.

Riza saw no reason not to indulge her curiosity while the Führer was willing to reveal sensitive information.

She might also be able to make use of it for the Colonel and the others.

"Would you be willing to tell me why your Father or you declared that war, sir?" she questioned. "Milos is nowhere near any of the points of the Amestrian nationwide circle, so the bloodshed during that war wouldn't have powered it, and Amestris was large enough by that point that the launching that war wouldn't have increased its size in any way necessary to dig the circle. The once more independent Milos is outside the range of the circle itself, so your Father and you yourself clearly didn't require its souls.

"What purpose was there in spending Amestrian lives and resources kicking Creta out of Milos?"

To her surprise, Bradley scowled angrily.

"Father believes in living by the laws of alchemy, and the Law of Equivalent Exchange. As Colonel Mustang no doubt made you aware of, he taught Homunculi such myself to take the same pride in ourselves as different from humans that natural born humans take in themselves as different from other organic beings. We don't see how we were artificially born as diminishing who and what we are, and due to our pride in ourselves as humans see themselves as superior to other organic beings, we believe that the reverse is true; that it is natural born humans who are diminished because they were born as products of chance and not intention. We therefore have no reservations about utilizing natural born humans the same ways that humans utilize other organic beings themselves; as resources and livestock.

"If we need to utilize humans this way, we will thus do so. Furthermore, we will tolerate humans doing so to one another; in accordance with Equivalent Exchange and the tenets of One Is All, All Is One; to obtain something, something of equal value must be lost. As we see it, this is how human civilization and human culture has its best chance at attaining and retaining prosperity. Homunculi believe that humans are mistaken to live this way, as Homunculi have successfully lived for around three hundred fifty years now without preying upon one another; humans could obey the laws of nature that govern the world without preying upon one another. Father himself does not see this as foolish or mistaken; due to his alchemic brilliance and the Philosopher's Stone that he possesses, he understandably sees no need to even dismiss humans for their shortcomings.

"However, Father and my fellow Homunculi and I have no tolerance for humans who prey upon one another when there is nothing to be obtained or lost for doing so. Creta was sacrificing the Milosians for no beneficial purpose. Father believed that a Philosopher's Stone, though an ordinary one, might indeed have been hidden by the Milosians in their territory, but it was obvious by that point that Creta no longer believed that it could be found and they were merely continuing to discriminate against the Milosians because they saw them as livestock of convenience for them to continue to lounge in entitlement; not livestock of necessity to subsist on. They were an aberration against the Truth and the natural order, and Amestris was in a position to respond to this, so Father thus wanted Creta cast out of Milos so the Milosians would have a chance to regain prosperity in accordance with the laws of All Is One, One Is All.

"Soyuz did an excellent job at concealing his corruption from us. We had no knowledge that he was as venal as the Cretans until Colonel Mustang arrested him, and it does no harm to tell you now that Father himself executed him, as well as the soldiers arrested with him, for their crimes against Amestris and nature."

The Colonel, and thus Riza, couldn't use the tolerance and understanding that the Homunculi were willing to extend to human civilization against them. Riza doubted that Homunculi and the people of Amestris could bridge their differences this way, but using it against them would be as intolerant as the Homunculi were of humans, so Riza refused to even think of doing so.

She asked two different questions.

"In that case, is your Father himself a Homunculus?

"And why did your Father or you yourself not provide the Ishvalans, the people of Liore, or similar victims of Amestris' campaigns to establish the nationwide transmutation circle, with enough compensation to rebuild their lives once the campaigns were over?"

Bradley partially smiled, partially grimaced, slightly.

"You should learn from Major General Armstrong not to fight predictably," he said. "You know full well that I won't answer your first question.

"As for the latter, doing so would have tied up too many Amestrian resources, so letting them recover from the wars and violence on their own was a necessary sacrifice."

Once more, they both knew that if Riza pretended to agree, it would be a lie, so she didn't.

She didn't let her satisfaction at her minor victory show.

She'd asked the first question because, if she hadn't taken the clear opportunity to query this, Bradley would have known that someone, almost certainly Van Hohenheim, had already informed them that he was, and that his Father and he might thus be able to compel the Colonel or one or more of the others, or she herself, to reveal Van Hohenheim's location.

The Führer must be aware that this might be why she'd asked the question, but he didn't know one way or another, so he couldn't justify endeavoring to force that information out of the Colonel, or one or more of the others, or Riza, and risk the results.

Bradley removed his feelings from his face.

"Moving on, then," Bradley said. "My next question is this. Colonel Mustang's reports revealed that Miss Crichton was the one who defeated the purported Lieutenant Colonel Herschel, whose true identity was Ashleigh Crichton, Miss Crichton's older brother who Lieutenant Atlas impersonated after he deserted the Cretan military.

"Did Ashleigh Crichton possess an advanced Crimson Star?"

This one might not be a problem.

"Yes, sir," she informed the Führer. "The one that the Milosians had transmuted that gave rise to the legends that they possessed one or more."

"That is unsurprising, given how handily he defended himself against the Fullmetal Alchemist before Miss Crichton disabled him," Bradley replied.

