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

- x -

He watched impassively as the monstrous form continued to grow, almost impossibly, and after a brief pause, it headed directly for him.

Alex Louis Armstrong had had to stoop quite a bit to ascend the narrow staircase, and the act of straightening as he climbed made his dark silhouette seem even more preposterously gigantic than he already was. The night and the blinding yellow lamps that had been set up to illuminate the perfectly rectangular channels transmuted into the street just made the entire thing more ridiculous. He couldn't help a slight smirk as an enlisted scuttled out of the Strong Arm Alchemist's path with a squeak, and he did nothing to modify the expression as his friend drew closer.

"They were truly brilliantly made," he rumbled, when quiet speech was easy. "I have not seen chimera of that quality in many years."

These were not normal chimera, that just any advanced alchemist could transmute. They were not dogs crossed with chickens, or boars crossed with felines. They were by far the largest he'd ever seen, but then again, as the Flame Alchemist, he'd rarely been ordered to investigate chimera-related crimes.

The military couldn't use a charred corpse. They'd be far better off to send someone more suited to trap the beasts, or strong enough to simply pick them up and carry them away.

Which was the reason, of all the alchemists in Central, that he'd called the Brigadier General.

"So you've seen like chimera before?"

The immense man before him heaved a tremendous sigh as he considered. "Timothy Marcoh could have transmuted these, if he were still alive," he finally admitted. "The Sewing Life Alchemist as well. Though that is impossible."

Mustang just nodded. As far as he knew, Marcoh truly was gone, and had been for many years. Killed by the Homunculus Lust, if memory served. As for Shou Tucker . . . dead by his own hand, sealed in his laboratory fruitlessly training the soulless doll that was his daughter.

Armstrong took the agreement for exactly what it was. "It is fully possible the Winding Tree Alchemist could have done so, with the help of his brother. I have seen them modify many living things to these proportions." The light was to Alex's back, so it was impossible to read his expression, but Roy was pretty sure the other man was watching him for some kind of signal that this line of contemplation was forbidden.

He gave none. If the Tringums were transmuting chimera, there had to be a good reason why.

"Perhaps the Quiet Alchemist could also do so as well, though I would not have expected such seamless results."

Darr Swolls, the man who had passed his certification examination by walking through the pagoda the previous hopeful had transmuted. Literally walking through solid matter. He changed the frequency at which molecules vibrated, also allowing him to affect sound waves as they traveled through objects and gases, or even eliminating them entirely. He could theoretically easily combine two animals, but once returned to their normal frequency, surely they would have died.

Armstrong rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "And of course the Elric brothers."

"General Hakuro is arriving," Hawkeye interrupted with a murmur, from the side. She stood with her back mostly facing them, keeping an eye on the activity and the roofs of the nearby government buildings. She hadn't approved of his coming to the site personally, not at all, and he supposed from a security standpoint it was very nearly unacceptable. Night, they were blinded by artificial light, near the prison . . . half the city knew of the explosion by now, and the site could be approached from any direction. He was asking to get picked off.

Luckily, the best sniper he knew was keeping an eye out for just such an opportunist. It was just too bad she wasn't high-ranking enough to run interference for him where Hakuro was concerned.

The general was going to have a field day with this.

"You say Edward Elric found them?"

Mustang nodded again. The adrenaline that had rushed through his blood at the initial report left him aching to move, to fight, to do something besides stand here calmly and oversee the investigation. He had every right, of course; not only was he the Prime Minister, but he was also directly supervising all State Alchemists. And the initial report had very much made it sound like he was going to be overseeing a military funeral next.

The walls and ceilings were melted. There was no better way to describe them. Intense heat had torn across them, not enough to bind the dirt into glass, but close. If they had been in the path of the explosion, as the report had claimed, it would have meant the corridor had been filled with air at least two thousand degrees. Nothing would have survived it. And the report had also told of the carcasses of chimeras, seeming to agree with that assessment.

What it hadn't mentioned was that the chimeras still had skin, hair, and intact flesh. They were singed, true, but the solid carcasses weren't seared, as they would have been otherwise.

That fact had then logically led to the conclusion that the explosion had originated from the walls and ceilings themselves, which had gotten the worst of the heat, rather than the corridor. The condition of the floor supported this. An overwhelming odor of garlic also helped – the trademark of white phosphorus.

