Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.

- x -

He didn't bother to look up as the door swung open. He already knew who it was.

After all, only one person entered his office without knocking. And did it with that slow, deliberate turning of the knob and equally gentle push, giving him time to hide whatever he had to hide before the door fully opened.

It also helped he'd put his desk on the side of the room behind the door, so one had to enter the room fully in order to see him.

"What happened?" It was common knowledge that Al had been unceremoniously removed from class by a military officer. What remained to be learned was whether it was in relation to the investigations, the court-martial, or something else entirely.

Alphonse Elric snorted, shoving the door closed with his elbow. "Hello to you too."

Well, either it was nothing major, or Al didn't want to talk about it. Ed watched his younger brother casually slip his hands in his pockets, casting a glance around the office as if he expected someone else to be there.

"Well?"

"I'm kinda surprised they didn't put a guard on you," his brother finally observed. "When's the court-martial?"

Edward growled, starting to gather his paperwork together. The rest of this could wait until morning. "End of the month. Just long enough for the military to get its grubby little hands into everything. And don't change the subject."

Al frowned at him as he dumped a large pile of papers, unsorted, into a single binder. "Nii-san, that goldenrod form on top needs to-"

"Do you remember the time when we didn't know what fucking color the ten different carbon copies were called?" he interrupted, before the lecture could continue. "I used to think the bastard was just being lazy, but this stuff is dangerous."

He got a raised eyebrow for his efforts. "Now who's changing the subject."

"So it was about the court-martial." That was the only thing that really made sense. Pulling him so publicly out of class was probably just a scare tactic. Not that Al would have had anything to say on the subject. At least nothing Hakuro would want aired in the court-martial, at any rate.

"He really does have you, you know." Al winced as the binder was dropped unceremoniously to the ground beside the desk, on top of one just like it. "So this is how you keep your desk so clean."

Ed just shrugged, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair. It was still too warm to wear it at the moment, but he'd need it as soon as the sun set. "Outside of pissing me off, I don't really see the point. I never joined another military, so the worst they can prove is AWOL. And since I was acting to protect the soldiers that entered Lior-"

Not that he really had managed to.

" – it isn't as if I'll get more than a slap on the wrist."

Al hadn't missed the catch in his voice. "You said he didn't care that you admitted to using the Lior Stone-"

And he hadn't, at least that night in the hospital. The night Hakuro had surprised him by asking him to lie in a debrief to keep Mustang's name as far away from a possible Stone as could be. He might still think that one of them had transmuted that Stone, rather than Scar, but at this point, unless one of them confessed, it wouldn't fly.

On his less grumpy days, he could see that Hakuro had a logical reason to want to pursue the matter. The general wasn't really aware that the Fuhrer had been a Homunculus. He knew the higher-ups were admitting to Homunculi existing in general, but there was nothing in the official records relating to Dante, Pride, or the fact that Sloth was really –

Was really their sin.

Though he really wasn't sure whether or not Hakuro had made that leap, considering he probably had researched at some point, or at least read in a report, how a Homunculus was created. And since he had also, that night in the hospital, revealed that he knew Ed and Al had tried human transmutation when they were kids –

Then again, he might not have tried to figure out who else the Elrics might have been trying to transmute besides Al.

And even if not, he didn't really have any reason to trust that Scar had died to create the Stone. Then again, he didn't have any real reason to doubt that Scar had done it, either. But the truth would put his worries to rest. Over seven thousand soldiers died that day, and nearly all their relatives and loved ones still had no answer to the question why.

And unless Mustang changed his policy on that truth, and revealed what actually transpired those many years ago, they never would.

Ed shoved the thoughts aside, moving around his desk towards the door. "I don't know what he's up to. Hakuro might just be using it as an excuse to keep me out of the way while he puts on his dog and pony show." And he wasn't likely to figure it out until after it was said and done anyway. No use dwelling. "What did he ask you?"

Al shrugged, opening the door as Edward came around him. "The usual." They'd solidified their story of events after Mustang's inauguration, when they realized they'd have to repeat it over and over again to the attending alchemists - and physicists – in the Academy. "You off to shift?"