"I have two more questions for now," he went on. "I have no illusions that Major Soyuz and Lieutenant Colonel Ashleigh weren't chasing another Milosian Stone himself.

"Therefore:

"First, what were the late Major Soyuz', Lieutenant Atlas', and Lieutenant Colonel Crichton's objectives for the Milosian Philosopher's Stones?"

Riza suppressed the urge to betray anything.

Once she answered this, she knew what the last question would be.

"Major Soyuz and Lieutenant Atlas wished to use them to improve their personal sociopolitical and economic standing in the continental and world theater," Riza responded. "Major Soyuz desired to improve his wealth and status, while Lieutenant Atlas sought to wield the Stone as a heavy ordnance weapon for conquering countries all over the planet and establishing a new worldwide nation with him at its head.

"Lieutenant Colonel Crichton wished to transmute a third Milosian Crimson Star, so I surmise from this that he wished for Miss Crichton to acquire the second one as a means of self-defense. He became uninterested in his sister's welfare once she refused to defect to Creta, however. He himself wished to use the third Milosian Philosopher's Stone to open the Portal of Truth."

Bradley's face showed true shock, now, before it vanished.

Riza had no choice but to probe this, even though she knew it would be futile.

She hadn't seen Bradley show this kind of surprise before.

"If I may ask, are you aware why Lieutenant Colonel Crichton needed two advanced Philosopher's Stones to do this? A single regular Philosopher's Stone can open the Portal of Truth without forcing the alchemist who did so to pay a toll."

"That information is too sensitive for you to possess, First Lieutenant," Bradley answered, as she'd known that he would.

Riza needed to answer the forthcoming question without hesitation, without direct dishonestly, and in such a way that caused it to sound as though Julia hadn't performed what Riza now knew had been a human transmutation, as she now knew from Al's revelations about Hohenheim that human transmutations could be successfully be performed on the living.

She didn't alter her stance at all. If she so much as made her face and posture the slightest amount more of a mask, Bradley would know the truth.

She didn't know if it would be enough to protect Julia from becoming a target of the Homunculi and Amestris, but this was all that she could do.

"Colonel Mustang wrote that Lieutenant Colonel Crichton returned to Creta after he recovered from injuries that he sustained in the battle," Bradley began. "I can assume from this that Miss Crichton, or one or more other people, persuaded him to surrender Creta's side of the battle, and that he thus might still possess his Milosian Philosopher's Stone and he hasn't revealed that to his superiors to ensure that he's not deployed to retake Milos.

"However, you told me that Milos sought to transmute the Crimson Star to gain a strategic and tactical advantage against Amestris and Creta. If they were still in possession of the second Crimson Star, they would have announced this long ago as a deterrent to Amestris and Creta invading once more.

"I surmise from this that Miss Crichton's Stone, and perhaps Lieutenant Colonel Crichton's, were used to power a medical transmutation that healed nearly fatal injuries when Lieutenant Colonel Crichton was disabled.

"Was this a human transmutation?"

"Both Crimson Stars were sacrificed to perform this medical transmutation, yes," Riza replied. "Lieutenant Colonel Crichton was on the verge of dying from his injuries. Extreme measures needed to be taken.

"However, the Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Elric, and Alphonse Elric, the latter two who you must know by now attempted human transmutation and know how it works, assured Colonel Mustang and I that, though the transmutation required two Philosopher's Stones, this was nothing more than a high quality medical transmutation. I understand now that the two Stones involved were extraordinarily advanced, but based on my own judgment as a soldier and officer who has received extensive training in providing first aid to the injured, it was still necessary to utilize both Stones to treat Lieutenant Colonel Ashleigh. His injuries were far too severe for medical alchemy that wasn't reinforced by one or more Philosopher's Stones to treat, and he was about to die."

"Thank you," Bradley responded. "That will be all.

"Almost all near fatal injuries can be treated by even a regular Philosopher's Stone without using it all up, much less two of the most advanced forms of Philosopher's Stones. The transmutation was a human transmutation."

Now Riza did compose her face further, and she suppressed more sickness. Julia knew nothing of the Homunculi's and the Amestrian government's goals, so she would be easy pickings. But this didn't put the Homunculi in any better of a position to gather their other four sacrifices. Her failure to protect Julia would hopefully make no difference in whether or not the Homunculi acquired all of their sacrifices.

She would not tell Al, or Ed if they found out where he was, about this, however. She'd tell the Colonel and the others, but she'd recommend that they not tell Alphonse or Ed themselves.

If Al or Edward found out, they'd try to do something stupid to keep the Homunculi from getting ahold or Julia or to rescue her, and that might be costly.

If Julia was captured, she would be kept alive until the time came to use her, and Edward and Alphonse would both no doubt be in a position to protect her then.

This was all that Riza could do for her at this time, as well as for the Colonel, Ed, Al, everyone else, and the people of Amestris.

She'd need to live with this, and not let it get to her too much.

She knew that this would haunt her nightmares as much as everything she'd done, and not done, during the Ishvalan Civil War, and at other times, however.

"Yes, sir," Riza responded, and she moved into attention and saluted. "You're welcome."


