"You and me both, young Alchemist. You and me both."
Had it been his imagination? Had Katsumn really said that? More importantly, if she had said that, what did she mean?
"Ed!"
"Ah, what, Al?" he asked, snapped out of his stupor.
"I said that someone's coming. Something is coming our way from Central."
His eyes narrowed. "Wake our strongest. I'll fetch Katsumn and Ling." he ordered.
Silently, he ventured into the trees. "Katsumn!" he called quietly. "Katsumn!"
"Behind you. What's the matter, Edward?"
"Someone is coming, and we aren't sure if they're good or bad."
Hearing the soft padding of her feet, he followed her. There was a loud bang and a huge fire-ball, and they picked up their pace. "That was from about where you had been sleeping! Since I'm on first watch, I saw you coming!" yelled Katsumn.
"Edward! Over here!" Terios yelled, waving. They both ran over to where the ex-prince was crouched. "All we know is that a person with long hair and a fat person went into your tent. There was an angry snarl and someone snapped about you not being there. We cleared all of our other troops out of there, but I'm not sure if they're Homunculi or not." he explained.
"I think they are. The two you described sound like Envy and Gluttony, two of the Homunculi." he nodded.
"Homunculi?" snickered Katsumn. She was trying desperately not to laugh. "I... I'm sorry! But a long time ago, when... when the Invisible Warriors first claimed their islands... there were at least fifty invincible warriors living there already, and their wounds would regenerate! And here you are asking us to do that again!"
"Dammit!"
"Yeah, that's Envy. Hey, Envy! Over here! Why'd you come after me? After all, I'm only an insignificant Alchemist!" he yelled, standing up.
"Our father sent us to apprehend you, your brother, and your teacher. How convenient that you're all in the same place at once!" Envy sneered.
Katsumn stepped in front of him. "You're kidding. I thought we'd killed these two way back when. I guess they must've been incredibly distant relatives or something." she smirked, her eyes half-closed. She took a deep breath, taking out her twin swords. "At least... with the smoke and flames, I'm more in the battle-element." she said softly.
"Gluttony?"
The monster lunged at Katsumn. She stood, watching him lunge at her. At the last second, she jumped. They both landed, seemingly perfectly okay. Then Gluttony collapsed, screaming. Katsumn looked unsatisfiedly at her hand. "You ripped my skin." she said, sounding upset.
"Skin?..." he wondered. Then he saw the metallic glint.
Part of her skin was stripped away, hanging off her hand. Through the gaping hole it left, he could see the shine of auto-mail. "I guess I can stop hiding it then. Edward filled me in on what has been going on. How you're looking for sacrifices, ones that committed the taboo. You could say I'm one of those sacrifices. I lost my hands, so they were replaced with auto-mail." Katsumn said softly, her voice dangerous.
"What? Then why haven't you used your Alchemy?" Envy sneered.
"I'll take that as a challenge!"
The ground buckled beneath the Homunculi, tossing them into the air. "See? I just don't want to become too dependent on it. So that makes me virtually untouchable to you."
"Why is Katsumn trying to make them angry?" hissed Izumi.
"She's drawing their attention away from us."
He, Al and Izumi all jumped. One of the Invisible Warriors was behind them. She strongly resembled Katsumn. The only real difference was her hair and eye-color. Whereas Katsumn had brown hair and green eyes, this girl had orangy hair and blue eyes. "Sorry. I'm Katsumn's daughter, Nmutua. She's keeping them busy while we get into position."
"Position for what?" asked Terios.
There were two loud explosions. "Now!" Katsumn yelled, standing between the two Homunculi as they started to regenerate their bodies. He realized that Katsumn had blown them both up, and as the warriors started to bind the regenerating monsters with thick silver wire, he figured out the plan.
"I see! Since they're regenerating and you're tying them up, their own new skin will keep them bound nice and tight!" he said to Nmutua. She nodded. "So that way, you can keep them here and alive!"
"Yes. You're very clever, Edward. Now we have captured two of the... How many Homunculi exist in Amestris?" she asked, turning to Gluttony.
"There's seven of us." he answered innocently.
"Idiot!" Envy snarled at him.