Which meant Fullmetal had been transmuting phosphorus out of the walls and ceilings to light up the tunnel he'd discovered. Then, either in the fight with the chimera, or for some other reason, the phosphorus had been given the proper amount of friction to start a heat reaction, and up it had gone. Which meant it was fully possible that Brosh really had seen Edward Elric in the library not twenty minutes later, doubtlessly getting the same information that Roy had checked the moment he'd heard.

Who had been working that grid.

It was nothing short of a miracle that Alphonse Elric had also chosen this night to check into Franklin Sorn. If events five months ago were any indication, he could still trust the more sedate Elric to properly assess injuries and procure necessary treatment.

Once the immediate threat to Fullmetal was gone, there was nothing left to do but stand quietly and let his men do their jobs. Gather data. Assess evidence. And consider what Alphonse had reported.

Not that he had all night. Rousing himself out of his thoughts, Mustang removed his pocketwatch from his right pocket and consulted it.

Twenty minutes to eight.

"I noticed something else," Armstrong spoke again into the silence. "Some of the chimera appeared in far worse states of decay than others."

Roy had noticed that himself. The smaller ones appeared to have been dead for a little while; the most liquid organs had shriveled or disappeared, the intestines had burst long before they'd been burned. He didn't know whether it simply meant someone had been practicing over the course of several weeks, or something –

Something worse than that.

"Colonel, remind me to pull notes on early Lior." Not that he was likely to forget, but he was looking forward to an evening of distraction at the very least, and he didn't need it taking away any more time than it already would.

Alex made a choked noise, and Roy knew he'd made the same leap. The priest there, armed with Red Stone given to him by homunculi, had been observed briefly animating the dead, such as birds. What was Red Stone but Incomplete Stone, and were there not still gallons of the stuff buried deep in the ground here? If someone was testing it by creating such enormous chimera, what was to stop them from transmuting the dead chimera back to life? Or worse, constructing chimera from the dead?

After all, where had these animals come from? The base materials had to have had the same mass as what they were combined into. Creatures the size of horses or bears had to have been involved, and how could such animals have been transported live to such an area as this? Even less conveniently, large animals ate a great deal – and excreted almost the same amount. Keeping them alive once they were here would have been another daunting task on its own. All this without being detected, despite the alchemist presence due to cleaning up the feedback-

And Sorn's report had clearly stated that contaminated matter was present, and was broken down. No alchemist could have lasted more than a half-hour at most in those tunnels with the levels originally on the site. Certainly no one, not even Fullmetal or his brother, could have completed these massive transmutations while experiencing it.

So this happened recently. And those chimera looked as though they'd been dead longer than days.

"Who would do such a thing?" Armstrong's voice was almost wondering. "To what end?"

Another excellent question. He supposed if he were optimistic, he could believe one or more of the alchemists might have been experimenting with creating an army to protect Amestris, should war be unavoidable. More likely, he believed someone was testing Red Stone, and they were caught by Franklin. However the fight ended, Sorn was missing, no human bodies were recovered, and there was no evidence of Incomplete Stone.

If someone had been mining it, and Sorn had caught them at this . . . the boy was either in deep trouble, or he'd taken the Incomplete Stone, believing it to be the Philosopher's Stone, and had gone. Roy knew as well as every other alchemist that had overseen his practical that Franklin Sorn had only one purpose.

The same purpose a boy three years his junior had had when he'd taken the same exam, on the same day, though driven by something so completely opposite they could hardly be compared. In his interviews, no emotion had burned in his eyes, and he had clearly stated exactly why he sought the certification.

He was there for information. Information that only State Alchemists could access. And now that he might have what he thought was the true Stone, there was no need for any more information. No need to continue his servitude to the state.

In which case, sending Alphonse to check out Sorn's hometown and relatives was probably the only way they'd ever find the boy again. At the very least, it could tell them why the young man had wanted a Stone in the first place.

Unlike Edward and Alphonse Elric, after all, it wasn't terribly obvious. As far as he knew, none of the boy's limbs were automail. He had no siblings, bound to armor or not. His application had stated that both his parents were dead, but however unfortunate, it wasn't that unusual. His was the generation whose father could have fought in the Ishbal conflict, and his mother may have simply taken ill, like the Elrics'. Either way, there'd never been any indication that he missed them – or hated them.