Milos, Milos Canyon

March Third, Nineteen Fifteen

.

Julia loved snow.

Throughout the years that she'd spent living in the valley, when snow had fallen, it had piled into very high mounds because it had been trapped between the valley walls. All the snow hadn't just been magical in its own right, but with it almost fully covering the garbage and the ramshackle shantytown where many of her fellow Milosians had lived, it had been enough for Julia to be able to pretend she and the other Milosians weren't eking out horrific lives, trapped in a barren ravine filled with the refuse Amestris discarded there many times each day and night with little to call their own, many of them dying from injury or illness or starvation every day and night, while anyone who even began to attempt to climb the cliffs to Table City was shot dead merely for seeking a better life. Death Canyon had become instead a wonder world of pristine white, a wondrous place where she could imagine she and her people were living in a town of ivory and pearl and marble in a land of impatiens and lilies rather than in a gorge of wood, garbage, and rock. She had even alchemically reconstructed wooden sleds for the children to slide on, and her memories of sliding down snow covering the piles of garbage while on those sled with children in her arms were among her fondest.

It was a shame that Ashleigh or Al most likely couldn't fit on one of those sleds, even if one or both of them returned to Milos, and her, before the winter was over.

Vatanen hadn't known what to make of her request to visit the valley and construct another sled, but he hadn't advised her not to, or to take several children with her.

So she was now sitting on another wooden sled of far more experienced alchemic construction, her arms around a little boy with medium length brown hair known as Steven as she held him in her lap.

She brought her right leg, and her left leg, now automail and not the temporary ordinary prosthetic that she'd worn when she'd said goodbye to Al and Ed, to the sides of the sled, and pushed it off the edge of the top of the snow hill.

Steven shrieked in delight as the sled accelerated, and Julia joined in with laughter immeasurably more carefree than she'd been able to let out when she'd slid down hills of snow with children in her arms and lap before she'd reconnected with Ashleigh and enabled Milos to gain its independence together with Al.

The sled came to a halt.

"I wanna' do it again!" Steven shouted delightedly as the sled finished moving. "Can we go faster this time!? Pretty please with snow cream on top!?"

Julia grinned. "I'm sorry, but you can't."

Steven pouted and Julia grinned a second time and ruffled his hair.

"There's no reason to feel bad," she said soothingly. "There's just two people left. First Kelly, the red-haired girl from Sixth Grade in your school. And then Saram, the black-haired Amestrian boy who snuck into Milos two days ago to run away from his parents.

"We might be able to ride together after that."

Steven considered, but then he nodded.

"Okie dokie!"

He climbed out of her lap, turned, and ran up the hill, and Julia got off the sled, turned to take the raised back of the sled in her right hand, and she began following.

Even though the sled's weight was more on her right side, her automail leg went loose and hanging on the unstable snow and she staggered.

She caught herself and grimaced.

From what she'd known about Al and Ed before she'd met them, Ed had been scouted as a potential State Alchemist when he'd still been in a wheelchair, but he'd completed his automail therapy in around one year and then endeavored to enlist in the Amestrian military, rather than spend the usual three years doing so.

Julia was almost certain that Al and Winry had been responsible for his success in doing so, even though she'd just met Winry briefly.

She was determined to do the same, all by herself if necessary if Al or Ashleigh didn't return to her before she could, and she didn't care for any reminders that she had a long ways to go to be successful.

On the lines of Amestris, Julia once more wondered if she could trust Saram.

Something was wrong inside Amestris, and Julia didn't care to know that it was.

First, shortly after Al had left her to resume his search for a means of regaining his human body, Lieutenant General Raven of the Amestrian High Command had vanished during an inspection tour of Fort Briggs at the northern border of Amestris, and rather than press charges against Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong, the military officer in charge of the military base, Führer King Bradley had promoted her to High Command in his place.

Then, even though Briggs Mountain, and thus the Fort Briggs military base there, were well known as one of the most defensible locations in Amestris, even in the early winter, Drachma had launched an ill-advised frontal assault against it when they should have known better. Even with Major General Armstrong no longer in charge of the military base, due to how defensible the area was and how well-trained its soldiers were known it be, the Drachman forces had been met with the resounding defeat that they'd just been asking for, and they'd accomplished nothing more than to delay the forthcoming joint Amestrian military exercises between its Northern forces and Eastern forces until the middle of June, near the end of Spring.

Then the State Alchemist Solf J. Kimblee, the Crimson Alchemist, well known as a war criminal from the Ishvalan Civil War within the southeast of Amestris, had been reinstated in the military even though most of Amestris' neighbors and most of Amestris' own people had believed that he'd been executed long ago.

Then an unknown assailant had attempted to assassinate Führer King Bradley in his own estate within the grounds of the Central Command Center.

Even before Julia had reunited with Ashleigh, met Al, and assisted her people in attaining Milos' independence, things had been going wrong.

The former Freezer Alchemist, Isaac McDougal, who had resigned as a State Alchemist after the Ishvalan Civil War was over in protest of its methods during the war, had launched a one-person coup against the Amestrian government in Central before Bradley had personally defeated him in deadly combat.