Ed nodded, stepping into the hallway and hearing the reassuring click of the door as Al followed. "You'll never guess which grid."

They'd split the city into grids to organize the efforts, and due to the knowledge they'd gained regarding the feedback and amount of fighting that had been done in each area, they'd gotten it down to . . . well, to a science. How long an alchemist could stay, how much feedback they could absorb a week, the symptoms of sickness, even treatments.

Though Ed privately suspected that was just a ploy by Patterson to give more checkups and get more vitamins into the alchemists. His hair had never been softer or thicker, and he really doubted radiation was to thank for it.

"Surprise me."

Ed fished a well-worn, folded sheet of paper out of his back pocket. "Twenty-seven."

Twenty-seven was not a grid Ed thought he'd ever find himself anywhere near again. It had been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting, and some of the worst destruction, but given its location, that was hardly surprising.

After all, alchemic amplifiers worked by proximity. While the incomplete Stone that lay in the collapsed ruins of Laboratory 5 was doubtlessly very deep in the earth, it was likely it had reacted to use of the amplifier above it, increasing the power available to the National Alchemists and Irving both.

They'd certain torn the shit out of half a block of it, at any rate.

Al clucked his tongue. "Are you sure that's not a clerical error?"

Ed took the offered piece of paper back, tucking it back into his pocket. "Don't know. Should be interesting, at any rate."

Al gave him a reproachful look. "Nii-san, you're not thinking of-"

Digging up some incomplete Stone? Just to have, lying around? Some spot behind his lungs twinged, a halting and weak echo of ache he'd never forget. It could hardly be called pain though; it was more the faint ghost of nausea a person felt when they'd gotten sick off hard liquor a few days before and someone mentioned the heady aroma of gin.

Ed swallowed. That was really too good of a comparison, actually. Time to think about something other than gin –

"No." No, he was done with amplifiers, at least the alchemic kind. He'd nearly died. He'd lost control of a large reaction, for the first time in his life, because of the damage he'd suffered from it. And he was pretty sure he simply wasn't as . . . skilled wasn't the right word. He didn't have the same capacity to channel alchemic energy anymore. He felt it, now, every time he transmuted.

It was a wound. He'd damaged something inside, and it wasn't healed. Maybe never would be.

He hadn't pushed it, either, not since that night. Five months ago, and he could still feel it.

Ed sometimes wondered if Mustang felt the same way. Or Armstrong.

He didn't dare ask them.

He was afraid they would say yes.

Edward felt his brother looking at him, but he didn't meet his eyes. "I think it's better to leave that buried."

Al was quiet as they exited the main building, both walking toward the small faculty parking lot. Generally speaking, they were not on shift the same nights, not because of their other obligations, but because someone had gone down the list of certified alchemists and split them into four shifts. Since their names had been side by side, they obviously weren't on the same teams.

But it worked out. One could drop the other one off, and that way whoever was working got to come home to dinner already made, or at the very least they didn't fight over the shower.

"Want me to come with?"

Ed shook his head, slipping into the passenger side of the car. "It'll be fine, Al."

The car rumbled to life, pulling smoothly out of the parking space, and Al guided it down the winding drive. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone? Did my class riot?"

Ed silently thanked him for the distraction. "No. Milo was pulled in to take over, and apparently butchered the notes. You'll probably need to give them a review next week." Then he frowned. "And they're not the only ones that'll need one."

He caught Al glancing at him again, and he sighed. "Sorn skipped class again. If I find him working outside of his assigned shifts, I'm going to kick his ass."

He was such an overachiever. Certified at fourteen, too. Franklin was a genius, but being a genius didn't excuse you from class. After all, he didn't have to put up with a commanding officer like Colonel Bastard had been. Ed himself hadn't been excused from missions just because he was brilliant. This little shit wasn't going to get any more leeway than he'd gotten.

"You know, not everyone bonds by beating on the other," his brother observed, with a definite hint of amusement.

"Who needs to bond?" Not that the kid wanted to. He wanted them to tell him how to make a Stone, that was certain, but after their initial conversation during Mustang's inauguration, he hadn't seen any evidence that the boy was trying to buddy up to Al any further. "And honestly, he's the least of my worries. At least when he skips class, I can be sure he's not determining the easiest method to freeze the city sewer system."

