Chapter Nine
Having eaten the meat and drunk the blood, the little girl turned to her mother and said, "I'm very sleepy, Mother."
"Come over here and get some rest," the wolf replied.
Little Red Riding Hood approached the bed. "Mother," she said in surprise. "What big ears you have!"
"All the better to hear you with, my dear," said the wolf.
"Mother, what big eyes you have!"
"All the better to see you with, my dear."
"Mother, what big arms you have!"
"All the better to hold you with, my dear."
"Mother," Little Red Riding Hood said, beginning to worry. "What big teeth you have!"
The wolf smiled a wicked smile at this, revealing all of her many teeth. "All the better to eat you with!" she cried, and pounced on Little Red Riding Hood, swallowing her whole. The wolf was now so full that she fell sound asleep in the bed.
- from the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood"
Edward Elric turned around in surprise as someone banged frantically on the door to the Fuhrer's office. Fuhrer Roy Mustang cut himself off in the middle of his sentence, then nodded to General Mustang, who was closest to the door. She opened it, and Alphonse Elric stumbled in, tripping on the thick carpet. Ed's insides went cold at the look of intense fear on his younger brother's face; he hadn't seen that look for many years. "Al?" He quickly crossed over to Al's side, gripping his arm and pulling him further into the room. "What's wrong?" He could actually feel Al trembling; he could practically smell the fear radiating from his little brother.
"The Homunculi!" Al gasped out, panting as though he had run up all the stairs to get here. "They've been seen again!"
Ed's heart convulsed violently, and he was sure he would soon find it bursting up through his throat and out his mouth. He hadn't seen a Homunculus in...twenty-five years, he supposed it must be. To think that someone would be foolish and desperate enough to create one again... "Wait," he said, stilling his thoughts. "'They'? There's more than one?"
"We're not sure," Al replied, trying to control his heavy breathing. "The message was garbled... I met Lieutenant Colonel Farland in the hall; she was coming to inform us. We got a distress signal from West City – something about a man with the Ouroboros tattooed on his neck. There might be a woman with him too."
Ed looked over at the Fuhrer, who stared at Al as though he didn't want to believe his ears. Well, neither do I, really, Ed thought. As he watched, Fuhrer Mustang ran a hand through his greying hair and stood up. "Much as I hope they're mistaken, it sounds like a Homunculus, all right. Liza, contact Lieutenant General Armstrong and have him join us with a squad of his men."
"Yes, sir!" General Mustang snapped to attention, then hurried out the door to carry out his orders.
"I'm a little out of practice," the Fuhrer said mildly, pulling on his gloves, "but I think the four best alchemists in the country are more than a match for however many Homunculi are waiting for us."
Ed rolled his eyes at his friend's arrogance, but he had to admit Mustang had a point.
As soon as Armstrong had joined them, they hurried to the train station, barely managing to catch the train heading westward. They all sat in the same compartment, discussing what their plan would be once they encountered the Homunculus. It was rather straightforward; they had all fought Homunculi before. The trick with this one was that they had no idea of his powers, nor how many companions he might have. They would have to be careful. After a few minutes, Armstrong left to contact the western Military Headquarters, so that they would be prepared for the Fuhrer's arrival.
As he watched Armstrong squeeze through the sliding door of their compartment, a thoughtful look came over Al's face, as if he was trying to remember something. "Wait a minute..." he said slowly. Then his eyes widened and he shot to his feet. "Oh no!" Al cried, his voice higher than normal.
"What is it?" Mustang asked sharply.
Steadying himself against the motion of the train as it clattered loudly over a bridge, Al said, "I just remembered! The woman who gave me the message...Lydia Farland...her eyes were red."
"An Ishbalite?" Ed asked, confused. Many Ishbalites had joined the military after Mustang had become Fuhrer, but generally Ishbalites had dark skin, and if Ed was thinking of the right person...
Al shook his head. "Her pupils were like a cat's!"
Ed stared at Al, horrified, but Mustang looked confused. "What does that mean?"
"All Homunculi have red eyes with vertical pupils," Al said softly, still looking at Ed. "What do we do, Brother?"
"Go back, of course!"