After this, large scale violent riots had broken out in the city of Liore in the northeast, and the Amestrian military had done little to nothing to stop them, and Liore's people had slaughtered themselves and Liore had been ruined.

Prime Minister Vatanen had put Milos on high alert as soon as the Crimson Alchemist had been reinstated, in the event that Amestris deployed him to retake Milos. But other than that, he, and the rest of the Milosian Assembly, and the Milosian people, hadn't been that worried until eight days ago.

Julia, however, had been tormented by nightmares as soon as she'd heard about the battle at Briggs, where he'd run into the middle of the battlefield to try to use alchemic transmutations to force the two armies to stop firing on each other and had had his armor shattered into pieces by cannon shells and tank rounds, and then the fragmented and fractured eye pieces that were all that was left of his helmet had fallen into the snow and the white and red light of his eyes had dimmed.

Or where it had been Ed who had done so, and he'd been shredded himself by the cannon shells and tank rounds in a storm of sanguine until he was a dying ruin of blood and bone chips and metal pieces strewn on a mound of snow upon a magma covered valley floor. And then Al had endeavored to perform a human transmutation to heal Ed's injuries and the Doorway of Truth had taken most of his armor rather than his soul and all that was left of Al was his helmet's mouth piece, torn to resemble a macabre scream of terror at what had happened. Then the loving and warm and protective and reassuring light of Al's eyes started to fade and Ed desperately struggled to move so he could crawl over to Al and transmute the surviving pieces of his armor into a thinner armor form that would keep him alive, but the effort to move caused him to cough up blood violently and he went wholly still right in front of Al. Al then began screaming pleas for her to come to his and Ed's side and use her medical alchemy to heal Ed's wounds before it was too late, but though she tried to run over to them her automail leg gave out and she fell into snow that was now molten lava and could do nothing more than sink into it as though it were quicksand while trying to find a purchase to get back up while Al screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed for her to save Ed even as his eyes kept shining weaker and weaker.

Julia woke from these nightmares, and others, barely aware where she was at first.

She'd meant what she'd said to Al.

She was done living in the past, and she was determined to move forward from now on.

But after living without Ashleigh in a world of everyday death and pain and despair and misery for years, the scars of that world continued to haunt her. And though nothing appeared to be going wrong and Julia knew that Ashleigh had left her for the second time to find himself and that she'd see him again one day, Al and Ed were still living in a nightmare world of their own and there was nothing that she could do to protect them from it because the people of Milos needed her.

Julia couldn't live with that, even though she'd accepted that she'd never be able to bring her parents back no matter how hard she strove to protect the people who she loved.

No matter how well you moved forward, the scars of war and torment would never fully fade.

The last straw had come eight days ago.

Solf J. Kimblee himself had been identified by a duo of Black Bat spies boarding a train to Milos and Lennara at the train station in Amestris' East City. They'd disembarked at Lennara's train station before he had, warned the numerous Milosian soldiers there, and they'd all had their guns aimed at him when he appeared in the doorway, and the Major stationed there had informed Kimblee that if he put a single foot on the train station's concrete or moved his hands to transmute, he'd be shot dead.

Kimblee had stood in the door for much longer than the Milosian soldiers had been comfortable with, and though he'd tried to hide it, the soldiers had been able to tell that he'd had his face set as though he had something in his mouth that he believed would get him out of the danger he was in and enable him to enter Lennara, and Kimblee was trying to figure out whether he had the time to use it. The Major had then informed him that if he had a transmutation circle hidden there and the soldiers saw the light of any transmutation, they could still shoot him before whatever Kimblee transmuted struck them, so Kimblee had turned and reentered the train.

The Milosian soldiers had called for reinforcements and refused to let anyone off the train, and it had departed with Kimblee aboard.

But Vatanen and Julia knew full well precisely what Kimblee might have had in his mouth, as a result of throwing it up after swallowing it; though the Milosian soldiers had been too far down the chain of command to have been given that information, and they hadn't been close enough to her during the revolution to have learned that way.

Julia had convinced Vatanen to put her in charge of a division of Black Bats, and she'd employed them to sneak directly into Central and investigate.

If they didn't find out anything in around two weeks; and she could find a substitute to fill in for her responsibilities as a teacher of science, alchemy and otherwise, history, and literature, at the Black Glass Academy; she was getting permission to lead another division of Black Bats into Central herself.

Al and Ed had kept her safe repeatedly, given her back Ashleigh, protected her people from being slaughtered, and given her people the independence and better lives that they'd dreamed of for around three and four centuries.

She was not going to abandon them to whatever was going on in Amestris.

If Saram wasn't who he appeared to be, and Amestris was sinking as low as it had during the Ishvalan War of Extermination and had employed a child as a spy or assassin, she'd take Saram into protective custody, arrange to have his conditioning exposed to him as the lie that it was, and protect him as well.