He heard his brother snigger, and he couldn't keep the grin off his face. The fact that Midgail had admitted so straight-faced that he was trying to do just that, as a method of domestic warfare –

As if the military was interested in a device that would cause all the commodes in a ten block radius to back up. Even though it would so obviously cause panic in the streets.

"Did he succeed?"

Ed chuckled. "He did, actually. He found a combination of chemicals that start an endothermic reaction when combined with sodium. Basically reduces all water in the area to ice. He even gave a demonstration in class. Just touched the solution with his bare finger, and it turned to an ice cube almost instantly."

He found it interesting that all the alchemists in the room had found the reaction cool. As if they couldn't also turn water to ice with a touch. But they had to introduce alchemic energy, whereas this used the energy of heat around it. The alchemists had the same reaction physicists had when they witnessed transmutations.

Both sides of the equation, alchemy and physics, had something to bring to the table. He was glad things were really getting into swing in the Academy. So long as Hakuro didn't interfere too terribly-

But who could blame him, when one of the results of this expensive educational process was a system to freeze commode pipes everywhere.

It didn't take them long to circle around the library, and Laboratory Five, or what was left of it, was just behind, cattycorner from the prison. Which was, somewhat terrifyingly, still in use despite the damage that had been done to it. He wasn't really sure all the inmates that had escaped during the fighting five months ago had been recaptured.

The government had had other things on its mind.

"Thanks for the lift."

Al nodded, giving him a slightly measuring look. "Sure you don't want me to stick around?"

He sighed. "See you later, Al."

"Need a ride home?"

Edward shook his head, closing the door and speaking through the open window. "I'll catch a ride with the relief."

It wasn't long until Al had pulled away, leaving Edward Elric standing on some cracked pavement beside gray, dusty buildings and gritty memories. The previous crews had done a good job; unless he really paid attention, he couldn't detect the faint tingling on his skin, the only physical indication of the radiation.

Of course, being slightly more talented than the average alchemist, he knew that didn't mean the area was decontaminated.

He clapped his hands and knelt, causing a fifteen-foot high column to shoot out of the ground. He didn't really need to elevate the entire thing to ground level; he could already feel that the materials weren't resisting him.

So the first crew had dug down far enough. At least on this spot.

He spent the next half-hour covering the half-block in a grid of his own, taking 'samples' of the ground to determine where the highest concentration of still-contaminated matter could be found. Every last one caused his chest to twinge, that same reminder of what he would feel if it he overdid it.

And none of them seemed easier than they should be. If there was any Red Stone, it was buried quite deeply indeed. Or he wasn't committing to large enough transmutations to detect it.

And none of them gave him any more indication than the first one had that there was any remaining feedback to transmute out of the rock. He made a mental note to figure out who was on the team before him and commend them for their thoroughness. They'd done a fantastic job.

He'd covered half his grid, and was almost getting bored, when his next column came up five feet short.

Edward didn't feel any resistance in the materials, either. In fact, it felt as though there weren't enough materials to transmute the usual fifteen feet of earth, and that was silly. Because of course there was enough material to transmute fifteen feet of earth. He was using the earth.

Curious, he clapped his hands, attempting to rearrange all the concrete particles ever so slightly. The act of touching them all would give him a mental 'picture' of the structure of the ground beneath him, and –

And some of it was missing.

Edward remained there in a half-crouch, debating his options. If some of it was missing, that meant there was a space beneath him. It could be anything. The street hadn't settled despite the lab's collapse, perhaps? One of the rooms had remained intact? It was part of a tunnel between the laboratory and the prison?

If that was true, it wasn't on the schematics. And could theoretically be used by the prisoners to escape.

Not that any of them had utilized it, that he knew of. Then again, maybe this was where the missing prisoners had escaped to . . .

That thought sobered him considerably. If they'd somehow become trapped in that tunnel for five months –

Then there'd be nothing left but corpses. Even if they'd turned on one another for food.

Ed felt another uncomfortable roiling in his gut, and he grimaced, staring over the prison at the orange cast to the sky. The sun had already started to set. If there were going to be bodies to recover, it would be easier to get the proper equipment set up in the light of day.

