Disclaimer in previous chapter. Please see Author's Notes at the end. This chapter is a direct continuation of the previous.

- x -

Ed let his gaze naturally fall to the ceiling, unfocusing and staring at the patterns of light absorption on the acoustic tiles. The bodyguards would prohibit them from speaking openly, though obviously they'd been able to keep top-level secrets before. They could probably talk if they were careful.

"You okay?"

He didn't really know why he asked it. He knew the answer was no. Pretty soon Patterson would return, with a nice syringe of something pleasant, and Mustang would be sleeping, whether he felt it was irresponsible or not.

He was probably lucky the doctor hadn't threatened to follow suit with him. For some reason, though, he was feeling more awake than he had before. Almost restless.

Almost like he was wasting time. Like he should have been doing something.

Probably the same way Mustang felt. Like there was more to it than simply stopping the out of control alchemist.

"Patterson wasn't kidding." Ed was surprised enough that he actually looked at Roy, finding him in about the same position. Staring at the ceiling, cradling the arm the IV line was being fed into. "This stuff is killing me."

Was he trying to ditch one of the bodyguards into getting the doc?

"You went down pretty hard."

Mustang just grunted. "I'll be fine, Fullmetal."

Ed hesitated. "How did Bren try to decompose it?"

He heard Roy sigh quietly. "The same way everyone else does."

So, a basic decomposition.

How could you kill yourself performing a basic decomposition? Short of falling into it, as Al had done?

"It seems Van Hohenheim was right," he grated, after a moment.

Ed blinked up at the ceiling. That was an odd comment indeed. "How so?"

"He theorized every alchemist had . . . something inside them, that allowed them to channel alchemic energy that existed in Nature."

An inner Gate.

Was he insinuated that was why Bren had died . . . ?

Ed blinked. He'd never had trouble talking in code before. It was his forte, after all. He'd been encoding his research since he'd started recording it. He'd almost missed Patterson doing it, and now he was missing Roy doing it.

So the drugs were screwing with him.

He didn't respond for a moment. So if he was right, and Roy was telling him that was why Bren had died . . . hadn't Dante said that Hohenheim's body had died when he'd transmuted the first Philosopher's Stone? That the effort had actually killed him?

Hadn't he been thinking it during the fight? That the alchemy was taking too much effort? Hadn't he blamed that feeling in his chest on feedback?

No matter what method alchemists used to channel alchemic energy into transmutations, obviously the amplifier was damaging it. Or rather, the feedback it caused when it interacted with ingredients –

Ed blinked.

Al had said the old man had had some sort of attack just after making it. And Bren wouldn't have been using it to transmute anything when he tried to decompose it. He supposed it could be argued he was using it to decompose itself, since all amplifiers worked by proximity, not necessarily special concentration from the alchemist. Trying to transmute the thing itself could possibly have caused the amplifier itself to start giving off feedback –

"Is the amplifier still safe to leave with Havoc?" Surely they wouldn't have given it to Havoc if it was now giving off feedback of its own –

"Yes." Roy sounded a little frustrated. Like he couldn't figure out why they were still having a conversation. "It's not giving off any feedback that we can detect."

So using it to decompose itself had not transmuted it? Or its materials weren't affected by the alchemic bonds that it was causing in other materials?

. . . but that was impossible. How could something that channeled alchemic energy be immune to alchemic energy? In effect, how could matter not be transmutable?

Of course, wasn't his arm resistant to alchemy, but still letting him complete a circle? If the compound the old man had added to the Tringum's amplifier was the same stuff he'd put in his armor –

. . . but why would he do that?

Ed sighed. Now he was confusing even himself.

"I'm sorry," he finally said, quietly. Whatever Mustang was trying to tell him, he wasn't getting it.

"So am I." He heard Mustang shift on the bed. "You never should have been there."

Ed just blinked. He now officially had no idea what they were talking about.

"I don't think Al was close enough to it long enough." Roy stated it as if it was meant to be reassuring. "He should be fine."

Close enough to it long enough . . . just talking about the level of feedback he'd absorbed? Because the feedback was caused by the ingredients, not the amplifier . . .

But then, if it wasn't causing feedback, then how did Bren die?

Ed wished he had a piece of paper. What they had was an amplifier. It was opaque, a crystal of unknown materials. It worked by focusing an alchemist's gathering of alchemic energy more efficiently –

Okay. That was not a fact. That was a hypothesis. What did he know.