He appeared to be harmless. He was a boy with short black hair from about six years old to about eight years old who claimed to have sneaked in to Lennara two days ago with a false passport, as a means of running away from his parents in the western Amestrian town of Tanok. After two days of hiding out in Lennara, the former Table City, though, as he maintained, he'd missed his family so much during those days he'd decided to return home. However, upon running into Julia and the other children and learning what they intended to do, he'd asked to accompany them to the valley floor and sled with them.

Julia had asked around if anyone recognized him, but other than someone who said he resembled the Amestrian Führer's son, Selim, no one knew who he was.

The possibility that he was Selim was very unlikely. Even the orchestrator of the Ishvalan War of Extermination wouldn't employ his own pre-adolescent son as a spy or assassin.

So, refusing to hurt Saram in the event that he was sincere, and confident she could defend herself and the other children with her alchemy if he pulled anything, she'd seen no reason not to indulge his request. If he was telling the truth, Saram deserved happiness in his life after what must have been a miserable two days, if not longer.

He might be no more than he appears. You can't distrust everyone.

That was correct.

Atlas' impersonation of Ashleigh still had her jumping at shadows.

What was Saram going to do if he was a spy or assassin?

Once Julia was at her most vulnerable and the least capable of reacting, reveal that not his face, but his entire body had been alchemically grafted to his real body inside the body of the supposed Saram, as Atlas had grafted Ashleigh's face to his with transmuted electricity; and ambush her or one or more of the other children as Saram unveiled this?

Nevertheless, as Julia reached the top of the hill, she needed to banish a frown that she hadn't been aware that she'd been wearing.

That actually was possible.

Extremely highly unlikely, but extremely remotely possible.

She'd watch out for it to be on the safe side.

Julia turned, let go of the back of the sled, and walked over to Kelly.

"Ally-oop!" she spoke with a smile.

Kelly squealed with joy and ran to the sled, and Julia followed, a smile once again settling on her face. She set Kelly in her lap and then pushed them off down the hill forcefully.

Kelly laughed, rather than shrieked, as they sped down the hill, but Julia's laughter wasn't as carefree this time. Saram was next, and she needed to take the threat he might pose seriously.

She felt sick to her stomach for believing that a child could be a threat, and for be willing to violently disable a child, but she'd witnessed and been through too much to listen to that revulsion.

"It's Saram's turn now, right?" Kelly asked as they disembarked.

"That's right," Julia replied. "After that, we'll all discuss the turn order for the second time down."

"I want to go alone next time, no matter when I go," Kelly spoke.

"All right," Julia responded.

Kelly waited for Julia to remove her arms from around her before getting out of her lap and onto the snow.

Julia followed and turned towards the sled, but Kelly ran around her to it and started to push it back up herself, so Julia smiled in thanks and walked beside her.

She doubted that Kelly needed her help in pushing it to the top of the hill.

Julia put great effort into ensuring the sled was just right when she'd transmuted it, not just so it would be the best that it could be for any children who sat on it, but also as a means of further refining her ability to perform transmutations. It was light enough for Kelly to push it up the hill herself; Julia had made sure that it would be.

Julia had thought about coming up with a new transmutation circle for the sled as a means of further refining her ability to design transmutation circles, but she'd decided against it in the end. Shortly after she'd healed Ashleigh and lost her left leg and Al, she'd been kneeling on the floor in the hospital frustrated that a transmutation circle that should have worked had been drawn wrong. She'd then wondered once again how Al and Ed could transmute without circles, hypothesized that it might be due to seeing the Truth, and so she'd tried to herself and succeeded. That had confirmed her hypothesis, but though she'd gained the ability to do so as a result of opening the Doorway of Truth, making use of it didn't appear to require her to pay a toll. So she now used that method of transmuting most of the time. Not because it was easier, but because she still believed in accomplishing things with her own hands and feet and arms and legs as opposed to working through an intermediary, a transmutation circle included.

Julia needed to ask Saram about Ed and Al whether or not he was lying. He might have heard something about them. She'd delved extensively into the news trying to find out what had happened to them after she'd begun to wait for Al to return to her, but all she knew was that they'd last been seen in the abandoned mining town of Baschool, near Fort Briggs, shortly before Drachma's failed invasion.

This was one of the largest reasons that she'd had nightmares about them having tried to stop the battle, but if they had and they had been murdered, it would have been international knowledge by now, so she knew that that hardship, at least, hadn't killed one or both of them.

That had been around three months ago by now, though, and they hadn't been seen since, and as popular as the Fullmetal Alchemist was, he still should have been in the headlines.

This was another large reason that Julia was terrified and worried out of her mind for Ed and Al.

If they weren't involved with whatever was going on in Amestris, they'd still be in the news.

Al needed her to discover what was going on, so that she could protect him and Ed.

At the very least, Saram might know a lot of details about their military service and travels that didn't make it into the papers.

Julia became aware that her lips were curling up a small amount in a smile at the thought, and she smiled the rest of the way.

Where have your travels taken you now, Al? As you can't have regained your body yet and Ed can't have resigned his commission, are you in another country, helping people there realize the truth about themselves, as you did me?

That reminded her.

Julia's exploration into Dad's research still hadn't given her any evidence about why Ashleigh had needed two Crimson Stars, or three if he hadn't intended for her to obtain the second one as a means of protecting herself, to open the Doorway of Truth.