But then, Franklin Sorn just wasn't as outspoken as Edward Elric had been. He'd had his share of private meetings with the boy, stringing him along with just enough information exactly as he'd done with Fullmetal. Only Franklin had been older, he was as old as Ed had been when he'd started realizing the big picture. And Sorn wasn't as easy to manipulate as Edward had been, mainly because he was by far the most unemotional and mature fifteen year old Roy had ever clapped eyes on.

So while they had traded some information, Sorn was still a mystery. He knew the kid didn't trust him as far as he could throw him, and knew damn well that he was withholding information in an effort to slow or possibly completely dead-end Philosopher's Stone research. That didn't stop their occasional verbal sparring matches.

Except it wasn't verbal sparring. More like verbal chess, really. The most intense emotion he'd ever seen from the boy had been irritation. He was too focused and driven, and he'd . . . withdrawn from the world at some point prior to his certification exam. He'd been that way the entire time Mustang had known him, and it was . . . disheartening. No matter how brilliant his mind, he was still a child, and children should not be burdened with such desperate circumstances that they would have to seek something like the Stone. Fifteen year olds should be playing ball in the street, not transmuting alchemic feedback out of it.

He was what Edward Elric might have been, if not for Alphonse.

And without Alphonse, Edward would have gotten himself killed a long time ago. If Sorn hadn't won his fight against the other alchemist, he was in very real danger with little hope of receiving help.

He needed to be found, one way or the other.

Alex suddenly spun on his heels forty-five degrees and snapped to attention, and Roy turned his head ever so slightly to his right. Hawkeye was also saluting, though not as crisply, and General Hakuro marched the last few steps with something akin to agitation.

"Do you really believe it was wise, Minister?" His voice was still controlled, considering the audience, and when Roy didn't immediately respond he waved down the salutes. "I should have been informed."

Mustang turned fully to face him, cocking his head slightly. "Ah, of course. My apologies. My security chief is present, and I knew I could not stay long." Which was, unfortunately, true. "I found the initial reports lacking in details."

"I'm not talking about this." The general waved a jerking hand at the activity around the series of holes Fullmetal had transmuted in his attempts to explore the tunnel. "I understand you passed an order to Colonel Mazo to search for the Mechanical Alchemist."

Hawkeye didn't even bat an eye, and Roy arranged a politely confused look on his face. That order had been given less than half an hour ago. How . . . ? Had Mazo told him? "That's true. He was the last alchemist before Fullmetal to work this area and he failed to attend mandatory training at the Academy today."

Hakuro actually had the audacity to appear indignant. "You're usually a little more subtle than that, Mustang."

Mustang blinked before he realized he'd misinterpreted Hakuro's protest. The general wasn't upset that the order had been passed without his approval. Hakuro was upset because Roy had just issued a military order to track down one of the six alchemists on the general's shit list.

Perhaps that was how he knew. Could he have someone specifically listening for calls or orders relating to everyone on his lists? Or just the alchemists? Roy had been expecting the general to gloat about Fullmetal's fuck-up, not to look as though his birthday was under threat of cancellation.

Was the general seriously concerned for his well-being, or just upset his men might get to a possibly guilty alchemist before Hakuro's could?

Not that he could say too much about it, with the Strong Arm Alchemist standing there. The last thing he wanted to do was attract well-meaning but unwanted Armstrong attention. "I don't believe this has any relation to that matter."

He supposed Franklin could have been selling the Incomplete Stone he was mining to Amestris' enemies, but that was such a stretch . . . and unless the next assassin sent after him was a chimera, it could hardly be related to a plot to kill him.

The general didn't respond for a moment, and when he did, his voice was quiet but intense. "Your trust is misplaced." The general flicked a glance toward Alex, but continued despite his presence. "A mistake here could be very costly."

Mustang held his gaze steadily. "I agree."

Hakuro watched him a moment more before turning away in disgust. "I'm turning the site over to military investigations. I'll arrange for more detailed reports to be delivered to you tomorrow morning."

Mustang inclined his head, though he knew the general wasn't looking at him. "Very well. Thank you, Brigadier General," he added, in a friendlier voice. "I appreciate your evaluation, and I'm sorry for pulling you away from your dinner."

"Nonsense," the Strong Arm Alchemist boomed, his serious and quiet tones gone as if they'd never been. "My family has long grown accustomed to duty before recreation. Please, join us. We would be honored-"

Roy felt a genuine smile trying to crawl out, and he let it. Armstrong was good man, indeed. "I'm afraid I have prior obligations."

"Surely none so pleasant as a dinner with three generations of the Armstrong family!"