It amplified transmutations. Ingredients that were transmuted gave off some type of energy that was harmful to living things. Alchemists were more sensitive to this energy. It caused everyone to feel lethargy, nausea, and weakness. It caused physical damage, if Breda and Fuery were throwing up blood.

Edward tried to modulate his voice so it didn't sound accusing. There had to be a reason.

"Why didn't you have the Tringums treat Havoc and Breda?"

Mustang was quiet for a while. "They're National Alchemists. I needed them elsewhere."

One treatment would have taken them no more than half an hour. Even one of them could have done more than nothing at all. "Are you sure they're gonna pull through?"

Roy sighed again. "The Tringums didn't invent healing alchemy."

Oh.

So they were being treated by an alchemist, just not a certified one. Because Roy needed all the National Alchemists to clean up the city, but had no authority over the non-certified ones. "Why didn't you just say so?" he groused.

"You didn't ask."

Why hadn't Al asked, was the question.

So even with an alchemist's help, they were still bad off. Maybe what was wrong with them couldn't be treated with alchemy, since it was caused by some kind of alchemic feedback?

He added that to his list of conjectures.

Bren had died. It was related to his 'inner Gate,' for lack of a better descriptor. Many of the alchemists had been feeling discomfort, probably stemming from the same place. So the feedback hurt them.

But something had killed Bren. Instantly.

And Al had said that Johann Irving had had some kind of attack just after creating it.

Were those deaths related?

If the amplifier itself wasn't giving off feedback, then either it was immune to its own effects, or Bren hadn't gotten far enough in the transmutation to do anything. Al had said he smelled ozone, which could have been released when the compound was added to the Tringum's amplifier, so that could be explained away with chemistry.

Everyone that had used it had died.

He was ignoring Craege Irving.

But Irving had died because his body had been transmuted. Many times. It was currently lying in neat lumps on the parade grounds, according to Al. He had generated so much alchemic feedback in himself that his molecules had been ripped apart. That was the only explanation for the sudden evaporation of his body.

Of course, just before he'd died, he'd been hugging his chest . . .

Then again, he'd been getting shot full of holes by soldiers at the time.

Ed thought back. Actually, he'd healed from those wounds. The uniforms had been approaching him with drawn weapons, but he didn't actually recall seeing the man get shot again . . . he'd been holding his chest, and healing himself –

What if he wasn't just healing the wounds they were inflicting?

If you couldn't use alchemy to heal the feedback damage, then maybe he'd been healing himself from something else. He'd stopped at one point to heal his hands . . . but again, he'd created feedback in his own tissues. And that feedback had weakened Ed to the point that he could barely move, just being near the weasel –

But the weasel himself had still been moving normally.

Irving had transmuted with the crystal, and he'd died.

Bren had transmuted with the crystal, and he'd died. Almost instantly.

The old man had created it, and he'd died. Almost instantly.

Mustang had said that he didn't think Al had been near enough to it long enough.

Amplifiers worked by proximity.

So when they'd been fighting Craege in close combat, they'd actually probably been using the amplifier as well.

Was Mustang saying they were going to die, too? And so was every alchemist that had used it?

That was ridiculous. How on earth would that work?

Edward took a deep breath, clinging to the line of thought. If the amplifier wasn't killing simply by the feedback it caused in transmuted ingredients, how was it accomplishing it?

It was causing damage. Damage that could be healed, at the cost of making the ingredients give off feedback. That was why Craege hadn't died instantly. He'd crossed the taboo of human transmutation without thought, because he didn't know any better. Bren wouldn't have made that mistake, but the old man should have –

Then again, the old man had never restored his limbs. He'd clearly traded years of his life to the Gate, and possibly pieces of his apprentice, but he'd never used human transmutation to gain physical benefits. He'd only to it to sacrifice. In return, he'd probably gathered knowledge, or even possibly some of the ingredients he used in his compounds . . .

Had the old man realized that healing himself with it was just going to kill him anyway? Al had said he'd had some kind of attack, and then Craege had taken advantage and killed him . . .

So that could explain why it took Craege longer to die than Bren or the old man, but not how he was killed in the first place.

Ed sighed, staring up at the bag of drugs beside his bed. It was almost empty.

Well, at least he'd be clear-headed soon enough. Even if it hurt, it would be worth it just so he could think.