Of course, he could confirm that, so at least they could start first thing in the morning . . .

Making a face, Edward clapped his hands together once more, transmuting a neat stairway directly into the side of the tunnel. He added on a skylight a few feet down, just to give him some light, and waited for his chest to start hurting.

It didn't. Nor did a blast of tingling radiation come up at him.

He stood, taking the stairs slowly, but the rock had been transmuted solidly, and had not been terribly difficult to mold. Because of the angle of the setting sun, his skylight wasn't helping matters much, and Ed risked another transmutation, sucking all the phosphorus to the surface of the walls. It gave them a yellow, waxy appearance, and very soon began to glow a faint green.

They illuminated a perfectly cut square hallway that went beyond what little light he'd managed to create.

The air seemed stale but breathable, and his transmutations had briefly made it smell of dirt. Ed glanced down the hallway in both directions. There were no electric lights on the ceiling, nor places to hang lanterns or torches. No pipes, and the floor was rock, not concrete. No vents, either. The fact that it was as wide as it was tall was a little weird, too. He'd never seen a corridor like it.

Edward took a tentative step forward, towards his skylight, and as his footsteps echoed unevenly on the stone, he realized something else.

It was stone, not concrete, but there were no seams. The rock hadn't been laid. It was all a single piece.

And that was impossible. The only way to get such a complete piece of stone was either in a mine shaft in a mountain, or through transmutation. Central was just broken up rock thrown on top of the city that had fallen beneath it, so he was certain he was not walking through a limestone shelf.

This wasn't built to ferry prisoners to laboratory five.

It was built for another reason.

Edward continued down the corridor, moving to his north, away from the prison. Periodically he brought more phosphorus to the surface, lighting his way with its eerie green glow. He would be in deep shit if someone followed him down that stairway with a torch, but so long as he was careful he doubted he'd gathered enough to spontaneously combust.

Then again, it was eating oxygen for that reaction, and there weren't vents –

Regretfully he brought his hands together, transmuting himself another skylight. Dim, reflected sunset poured down the wide shaft, almost dazzling in comparison to the glow of the phosphorus. So when he saw the glint, he assumed it was just visual purple.

A few blinks failed to remove the fragment, and with the stirring of the air his transmutation had caused, he caught a scent-

It wasn't just one glint. It was a pair, close together, a bright yellow.

Eyes.

Edward took a step back, preparing to transmute a staff, but the eyes never moved. Never flickered. Just watched him, soundlessly.

" . . . easy . . ." Not that he'd expect a possum or a raccoon to answer, but what sort of creature could it be? Did moles have eyes as big as a human's?

. . the tunnel did lead directly to Laboratory Five. And there was no telling what Shou Tucker might have left down there.

He took a deep breath, but the eyes didn't so much as flicker. If he wasn't careful, they were going to disappear, and it was far too dim in the tunnel to make out that distant shape –

Ed clapped his hands again, and opened a skylight right above it.

His depth perception was a little off. The square of light opened just on its head, laying flat against the floor between two enormous paws. Grotesque, misshapen fangs hung visible beneath curled lips, and the rat-like nose was turned upwards. The light fell on brown-gray fur, a veritable mane of it, and hinted at the huge bulk behind what was visible.

A chimera.

It had apparently been sleeping. And he'd just woken it up.

The reek of death came to him more strongly, and Edward hardly dared to breathe. The thing was huge. It was easily going to be five feet standing, from ground to shoulder. He wasn't even sure what had been transmuted together, only that if it was indeed preparing to pounce, it could probably cover the distance faster than he could get back to the stairs –

Yet it didn't growl. Teeth were exposed in a silent threat, but that was it.

Unsure, Edward took a cautious step forward.

Nothing.

Edward waited a moment. "Stay?"

It didn't respond at all to the sound of his voice, echoing weirdly in the tunnel. The square shape of the corridor, his brain supplied. It made the sounds reflect unfamiliarly.

He took another step. And another.

The stench of decay was getting stronger.

"Are you dead?" Not that he expected an answer to that, either, but even if the chimera had died, it had been recently. Its eyes were still round and open, not wrinkled and dehydrated, and the visible gums were still a very pale pink.