He thought that over for a moment. Three Drachman 'ambassadors' trying to seduce him, or the two Armstrong generals and the brigadier general.

Hmm.

"Of course not," he responded smoothly. "But as you said, duty before recreation."

"Prime Minister."

His gaze flicked back to Hawkeye, already moving away to-

To meet with what appeared to be an out-of-breath Heymans Breda.

He started for them immediately, hardly surprised when both the general and the soon-to-be general followed him. He was hoping the fool hadn't actually run all the way from the main Parliament building, which was over a mile. He was supposed to be resting, on light duty, without being tied to a damn desk for god only knew how many hours working on that effing list for Hakuro –

The colonel had already caught up to him, and the man looked very much as if he wanted nothing more than to grab his knees and catch his breath. He had run the entire distance. There was never a time that the slightly portly major had been a master sprinter, but the man shouldn't have been winded over this.

He shouldn't have been running, dammit. He shouldn't have even been on duty.

"-want to know as soon as it happened-"

The colonel, ever composed, merely stood beside him, apparently oblivious to the fact that he hadn't saluted her, and in an excellent position to catch him if he collapsed forward. "Please, major, slow down-"

"Boss!" Heymans met his eyes directly, but his entire bearing was so damn apologetic-

Roy wondered what his own expression looked like. He immediately moved forward, clapping a steadying hand on the shorter man's shoulder and blocking him from the general's direct view. "What is it, Major?"

He gasped a few times, but thankfully didn't start coughing. "Just a few – minutes ago. Right into your office. No idea how they did it."

Office. They. "Who, major?"

Breda shook his head, taking a moment to gulp down another breath. "I don't know. Thieves, I guess. Only thing they touched was the safe."

Another deluge of adrenaline, the second of the evening. "Which safe?" There were two, though not many people knew that-

Heymans choked down another gasp. He wasn't getting his wind back as well as he should have. "The little one, boss."

Shit.

"Was it emptied?" The 'little' one, as they referred to it, was a precious treasure indeed. It was actually a gift, in a way, from the late Johann Irving, and one Fullmetal. After his automail 'armor' had been rendered unable to be transmuted with one of the Fusing Alchemist's compounds, it had been melted down by Edward's automail mechanics and adopted family and turned into an untransmutable safe. It was also quite sturdily made, with an excellent locking mechanism. It was quite possibly the least vulnerable safe in Amestris, save its size. The thing was almost impractically tiny, and as such had contained very small things. Arrays, notes, a spare set of gloves, the key to the city-

"No." He managed a deep breath this time, and for the first time he seemed to realize that Hakuro was there, because he paused. "Well, yeah. I mean they took the safe. They opened it, dumped the contents on the floor, and took it. It's gone."

He kept his hand on the major's shoulder, though he wasn't sure Breda needed it, and caught the colonel's eye. "Get on the horn. I want to know where those ambassadors have spent every second since we left." He next turned on Armstrong. "I'm sorry, Brigadier General, but I need to ask you for another favor."

Alex stepped forward smartly, astutely remaining silent rather than launching into another reassuring lecture.

"Please return with the major to HQ and determine whether anyone got a good look at the intruders, and can give a description." As much as he prattled on about the Armstrong artistic traditions, passed down the family line, it was a fact the man was capable of almost photographic portraits. If anyone had even seen a figure, a height, Alex could work with it. And at least that way it didn't sound as much like the escort order it really was.

He knew Breda had figured it out though, because the man tried to protest, but Alex rumbled a greeting to the other soldier, effectively cutting him off even as Mustang turned to glare back the way they'd come.

So all this was no more than a distraction?

Hakuro followed his gaze before approaching, taking the retreating major's place in front of him. He took a breath to speak, but moment after moment passed without sound. When he finally broke that silence, it was with the same quiet voice he'd used earlier.

"Still believe there's no alchemist involved?"

He didn't bother to look at the older man, preferring to study the tunnel entrance, almost wishing he still had his damaged eye. When he'd looked out onto the city with it, he could see the worst. Could see all his mistakes.

Now that it was gone, it was getting harder and harder to make them out.

"Of course."

Beside him, the silver-haired man snorted. "What are you up to, Mustang?"

"A dinner party," he replied truthfully. It was probably five till, or possibly even eight. There was a chance he was late to the evening meal requested by the Drachman representatives. And considering this was their first night in Central without Tolya, it would be rude to leave them waiting.