One should have been enough, from what Al and Ed had implied, yet Ashleigh had been striving to acquire at least three, and perhaps more, and Julia didn't know why yet.

Whatever the reason was, Julia needed to discover it as soon as possible. Any alchemic knowledge that she hadn't learned yet was alchemic knowledge that could endanger Ashleigh, Al, Ed, Vatanen, someone else who she loved, or the other people of Milos.

As well as why landing on the valley floor after jumping down onto it from Table City hadn't hurt her. She'd been pretty sure that she'd survive the landing, as once she'd swallowed the Crimson Star her previous exhaustion from the battle had fled and she'd felt far more energized and far healthier than she could recall having felt before in her life, but she'd believed that she'd hurt herself very badly, maybe even seriously or fatally, when she landed and that she'd need to use a Star boosted medical transmutation to heal her injuries.

But she'd landed without even being scraped a little, and Julia still hadn't learned why.

Ed had warned her that she was risking the Crimson Star attempting to merge with her soul if she swallowed it to keep it from being separated from her, but even if it had done this, in part or in full, it shouldn't have caused her to become immune to injury.

She also needed to make headway in finding out precisely how many souls had been transmuted to forge her Star, and Ashleigh's. More people than Miranda and Raul, who had kept her safe as Alan even though he'd lied to her the whole time and thus deserved to be remembered for it, needed their names on a memorial so their sacrifice to the two Stars and their subsequent deaths could be passed on.

But so far, she was making no progress. She'd just found out, from the diagrams that she'd discovered in Dad's research, that her initial estimation that there had been around sixty souls or less in each Star had been very far off from the truth.

But learning those alchemical secrets were in the future.

Saram, and hopefully Al and Ed, were waiting for her.

Kelly reached the top of the hill with the sled, and Julia did shortly afterwards.

She could see Saram already walking over to her.

"Are you ready?" she asked, putting on the kindest and most welcoming smile she could think of as she kept alert, even for unlikely methods of ambush such as a transmuted skin graft.

"I sure am," Saram answered, smiling tentatively, and Julia could see the pain and agony he was keeping contained behind his smile.

"Then let's slide down into the future," she commented with a grin.

Saram returned it uncertainly, and Julia sat down on the sled yet again, held out her arms to him, and tensed to react to anything. He settled in her lap, and Julia knew that if he was going to try something, it might very well be now.

But then, as Saram alighted in her lap and she felt multiple strands of something slither around her body and contract around her as though they were asphyxiating snakes as unyielding as steel, she knew that what had just happened was far beyond anything that she'd anticipated.

She didn't make the effort to try to pull her hands free and transmute. Saram would be expecting that. She looked down to see that the strands were all wide and thin inky black ropes extending out from the backs of Saram's feet inside his shadow, and ending in feelers the same color and shape as the inky arms and hands of night that she'd seen inside the Doorway of Truth, before the endless juxtapositions of still glimpses of space and time within it had screamed about her and her head had split open with lancing agonizing torment to receive a measureless tsunami of knowledge that she still couldn't consciously perceive.

Julia's heart plummeted at the knowledge that Saram was almost certainly an alchemist who had seen the Truth and that she stood almost no chance of defending herself against what was obviously an abduction, but she refused to give up without trying to reach Saram or a fight.

"You've clearly seen the Truth, but you don't know what the people who sent you here are requesting you to do," Julia said. "You're not a soldier, you're a young boy with hopes and dreams of your own that you should be trying to regain and realize. Don't listen to the people who deployed you here. They've lied to you that, by doing as they command, you're enabling them to improve people's lives by extending their knowledge of what's true and right, or wrong and an illusion, to people who weren't yet aware of it. But what they really want you to do is to crawl on your belly to slurp up treasures for them from a valley floor, so that they can lounge in comfort at the top of a hill and drink those treasures and all of the pain you're in doing so dry, while you lap up scraps of garbage for yourself from the remains that they throw out as a dog until you exhaust yourself."

"Are you done rambling?" Saram questioned, a frown of irritation on his face, and to Julia's shock his voice echoed much more hollowly than Al's. "If so, do me a favor and keep quiet. I have better places to be than a cesspool of rotting wood populated by clowns who turned their backs on the Truth, when they could have unlocked the secrets of the cosmos and attained the promised land."

Julia felt the blood drain from her face.

If Amestris knew what Ashleigh had endeavored to achieve, and what the other Milosians and she had sought before Al and Ed had advised her not to, then Al and Ed were involved in what was going on there.

She had no choice.

She couldn't pass up this opportunity.

"Very well, then," she acquiesced, and Saram blinked. "If you honestly believe that and you're not just blindly following your overseers and that I shouldn't turn my back on your Truth, then take me to it, and teach it to me. I won't fight you, as long as you let me see Al and Ed in the process."

Saram sighed in exasperation. "Another wannabe' knight in shining armor. Will you people never quit? To obtain, something of equal value to someone else must be lost. Not your own."

If he felt the need to talk down to her, she doubted it was for the same reasons that Ed talked and acted arrogantly.