How did the amplifier work? It seemed to be using alchemic energy to create bonds, rather than using the energy to excite existing chemical and electrical bonds. That was how alchemy worked; breaking and forming bonds to move and attract matter into different materials. That was why it was so important to understand the ingredients one was transmuting, otherwise they couldn't be intelligently combined.

But this amplifier was obviously causing the energy to be used in a different way. Not a particularly useful one, though he had to admit the transmutations had been huge -

But if that was how it worked . . . hadn't he himself said the investment of energy, even with the amplifier, had to be enormous? If that was how it was applying alchemic energy, where was the amplification coming in? The Red Stone worked because it used the life stolen from the fetuses of pregnant women, and a Philosopher's Stone was concentrated life as well, so in essence, they amplified because they already contained their own alchemic energy. They weren't taking any from the alchemist, they were actually providing it.

The weasel had said the white crystal couldn't be used up, which meant it wasn't being used as an ingredient in the transmutation, but just a focus . . . But it would still just be focusing the energy coming from the alchemist.

It wasn't amplifying at all. Unless it was somehow increasing the amount of energy an alchemist could normally summon or control? In which case –

In which case, if pops was right, and every alchemist had an inner Gate . . . and overuse of that inner Gate caused the body to die –

Then that was how it was killing alchemists. It was causing them to unthinkingly draw too much energy. Maybe they were even accidentally using their own lives in the transmutations.

But the feedback hurt. Cleary there was physical damage involved with this inner Gate, so how had they not felt what they were doing . . . ? Unless by the time it hurt, it was already too late? Or the amplifier allowed them to pull that energy too fast . . .?

How much energy had Bren vested in his decomposition? How could he have killed himself so quickly? Unless one alchemist's Gate wasn't the same size as the others? He'd always been able to control massive transmutations, as had Al, but they figured that had to do with their understanding of alchemy, not any innate ability to channel more energy than any other alchemist –

But there had to be something separating alchemists from normal humans, then. Not everyone could perform alchemy, and he'd chalked it up to a lack of understanding. Alchemy was a science, after all, and not everyone understood math, so it stood to reason –

What if that assumption was wrong?

Edward shoved the question to the back of his mind, refocusing his thoughts on the amplifier itself. If that was how the crystal worked, and it meant that any alchemist that used it had the ability to unknowingly, significantly overtaxed their body –

Then why on earth would Pride have wanted it developed? What good was an amplifier that killed the alchemist using it? If you used it sparingly, for small transmutations, it probably wasn't harmful, but if anyone had tried a significantly large transmutation, just a single one would be enough to do them in.

The old man had probably tested it the moment he'd made it. He'd tried to do something large, just to see what it could do for him. Maybe that was why they smelled ozone. Maybe he'd tried to manipulate the atmosphere in the room, or create a small thunderstorm. Causing weather was fairly taxing; few alchemists could really do it. It probably would have been enough.

It would have been useless to Dante. The second she'd have tried to use it to move her soul, she would have killed . . . well, the body she was using. But maybe not the body she was moving to . . .?

Could the 'inner Gate' be tied to the soul, and not the body? Al could transmute even when he was a sit of armor. If it was a physical thing, how had he been able to do that?

Al said that the human soul was tied to the back of the neck, not the chest. And if it was tied to the soul, then why had Hohenheim's soul survived even when transmuting the Stone had killed his body? Hadn't Dante always moved herself to another alchemist's body?

But she'd been intending to use Rose. And Rose was no alchemist.

A body could live with no soul. Nina was proof of that. And a soul could live without a body, if Al was any indication. Though Al's body had been in the Gate, so technically it was still alive –

So technically Al had had a body, even as armor.

A body was required for the inner Gate.

Which should mean that Dante would have killed her new body completing the transmutation of tying her soul to it. This amplifier would have been worse than useless for her.

Then again, was that due to the changes the Tringums had made to it? Surely Pride wouldn't have had a amplifier developed that did nothing but kill alchemists, even Dante –

Pride.

He'd never really fit his name. He'd been her greatest accomplishment because he could age, but pride was hubris, and Pride had never made a mistake. Even taking on Mustang in a fight hadn't been a mistake, wouldn't have been a mistake if his son hadn't brought his own skull into the room . . .

Pride to keep his skull, his weakness, in his own house.

Pride to think that since he was the most perfect of the Homunculi, he had no need to become a fully-fledged human?

Because if he thought that, there'd be no reason to continue serving Dante.

And Dante was one of the very few people that could have killed him.