"We're all being such good puppets, after all. Why tangle the strings until we have to."

- x -

"Give me a hand?"

It was probably the closest thing he was going to get to an apology, and Alphonse Elric heaved an exaggerated sigh and pulled himself away from a fascinating treatise on herbal remedies to give his brother a long-suffering look.

Edward replied with narrowing eyes, and Al gave up and stood, crossing the library to where his brother was standing in the doorway, utterly unabashed, clad only in his trousers and armor. He was juggling what looked like the eviscerated remains of an entire aloe plant with one arm, and held a large glass of water in the other.

Knowing his brother, those were peace offerings. Voluntarily doing what Al was going to make him do anyway; rehydrate and give his burnt skin a little attention.

And despite his appearance and apparent lack of concern for the fact that he was using someone else's belongings, Al knew damn well that Ed was never going to make himself comfortable enough in Franklin Sorn's home to ditch the 'automail.' Probably not ever, but certainly not with the court-martial and the random gunmen. If there were burns under there, they'd have to tend them when they got home.

Hopefully Winry had thought of chimeras, underground tunnels, and extremely hot phosphorus reactions when she'd designed his armor, and chosen metals that didn't conduct heat efficiently.

Oh, shit. Winry.

He hid his grimace well, convincing himself he could feel the weight of the letter tucked safely in his vest. Maybe there was a chance he could do both. Follow Mustang's order, and help Granny Pinako. His first lie seemed to have passed without Ed's catching on, but things were getting far too complicated to keep up for long.

Al kept his thoughts to himself, accepting an outstretched leaf. Ed had already stripped the sides of thorns and slit the gummy, oozy cactus-like plant into two strips of soothing, cooling comfort. He didn't know why Franklin Sorn might be cultivating aloe plants, but one thing was certain – they owed him one after this. Nii-san had literally gutted the entire thing.

And given how angry his skin looked, they were going to use most of it.

"Found anything yet?"

Al peeled the leaf apart, trying to keep the aloe goo on the flesh of the leaf as he slapped it flat onto his brother's chest. Ed's midriff looked red but okay; his upper chest and neck were starting to sport small swollen areas that, upon closer inspection, were cozy clusters of tiny blisters. It was a wonder he still had clothes.

It was a wonder he still had hair. And unless Ed was wearing that slightly glassy-eyed look because of the feedback, he was also pretty sure nii-san had sustained himself a decent knock to the head.

Not that that had ever had much effect before . . .

"Well," he began, carefully massaging the vitamin-rich gel into his brother's sore skin, "I found a lovely document on ancient herbal remedies." Which had included something very like the recipe Dante had been using to treat sensei's internal damage, among other, less tasteful afflictions. "Which says tomatoes are highly acidic and half of one is enough to kill a grown man."

"Did he write it or just have it?"

"I think he just had it." He'd only had about twenty minutes to look over the notes, but the handwriting was unfamiliar and the ink lightened with age. Or careful alchemy. "Too soon to know if it's encoded."

Ed just grunted, not so much as flinching as Al worked his way into one of the raised clusters.

"I've read the novel up to chapter three, where Dwight and Missy have just found themselves trapped in the basement of a dilapidated building. They fell through the floor, and the stairway is too rotted to hold their weight. And a thunderstorm is rolling in."

He didn't need to look at his brother's expression; the only reason Sorn would be writing a child's adventure mystery was the same reason Edward and Alphonse Elric had kept such detailed travelogues. There was no doubt something was encrypted in those pages, though on first glance it seemed so simple that it couldn't possibly have been Franklin's work.

"Are there more chapters?"

"Not that I've found, yet." He left what remained of the first half of the leaf stuck to Ed's chest, and took the other half from Ed's outstretched hand. "Keep drinking your water."

"What else?"

He waited until his brother had finished taking a swig before he added, in an offhand tone, "Well, toward the bottom of the stack was a book from the First Library, with a bunch of handwritten notes in the margins. He got the algorithm on the original attempt at transmutation. Not that it helped," he added as an afterthought, as the skin beneath his fingers suddenly tensed. "Mustang didn't publish enough of it to be of any use. He also worked on the Xenotime travelogue, but he didn't figure it out completely. I'd say he didn't put much thought into it." Not if the doodles were any indication.

"Our notes." Ed's voice was that dangerous, withdrawing tone, and Al ignored it, continuing to smooth the gel over the reddened shoulders in front of him.