She wasn't going to make what might very well be a futile effort convince him to let her go, but he still needed her to attempt to reach him.

Julia softened her voice.

"We'll have plenty of time to argue that when you've brought me to your alchemy laboratory," she said. "Can we please just get moving?

"The important matter for you to know is, while you probably won't believe me, while your commanders will tell you that you're proud of you for capturing me, they won't mean it. It will be in a distant way, while they hide behind masks to conceal that they just want your service, not for you to feel as though you've accomplished something meaning. But I'm truly very proud of you. You're misguided to obey your overseers, but most children don't have the courage to take part in combat, much less in a foreign nation.

"So thank you very much for caring about your overseers so much that your devotion to them inspires me a lot to try even harder to love and cherish my own family and friends."

At that sentence, Saram's eyes widened in much more shock than she'd believed that they would, and a number of unreadable emotions passed behind his face and eyes for a number of seconds.

To Julia's further surprise, he opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened his mouth and closed it once more, and then he did so a number of further times.

"You're welcome," he said then, while trying to mask an uncertainty that was as unexpectedly deep as his shock had been great.

And not just an uncertainty.

It was mostly suppressed, but there was a contained and incredibly deep resignation and pain beneath the surface of his voice that twisted Julia's heart.

Just how had his overseers treated him while he'd served them?

When Saram spoke next, the uncertainty was fully gone from his voice.

"I'm used to being told that people are proud of me or thanking me for successfully doing things for them, but this is the first time in my life that someone has told me that I'm an inspiration to him or her. Not even my foster mother, who gushes over my strengths on a regular basis, has said that a single time.

"But my blood father taught me to repay courtesy with similar courtesy, so I'll tell you that you don't need to worry about me. My blood father is my Commander in Chief." Julia's eyes widened? Saram, or whatever his real name was, had been ordered to live a life of resignation to extremely painful combat by his blood father!? "He was the reason that I was born. So that means that he loves me and wants me to live happily, not suffer."

Julia knew better than to point out that bringing someone into the world had nothing to do with loving someone and wanting that person to live happily and not in pain. If she did, she'd lose what little progress that she might have made reaching him.

"Then can you please tell me everything that you want to about him while you're taking me to see him, or wherever he wants you to take me? Without, of course, revealing anything about his research that he doesn't want you to." She smiled, and it was genuine. "Gush about him until you're out of breath, far more than your foster mother gushes over you, and tell me every story about him that you can think of that it's safe to tell me without betraying his research. And if you truly believe that I shouldn't worry about you and that he's a good person, while I won't guarantee that I'll agree with me regardless of what you say, try your hardest to convince me to be proud of him and his learning in alchemy. As well as yourself and your own learning in alchemy.

"But stop worrying about whether your blood father or foster mother praise you. You don't need other people's praise to guide you in how to live. You yourself just need to be proud of yourself. Find a reason for you yourself to be proud of yourself and that your life and you yourself have worth."

Once more, a number of emotions passed behind his face, but this time, there was no uncertainty in his voice from the start.

"This is a new one. I never believed that I'd see the day when a regular person asked me to convince her to be proud of people like us, but that's just because you don't know what kind of people we really are."

"It doesn't matter," Julia responded right away. "My people spent most of their lives literally living in the middle of refuse since before I was born, and I lived for years that way myself. We weren't even cattle or dogs or bugs to Creta, or Soyuz. We were nothing more than germs."

"My blood father agreed with that, until he discovered recently that you had a chance to obtain the Truth and turned it down," Saram replied. "Now, though he usually doesn't care one way or another about people like you so he won't even insult people like you who he disapproves of, your people and you yourself have become an exception. He's actually willing to take the time to call you foolish."

Julia suppressed the urge to react to the insult against the other Milosians. She'd lose ground with Saram if she did, and his blood father likely believed that Saram was inferior to him as well.

"But you're singing old songs trying to convince me not to think badly of myself because I'm different from other people. Whenever we tell people like you who we really are, we get this all the time." Saram rolled his eyes. "We don't think badly of ourselves because we're different. We have the same pride in ourselves as different from others that you people do as different from other organic beings."

Organic beings? Why would Saram compare his difference from other people to how other people were different from non hu–

Julia's eyes widened. "You're a walking, talking Homunculus," she whispered in a quiet voice so just Saram could hear, and she made sure to fill all of her words with as much, not scientific, but personally heartfelt awe and wonder and delight and excitement, and she kept her following words filled with it. "Someone actually successfully transmuted one or more walking, talking Homunculi."

Saram's face became a mask even though more of the emotions passed in his eyes, but Julia knew that was so he wouldn't betray anything.

There could be no other explanation.

Though that meant that his human appearance most likely was similar to Atlas' impersonation of Ashleigh.

Julia gave Saram the most approving smile she could think of creating.

She continued talking in a quiet whisper.

"I want to argue that being proud of your identity as a Homunculus means that you shouldn't feel as though you're better than other humans, but you most likely won't buy that, so I'll say this.