"Wait," Mustang cautioned as Ed made to get up. "We can't rule out the possibility that there are Homunculi in West City as well."
"My daughters are in Central with a Homunculus on the loose," Ed said savagely. "You can go to West if you want, but I'm going back."
"Me too," Al immediately added.
Mustang held up his hands defensively. "I didn't mean we wouldn't go back. But I think Alphonse and Lieutenant General Armstrong should continue on to West City, just in case."
"You're right," Ed said reluctantly, feeling the tension rising inside of him. "It's just... My babies are in danger, and...I can't rest until I know they're safe." His hands slowly clenched into fists on his knees. He didn't want to think about what could be happening in Central at that very moment.
"My son is there too, you know," Mustang said softly.
Ed looked up, and their eyes met. In that moment, they were not Fuhrer and General. They were not friends who had spent so much time around each other that they regularly got on each other's nerves. In that moment, they were just fathers worried about their children.
And? What are you going to do now?
I'm thinking, I'm thinking!
Making a Plan B was beneath you, I guess?
Are you going to help me think of something, or not?
There's no way you can get out of this, you know. You heard what the Homunculus said. Try to escape, and you're dead – and twice proven to be stupid, I might add.
No! There has to be some way to scrape out of this!
Yet you have absolutely no ideas.
"I'll think of something," Trisha muttered under her breath to the sarcastic voice in her head. Luckily, neither Lydia nor Miranda seemed to hear her as the three of them came to a stop in the empty city square; they seemed to be listening to a sound in the distance. Trisha listened as well, and thought it sounded like a large crowd of people cheering. No, shouting. Shouting angrily. "What's that?" she asked in alarm as the sound grew louder and louder.
Lydia Farland glanced at her, smirking. "That, my friend, is the sound of civil war."
"Civil war?!"
Lydia's smile widened triumphantly. "Precisely. I've been working towards this day for years now."
Trisha scowled around at the square, strangely devoid of civilians. It seemed this was their destination, but she couldn't see why. "What are you planning?"
Lydia let out a short laugh. "Isn't it obvious? What has any Homunculus ever wished for?" An ugly sneer marred her otherwise pretty face as she turned to Miranda. "Humanity. I was human once, but that wasn't good enough for you, was it? You just had to turn me into a soulless doll."
Miranda shuddered visibly, refusing to look up at the creature that had once been her sister.
Trisha looked around the square again, and this time she noticed thin but strangely straight cracks running through the stones of the ground. It almost looked like a... No. Surely not. Trisha saw in her mind's eye an old sketch of a transmutation circle from her father's research notes. It had been more complex than any circle she had ever seen, and when she had asked him about it, he had reluctantly informed her that it was the circle to make a Philosopher's Stone. And unless her eyes were deceiving her now...the cracks in the ground around her were identical to that circle.
Whirling around, Trisha glared at Lydia. "My father told me all sorts of stories about the Homunculi in his time, and you're just the same. So, which one are you? Lust? Envy?"
Lydia smiled, and it took only a little imagination to turn her white teeth into the snarling maw of a monster. "I am Envy, for I envy all you humans your humanity. I am Greed, for I am greedy for that which I do not have. I am Gluttony, for I gorge myself on human life. I am Sloth, for I long to have everything without working for it. I am Lust, for I lust after the unattainable. I am Wrath, for I hate you humans with a passion! And I am Pride, for I am the only Homunculus – the one, the only, the beginning and the end! I am all of these, yet none of these!" She tipped back her head and laughed – a cruel, wild laugh, like a hyena leaping for the kill.
Trisha caught a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye and heard a clap that echoed around the square. Yet even as she turned her head to investigate the source of this sound, Miranda's hands, suddenly strong and rough, shoved her towards Lydia so that they crashed into each other. Time seemed to move slower than normal as Trisha watched with growing horror the blue electricity of a transmutation shooting up her arms. Miranda said in a harsh, rapid whisper, "If I sacrifice you, I can bring her back!" The limp, morose Miranda was nowhere to be seen; she had vanished in place of this frenzied lunatic.
Trisha looked into Miranda's eyes, turned wild in the dancing light of the transmutation, and knew that there was no hope for her.