"There's also some math . . . it's a physics worksheet, and it's pretty damn complicated. He might be skipping class because he's way beyond what we're covering."

Ed made a grumbling noise.

"So tell me about these chimera."

He worked his way slowly around to his brother's back, taking the next large leaf from the collection Ed was still holding. His back was about the same as his front; his shoulders and the nape of his neck were burned worse than anything else. There were only a few places that would need repeated attention. It really wasn't as bad as he'd feared.

"They were dead when I found them."

Well, that was a relief . . . except-

"If they were already dead, why'd you blow the phosphorus?"

He watched his brother's shoulders swell as he sighed. "Rat."

It wasn't much of an explanation, but it was enough. "A rat? You mean, a rodent? Not some kind of rat-wolf hybrid?"

"Yeah, a rat," he repeated, a little heatedly. "The place was dark, it was chewing on one of the chimera and came right at me-"

Al shook his head. "Don't tell Winry." Rats and zeppelins. She'd never let him forget it.

"Wasn't planning on it," he retorted, then his shoulders fell slightly. "Hey, did you get a letter . . .?"

Al nodded before he realized his brother couldn't see him. "What do you want to do about it?"

Ed turned his head slightly, giving Al a better view of his ears. The tops were blistered quite nicely. It was a wonder nii-san hadn't noticed yet.

"I think Doc Patterson would take a trip down there if we aske-HEY!"

Al grinned as he finished gooping aloe onto his brother's right ear. "That's right, I almost forgot. You always did hate wet willies."

"Your fingers were huge! And leather! And you always used too much water!" Ed seemed at a loss for further protests, because he immediately switched back to the subject at hand. "I'll ask him tomorrow morning."

"You know she could just refuse to be seen." Not that he figured she would. Pinako Rockbell was many things, and stubborn was at least three of them. But if they sent her a physician directly from Central, and with Winry knowing him personally . . . but then again - "I mean, he's not the most . . . uh, forceful individual." And she . . . well, she was.

He felt nii-san's spine shiver as he gently slimed the other ear. "Eugch. No, he's not, but Winry is. I think it's a better plan than trying to get her here. The train's not smooth enough." He shook his head, as if it would dislodge the feeling of the cooling gel on the tops of his ears. "Used to hurt like hell after getting my automail adjusted."

That was a fact Al knew well, and he just made a noncommittal noise as he returned to his brother's shoulders. "So, dead chimera?"

"Yeah. Some deader than others." Al could almost hear the gears turning. "If Sorn didn't transmute them, then some other alchemist had to have been down there a week minimum."

He supposed it was possible, but unlikely one would have been able to do so without being detected. If the chimera were as big as nii-san was claiming, then what were the original ingredients? And how were they kept? In that tunnel? What about food and water? Or waste? "How big was the tunnel?"

Ed shrugged, hissing when his sudden movement caused some of his skin to scrape against Al's fingernails. "Ow, dammit! I don't know. I'm sure someone else has figured that out by now, though."

"That was your fault," Al pointed out, easing a little more gel into the area he'd accidentally scratched and taking yet another leaf from the dwindling pile Ed was still holding. "You should have reported in before you came here. Mustang was worried."

"Was that who was on the phone?"

Whoops.

"Yeah." Al moved up to the skin just beneath Ed's hairline, knowing he loved to have his upper neck massaged and it would be a good distraction. "He needed to know about that vial." Then he changed his voice, making it purposefully more forceful. "I figured I'd just be leaving a message, then who should answer the phone but Colonel Hawkeye, with the most interesting question on whether I'd seen my brother, who managed to blow himself up-"

"Shut up," his brother growled, without much heat. "I stopped at the library, which is close enough."

So that was how he knew who had last worked the grid. And when Brosh had caught sight of him. "They said Denny thought he'd seen you after the explosion, but they were still worried. Sent Havoc to the house and everything."

Ed snorted. "I'm fine-"

Al gave him a companionable slap on the shoulder, grinning when his brother's head turned slowly to give him a deadly glare. "I can see that. Give me another leaf."

Ed complied, and Al tried to wiggle a finger beneath the faux 'port' on his brother's right shoulder. He wasn't able to shift it very far, and couldn't tell if the thin strip of flesh he could see was red because it was burned, or because he'd just scraped it.

"Does that hurt?"

"Not really."

It was just going to have to wait, then. In actuality, it was probably more protected than the rest of him had been. "What about your legs?"