"I agree that you should have pride in yourselves as Homunculi, and now I'm much more proud of you for recognizing that. And, though I'm not saying that I understand how Homunculi feel and think better than you yourselves do, while we're spending time with each other I'll try my best, from my limited and uninformed common human perspective, to think of ways to enable you to do so even more effectively."

At that, Saram's mouth dropped open in shock, but he closed it and now all emotion vanished from his face.

"For starters," she kept whispering at the same level, "I recommend that you and your fellow Homunculi, if there are any, don't once use the term artificial humans. That implies that you're unnatural, but alchemy is a field of science, and science is the philosophy of nature. You were created through someone harnessing nature, so you're as natural as any other human. I recommend that you call yourselves dreamed for humans, as you were created intentionally."

Saram glared furiously at her, but Julia could tell that it was a defensive shield, and what she'd said had just struck something important inside him.

"This conversation is over," Saram said in a similar quiet whisper. "We're leaving now, and I doubt that I'll have time to see you again while we're there for a long time, if at all." Julia pushed down the surge of agony. Then it would be a lot harder to protect Saram from his father. "If I do, I'll tell you stories about Father, because he measurelessly more than my brothers," Julia gave Saram a warm, eager smile at the revelation that there were other Homunculi, though she knew better than to ask whether his father was a regular human or a dreamed for one, "Deserves to be thought highly of. But it's very unlikely that I'll have time to do so until June Sixteenth of this year, as the last traces of winter on this northern continent fade into spring in preparation for summer, and what we call the Promised Day dawns.

"That's also most likely when you'll see Edward and Alphonse Elric once more, and most likely when we'll teach you the Truth. The Truth. Not our Truth."

That confirmed beyond all doubt that Al and Ed were involved with the Homunculi and their father, though she couldn't be certain that the Homunculi and their creator were connected to all of the problems that Amestris had had that she'd read about.

But it also confirmed that Al and Ed had become caught up in something very bad, and Julia clenched her teeth as terror and worry consumed her.

Julia forced away the surge of longing and loneliness and eagerness and excitement at the confirmation that she most likely would see Al and Ed once more, at least in around three months and a half.

"That's fine with me," Julia said in a similar whisper, and she meant it in many ways, and not just because it meant . As long as she was there, she'd have a chance to protect Saram. "What about your siblings?"

"They don't like talking with natural humans themselves," Saram still whispered quietly, "With the exception of one who does so a lot to mock them, and if you try to spend time with him he'll avoid you himself unless he can think of a way to mock you in a briefer fashion. I recommend that you spend your time with the chimeras who will be guarding you."

Julia thinned her lips tightly together at the revelation that there were chimeras where she was headed.

But they were dreamed of organic beings themselves.

She was done living in the past, and she refused to be afraid of them.

"I'll keep your advice in mind," she replied with her quiet whispering. "Is this going to be a bumpy ride or a smooth one?"

"If you don't stop trying to befriend me, you won't be conscious enough to know which," Saram scowled and whispered quietly.

Julia sighed, but she responded in a quiet whisper, "As you wish."

Without preamble, he turned and rose, and the inky tendrils moved her onto his left shoulder.

"Julia!" Kelly cried, and she turned to see that the other children were standing well back but not too far away, mixtures of terror and fear and uncertainty and worry in their faces and stances.

"Can you apologize to Vatanen and my students that I need to take a trip?" Julia asked.

Kelly didn't say anything for a few seconds, but then she nodded.

Steven's visage, however, became angry, took the pocket knife that all Milosian children carried out of his pocket in the event that Creta or Amestris launched a surprise invasion and they needed to defend themselves, leveled it at Saram, and charged.

Julia tensed, knowing that there was now no way that she could prevent herself from finding out if Saram was a soldier in the fullest sense.

Sickness consumed her as another tendril shot backwards from Saram's right heel, curved around, and rocketed directly at Steven's neck to stab into it and slice from side to side, severing it cleanly.

Julia forced her tears at seeing a child's bloody corpse for the first time in months back from her eyes and curled her left fourth finger down, and then she tapped the tendril binding her left palm.

"Pow," she said in a regular voice. "As you probably believe that I'll take revenge, that's how we're even."

Saram glared again. "Did you just make fun of me!?"

"Not at all," Julia said. "I'm pretty sure that you believe in revenge, so that's why I did it."

She didn't want to say her following words, as that meant that she'd no longer be awake to see if Saram murdered another child, or someone older if he or she saw what was going on.

But the now trembling and shuddering children knew that they were outmatched, and they were now farther away and, as they looked at her with different expressions of terror and worry now, they were in the defensive positions that they'd been taught to assume. And she needed to protect Saram as well as the other children.

"But if your pride feels insulted," Julia continued, "Go ahead and knock me out."

"With pleasure," Saram responded, but there was a tiny amount of relief that she'd stop talking for certain now, as well as a tiny amount of fear.

Then something hard struck Julia in the back of the head and all that she knew was blackness.

.

Begin

.

BOOK ONE: THE PROMISED NIGHTMARE

.

"Why are you living in a fabricated world, laughing with the people who caused all these deaths!?"-Sato

GUNDAM SEED DESTINY:

Phase 6: THE END OF THE WORLD