The Tringums had screwed with their part of the amplifier too much. They'd altered Nash's original design. It had never been meant to cause feedback.

But it had been designed especially to kill alchemists. He had been developing it, in secret, to give to Dante.

To kill her.

And if it wasn't causing feedback, they'd never have figured it out.

Maybe not just Dante. If a piece of it had been put in the National Alchemist watches, instead of Red Stone, they'd have all killed themselves the first day they went into battle.

Not just to kill Dante, then.

To kill all of them.

Ed swallowed. "I think I get what you were saying earlier."

He and Roy had been close enough to Craege to have used it. Which meant they'd also seriously overtaxed themselves. They weren't dead yet, but if they had continued the fight in close quarters, that would have been it –

It was a miracle Armstrong hadn't died. Maybe he'd been far enough away.

"You sure you're feeling all right, Fullmetal?"

He glared at Mustang before he realized it was a joke. Or meant to be one, anyway. Mustang's jaw was clenched, and he was studying the ceiling intently, as though something extremely entertaining was being displayed there.

Where the hell was Patterson? He needed to know –

No, he really didn't. So long as no other alchemist ever used the crystal, it was benign. It didn't matter that they knew how it was killing alchemists. The damage was done. They'd either recover, or they wouldn't. There was always the chance that they'd just be crippled, like tearing a ligament. Not be able to transmute anymore.

Of course, hadn't this day begun with his arguing that alchemists were doing too much of that to begin with? If he truly felt that way, why did the idea that he might never transmute again cause his stomach to curl? How had it made him feel in Germany, when he couldn't transmute open the door, couldn't save those gypsies?

But that was transmuting for a purpose, not just to make a pretty paper decoration.

Their mom had loved them, though. If the purpose was to bring someone pleasure, or even to teach, did that make it irresponsible? Physicists might use their knowledge of alchemy to develop new products or machines that could possibly save or improve the quality of life for many, but if they weren't sufficiently interested in alchemy –

Then they were idiots. Science should be appealing because it was science, not because it made balloons float around.

But if not everyone could perform alchemy, how could they really understand it? If they couldn't transmute themselves, if they saw demonstrations, would they be able to grasp the finer points?

Shit.

Mustang might actually have a point.

There was a soft knock on the door, and the bodyguards did exactly what they'd done before. Patterson did not appear impressed, and walked without preamble. He seemed unhappy to see Edward awake, because he frowned at him.

"I expected you to be asleep by now."

Ed thoughtlessly shrugged, and the pain that had previously been bearable was but a pleasant memory in comparison to the sensation in his right shoulder. He clenched his teeth to keep the shout muffled.

And he'd been wishing for this?

Patterson had approached him in the meantime, and was looking at his armor helplessly. He couldn't do anything about it, currently; if he took the port off, he'd have to take the full armor off, and then it would be obvious he still had the arm. Hakuro might have been civil, but there was no way he was going to let that slide, considering everyone had seen him missing both the arm and leg when he'd gotten back five months ago.

"I had hoped the damage to your port hadn't gone through to the bone beneath," he offered lamely. "Bone pain is the worst. Let's step up the drugs."

"It's fine. Just surprised me." He kept his voice level by keeping it low. It wasn't fading nicely, either, but now that he'd had a few seconds, he could handle it.

Tomorrow was going to be bad. And the day after it wasn't going to be much better.

"Edward-"

"Leave it." He nodded toward Mustang. "Your other patient has seen the error of his ways."

Patterson hesitated, then turned. Obviously he was going to take advantage of non-protesting patients while he could. "Don't think you're getting off that easy."

"Easy? Winry is going to kill me. She made this stuff five months ago."

Patterson smiled, but it looked tired. "You're right." He moved around to the other side of the room, bending to check the level of fluids in the bags to Mustang's left. "I'm sorry for the pain, but this combination is the only thing that's going to prevent serious complications down the road –"

Mustang just nodded. "Don't put me under."

"I told you I was going to overrule you, and I am." He fished a syringe out of his front coat pocket. "This is a mild narcotic. It's going to make you drowsy, but it's not powerful enough to knock you out. Your own exhaustion is going to do that." He hesitated as he readied the needle. "Are you certain all business has been finished? Once you're under the influence of this drug, for all intents and purposes you can no longer address Parliament or the military in an official capacity."

Ed watched Mustang hesitate, but he'd never let go of his arm, and after a moment he gave a curt nod. The needle was inserted into the line that ran to his arm, which spared him the added prick of a needle. The second ticked by, and Mustang didn't appear to relax any further.