Or maybe that was just the setting sunlight.

Slightly emboldened, Edward continued to approach, until he was within a few yards of the beast. He heard no breathing but his own quick, shallow inhalations, saw no motion but the tips of the fur twitching slightly in the wind tunnel his skylights had created.

When had it been transmuted? Who would have done it? Had it been living down here all these months, having escaped the laboratory? But what could it have been eating all this time . . .?

Edward transmuted a spear, and even with alchemic energy crackling so near it, the eyes never wavered. They were large, and brown tinged with an odd green. This close, he was certain a rat was involved, and judging by the paws, a large dog or wolf, but what had given it such a great mass . . .?

Still cautious, Edward gave the chimera a poke with the lance, slightly cutting the upturned nose. The head shifted just enough that the eyes were no longer catching the light the same way, but that was all. When he withdrew the tip of the spear, it was smeared with blood, but little to none dripped from the wound.

So it was dead.

Edward approached closer still, holding his breath against the stink of decay. Obviously this dead beast wasn't causing that smell; it wasn't bloated enough. Whatever it had last been eating was the more likely culprit, and that was probably just behind it.

But what could it have been eating? Prisoners? Had there been so many chimera and human sacrifices in Laboratory Five that there would be a plentiful enough food source for them all? Something this massive could easily eat a human being a day.

There was no way this chimera was from Tucker's time in the laboratory. This poor bastard had been transmuted much more recently.

The question was why. And by whom.

Who would want to transmute chimeras of this size? Who could? Tucker had had great success, but he'd also had access to the incomplete Stone-

Which, incidentally, was probably the substance this mining tunnel had been designed to extract.

Edward took a deep breath and immediately wished he hadn't. It didn't help to clear his head, and it didn't change the conclusion he'd made.

Someone had mined the incomplete Stone, using the restoration work as their cover. And then they'd tested it, to see exactly what it could do.

Whoever had done this had also gotten rid of the dangerous feedback. That was why they'd done such a bang-up job. They had to go fifteen feet underground because that was where the incomplete Stone was.

All he had to do was look on the duty roster to figure out who was responsible for this.

Edward peered past the huge corpse, but it really was impossible to see what was causing the stench. He wasn't sure how far he'd traveled underground at this point, so opening yet another skylight so close to this one was probably not a great idea. Edward was in the process of pulling more phosphorus together when he heard an odd scrabbling noise, almost like distant pebbles rolling downhill in a coffee can.

And then he realized where it was coming from.

The chimera's left paw moved.

Edward let out a very undignified yelp, leaping backwards as that paw raced towards him. He was already in flight by the time he realized the brown fur shooting for him wasn't the paw, it was something that had been beneath it –

A rat. A big fat rat.

But his transmutation had completed, and the green glow showed him the size of the great chimera. And behind it.

Bodies met his gaze, in various states of rot, most with meat still clinging to their bones. Some were obviously birdlike, their pale skulls offering huge gaping holes where eyes had once been. Others had long faces, a little like bovines, and there was obviously another like the one he'd first seen.

It was too late to stop the retreat, and Edward curled into a ball, letting his momentum roll him over onto his feet, spear still in hand –

And the metal tip lightly brushed the wall of the corridor.

Edward didn't even have enough time to duck his head. The metal scraped the exposed phosphorus just like one would strike a matchhead, and the ensuing reaction spewed pillars of flame out of the skylights, climbing fifteen feet into the air.

- x -

Author's Notes: Okay, so no gunfire! I am such a liar! I felt so bad about leaving out the promised explosion in the last chapter that I felt compelled to add it. (That and the lovely JChrys totally ragged me for it ; ) So now you know why it wasn't in the last chapter – way too long! It takes me for freakin' ever to get to anything. So consider this a continuation of the last chapter, rather than a chapter of its own, and in that case, HAH! I kept my promise! You got your explosions, and next chapter will have gunfire.

Really!

Would I lie to you?

(On purpose?)

Not beta'ed, but read through. I think it should be safe. As always, if you see anything amiss, let me know! I think I'll clean them all up properly all at the same time, and then they will be FINISHED! In . . . twentychaptersatleast . . .