"Thank you for that information. Gluttony, Envy. So my guess is the others are... Greed, Lust, Sloth, Pride, and Wrath. The seven deadly sins. In excess, any one could destroy a man, but you need them all to live." nodded Katsumn.
"You're a very smart woman, foreigner." came an older voice.
"Bradley!" cried one of the Briggs soldiers.
"Hey... is that Seleim? Seleim Bradley is a Homunculus?" he cried in shock.
"Very observant, Fullmetal. I am Pride, the first Homunculus." Seleim said. "You've been stirring up quite a bit of trouble, haven't you?"
"I'm no longer Fullmetal, so don't call me that!" he snarled. He then gasped as a long shadowy arm wrapped around his. "So, that's your ability? Shadows?" he cried.
"Warriors! The lights!" ordered Katsumn, making a cut-throat gesture.
"No you don't."Bradley said coolly, slicing down one of the Warriors. "I'm afraid you can't do that."
"Mother..." said Nmutua, standing behind Katsumn.
"Yeah. I know. His patch. Beneath it is his Ultimate Eye. If we can eliminate that, we stand a better chance." Katsumn nodded.
"Oh, so you're observant humans, aren't you?" Pride said sweetly.
"Pride, Wrath! You can't kill her, she's a sacrifice!" Envy yelled.
"That complicates things a little, since she's obviously a formidable force. Tell me, how did you acquire your rank?" Wrath asked Katsumn.
"By blood, right and conquest. I am the half-daughter of the former emperor, I am right, just and treat my subjects as equals, and I won the battle with all other contestants for the throne. But you? It was handed to you on a silver platter. You probably don't know the first thing about being a ruler." Katsumn taunted.
She and her daughter smirked. "Now!" they both yelled.
The camp erupted into chaos as the Invisible Warriors, Xingese, and Chimeras leapt into action. Pride and Wrath fought back fiercely, somehow freeing Gluttony and Envy in the process. He nodded to the Briggs soldiers, and they as well joined the fight.
Yelling fiercely, he jumped at Pride. Without looking, Pride cast a spear of shadow at him.
"Pride!"
"What did you do?"
He stared in horror at the black spike in his midriff. he had been stuck straight through!
"Lights!" screamed Katsumn angrily. Several flash-bombs went off, blinding him. He felt the piece of shadow in his stomach dissolve, and he fell into warm arms.
"Nmutua, Piccaru, Joa, Hi-Yah! Help me!" Katsumn yelled. He was carefully carried a distance away from the fighting. The Warriors laid out a clean sheet that he was set on. "Hold this in your mouth." ordered the empress, shoving a folded white rag at his face. Groggily, he took it in his mouth.
"Hold him. Careful." he dimly heard Nmutua say.
He was about ready to pass out when he felt something invade the hole in his gut. He clenched his jaw on the cloth against a scream of agony. "Hold him! Hold him, hold him tightly! Don't let him thrash around!" yelled Katsumn, again thrusting her hands into his gut, a needle and thread in her hands.
"Mother, behind you!" screamed Nmutua.
Katsumn ducked, and he suddenly felt something soft and warm on his chest. "You cut my binding." Katsumn said through clenched teeth. He saw that her earlier flat chest was now round and perfect, almost like Strawberry's.
"What do you think you're doing to Fullmetal? Making him scream like that."
"I'm healing him, now get away before I hurt you, Wrath. To heal his wounds now, I need to sew up his internal organs and clean him up. I can't do that hanging out like this. Not easily, anyway!"
Wrath was kicked away, and two Warriors came and quickly tied a long white strip around and around Katsumn's chest, binding her chest up tightly while she again dove into him. He screamed again, not even bothering to try and hide it with the rag. He strained against the Warriors holding him, trying to thrash around. "Stop! Stop!" he pleaded, tears streaming down his soot-streaked face.
"Sorry, but if you want to live, that's impossible, Elric!" growled Katsumn, her teeth clenched, sweat rolling down her face. One of her hands whipped up. "If you are one of the Homunculi, you'd better make like a rug and beat it!" she snarled, taking her hand down and back to his interns. He screamed again, straining even harder to break free.
"No, I'm the boy you're operating on's father." came a familiar voice.
"Ho-Hohenheim!" he gasped before passing out.