Another knock at the door attracted his attention, and once more, the guards moved into action. They were like a well-oiled machine. It was almost eerie.

It was the same nurse he'd seen earlier, and again, she ignored her intimidating beau. She handed Patterson a clipboard.

"Braeburn thinks we should switch her to a dimethyl solution," he heard the woman murmur softly, as if she didn't want to bother a sleeping patient.

Which was silly, since she could see they were both wide awake –

A glance at Mustang found his eyes closed, and his right arm was still draped across his chest, but no longer cradling his left.

That was fast.

Patterson shook his head, flipping through a couple pages. "No, keep her on ethylamine. And add the sterite solution, to keep the cornea inflammation down to a minimum."

Ed turned away, since looking to his left pulled on his right shoulder, and he concentrated very hard on reminding himself not to move anything, and not to tense anything.

He was useless to the cleanup process, at this point. Transmuting now would just be plain stupid. The best he could do was heal up and free up the bed and doctor's time for someone who needed it more. Even he wasn't the least bit sleepy.

"Excuse me, doctor." All three of them glanced at Mustang. His eye was still closed. "Did you say corneal inflammation?"

Trust Mustang to be obsessed with eye ailments.

"Yes."

"Is that a common symptom from the feedback?"

Patterson signed off on his prescribed treatment, and the nurse left the room hurriedly, stopping only to give her man a peck on the cheek, the other one this time. He took it stoically.

"No." The doctor sharpened his attention. "Why do you ask?"

"There was a young man with an eye ailment, earlier." He was slightly slurring his words, and the rasp made it difficult to tell how awake he really was.

"Yes. Both have similar symptoms, though they came from different sites. Sudden onset of acute circulatory failure to the lower extremities, followed by a protein film building on the corneas."

So they couldn't walk and couldn't see.

Edward blinked. Now that was an odd coincidence, that the feedback caused by the amplifier the old man had made would actually make its victims look like him.

In fact, it was weird enough that it didn't make much sense.

Ed glanced over at Mustang. He had opened his eye, and was pinning the doctor with it. There was no sign of drowsiness in his gaze.

"Did you just say failure of the lower extremities?"

Patterson nodded. "I did." He narrowed his eyes. "Why the sudden interest?"

Roy turned to catch Ed's gaze, and for the first time, Mustang didn't look angry. His expression was unreadable, but urgent.

"He said I'd see him on every corner." He spoke forcefully enough that his voice cracked. "To remind Bradley that he'd betrayed him."

It took Ed a second to place what he was saying.

"The old man?"

Of course. When they first met him, he was certain Mustang was Bradley. It would stand to reason that Bradley would take his half of the research and kill him, since he would have figured out when he combined it with Nash's that it killed alchemists –

So the old man had taken out some kind of insurance policy?

"He said he'd destroy everything Bradley worked for. He said he'd reduce it to dust."

What had Pride been working for? Obviously to kill Dante, but he hadn't known that at that point, so . . .

A Philosopher's Stone.

He was going to stop Bradley from making a Philosopher's Stone.

"I don't understand –"

"The boy." Roy turned back to Patterson, already sitting up. "How is he?"

Patterson glanced between the two of them, obviously confused. "I'm afraid he died-"

Had the old man been planning to upset Bradley's plans by killing them?

Ed closed his eyes.

Yes. That was exactly what the old man had planned. Bradley needed the Amestris military to create a Philosopher's Stone. Any military. Any group of people, really.

And the closest group of people to the old alchemist had been Central.

If he wiped out the city, all of Bradley's plans really would crumble to dust. Amestris would have been consumed by its neighbors.

And he was such a genius with compounds . . . the poison on the letter . . .

He'd put a poison somewhere else. Somewhere where it would affect a lot of people.

The question was where.

- x -

Author's Notes: Muahahaha! In one gigantic chapter, I managed to reveal all kinds of stuff! Tricksey Pride, trying to kill Dante. Ed's armor being untransmutable. And just when things seemed to be winding down, the OCs strike again! Admittedly, they did it from chapter three, which was a long time ago. Bad OCs! No cookie!

I went looking for errors, but this chapter is HUGE. So there are twice as many as usual. Many apologies! Hopefully I have made up for errors with content. ; )

(It's like an April Fool's joke in reverse. Two chapters instead of the expected none. ; ) Happy April Fool's, all!)