Ed shifted his flesh leg with a whisper of fabric. "Just the outside, and not bad. I'll take care of it later."

Nii-san could easily reach his own legs, and there wasn't much he could do about the knock to the head, so Al just smoothed any remaining gel flat against his brother's skin. "This stuff should be dry in a couple minutes."

Ed took that as an indication his torture was at an end, because he headed towards the desk, depositing all two strips of remaining aloe leaves on a parched-looking bookshelf along the way. Al was pleased to see the large glass of water was empty, and couldn't complain much when his brother plopped down in the desk chair, picking up the first piece of paper that caught his eye. He wasn't leaning back, so it wasn't as if he was going to get aloe on the furniture.

"Do you really think Sorn transmuted them?" Nothing on the desk, or in any of his classwork, had indicated Sorn was interested in biological transmutation. Just the opposite, really; he loved machines. Almost as much of a gearhead as Winry, really. He supposed it would make sense that Franklin could, since the human body was no more than a complex biological machine, but why? Just to test the Incomplete Stone?

But if so, why in the hell had a car full of men with guns come to visit him? Why would he bury contaminated matter beneath his own house?

Edward was already deep into the treatise on herbs, but after a long delay he roused himself enough for a reasonably coherent reply. "I don't know. Easiest way to find out would be to ask him."

Well, didn't that just fit neatly with his orders. "You know," he said thoughtfully, after a pause of the appropriate length, "that's a good idea."

For a moment, nii-san didn't register the words. "Eh?"

"He wants a Stone."

That got Ed's attention. "Do you actually know that?"

Al shrugged. "He was pretty damn interested to know how we transmuted one. And he'd been pressuring Mustang before we came back. I don't think all these notes have been made in the last sixth months, nii-san. There has to be a reason. I don't think his working that grid and these chimeras are a coincidence." At the very least, working towards a Stone and being sought by men with guns made sense, vial of Craege Irving notwithstanding.

Edward frowned, actually setting the document down to concentrate more fully on him. "Al-"

"Take care of your burns, nii-san. And remember to talk to Dr. Patterson tomorrow."

"Al?"

He threw his brother an innocent look, even as he crossed the library. The place was basically in order; they'd transmuted all the bullets out of the walls and repaired the foyer, and even used the lead slugs to encapsulate the vial of contaminated materials. It sat heavy and dark in the fireplace of the living room, and even at the door to the hallway he couldn't feel the feedback. "Don't worry, I should be back in a couple days."

"Do you even know where you're going?"

Trust his brother to be thinking along the same lines. "I'll check his records." Even if Franklin had done what they had done, burned his home and left his birthplace, there would still be evidence of him. Mustang was right; whether or not Franklin was working towards a Stone or just a victim of someone else's scheme, they weren't going to find him until they'd figured him out. They knew the student Sorn, they knew the Mechanical Alchemist, but they didn't know Franklin.

There had to be someone in his hometown that would know if something horrible had happened to him. There would be evidence of some event, some memory that could explain why the boy needed a Stone so very badly. And if not, perhaps a person that had come through his hometown in the recent past, asking about him. Perhaps several. With guns.

With nii-san pretty much camped out in Sorn's house, if the kid was guilty, it wasn't like he was going to return, and if he managed to escape some predicament, he'd need protection. Ed would keep his ear to the ground in Central. If Sorn was still in the city, nii-san would find him.

And if he wasn't, one of them needed to start tracking him.

"I'll take the first train tomorrow morning. Cover my classes for me?"

He received a dirty look in return. "I see how it is. Gallivant around the country while I get stuck with all the work."

Alphonse Elric rolled his eyes and stepped into the hall. "Don't stay up too late." He wasn't badly concussed, so there were no worries on that front, and besides, if he went to see Patterson tomorrow like he said he would, the doctor would know immediately if he truly needed bedrest or not. "I'll call you tomorrow night."

He got a raised hand by way of a farewell, and his brother was already buried in the next document before Al got to the front door.

- x -

Author's Notes: I hate this chapter. I don't know why, but I think I rewrote it about ten times. Nine of them voluntarily; Word got et this morning and I lost a couple pages. Ah well. There are a zillion mistakes, and I found half of them. Apologies for the mistakes! Next chapter, we have . . . you know, I have no idea. Next chapter is a surprise! And it'll tie back to chapter one. :hint, hint: ; )