DISCLAIMER: Ed Elric, Al Elric, Sergeant Brosh, Lieutenant Ross, Lust, Envy, etc. © Hiromu Arakawa / Marina © author.

Key:

Normal text - speaking/narration

Italics - thoughts

Ch 18: Say Whut?

"Well, I'm glad you've had a change of heart, but since I'm practically dead on my feet I'm gonna go take a nap." A yawn emphasized my point.

"All right then. Come down when you wake up, okay?"

"Yep. Will do." I staggered up the stairs to one of the library's motel-like rooms and closed the door. Flipping on the light, I discovered two people sitting on the bed. One was a woman wearing a green, sleeveless dress, and the other was the palm tree impressionist, Envy. Before I could do anything, Envy blindfolded me, gagged me with a piece of cloth, and knocked me out.

Downstairs, Ed, Al, Ross, and Brosh were discussing Marco's research. Since Ross and Brosh now knew about it, they may as well be included in the conversation. "His research is sound in theory, but even with the inclusion of humans in the forging process, it still never made a perfect Philosopher's Stone."

"So there still might be other methods," Al commented.

"Right, but let's check his method first. I want to see the truth of it with my own eyes.........Wait a minute, truth!" Ed opened the note we had received from Dr. Marco ages ago. "......bottom of the page, like an afterthought."

"You still have that thing?! I thought you threw it away."

Ed continued to ruminate, unaware of his brother's exclamation. "The genuine truth behind truth........of course! He was saying there's still something more!" Brosh laid out a map of Central on the table while the blond continued talking. "According to his data, it takes huge refining equipment to create a Stone. You'd need a massive facility, like a whole complex."

"Well, there are currently four alchemic laboratories running under the military's watch. They're all pretty big..........I know that Dr. Marco was assigned here, at the third lab." The Sergeant pointed at its location on the map.

"No, I already went to all four labs in the city, and there wasn't anything remarkable going on; just a lot of fast-talking bureaucrats."

"Hey, what about this?" Al pointed at something in another area of the map. It was labeled '5th Laboratory'.

"Oh right. There used to be a fifth lab, but they closed it down years ago. It's just an abandoned building now. Apparently there were structural problems, so they made it off limits."

"That's it," Ed declared.

"Eh? What makes you say that?"

"There's a prison next door."

"What about it?" Brosh inquired.

"What was the raw material for the Philosopher's Stone?"

The sergeant thought for a couple of seconds. "Uh, living humans......." He started at his realization.

"There are inmates on death row at this prison, right? So they make it seem as if they've executed them....."

Ross turned pale. "It couldn't be, using prisoners as raw material......."

"Don't make that face! We don't want to think about it either!"

"What now, Brother?" Al asked.

"There's no choice. What do you say we go check out Lab 5 ourselves?"

"Sure."

Ross stood up, annoyed. "Now hold on a minute! From here out, this is grown-ups work. Besides, as long as Scar is loose, you're a walking target. You can't afford to stroll around Central!"

"Yeah? So what?" Ed challenged.

"Let Brosh and me be your eyes on the ground. If we see anything, we'll give you a full report. It's our duty." Ross bowed.

"She has a point," Al acknowledged.

Ed sighed. "All right, I clearly can't argue with you. You guys can take care of it."

"Sir, it's the right choice!" The Lieutenant saluted. "I should probably inform Marina of the new developments."

"Nah, lemme go."

Concerned, Ed went to go check up on me. He knocked on the door. "Marina?" Nothing. He knocked again, harder. "Marina-chan?" Still nothing. Panicking, he transmuted the door open and looked around. I was nowhere to be found, and the only things moving were the curtains, thanks to an open window. His eye caught a note etched into the wall. "Bring the Philosopher's Stone to Laboratory 5 if you want your girlfriend to stay unhurt." He tore down the stairs like a whirlwind. "Al hurry up, we're heading to Lab 5!"

I woke up to the feel of cold––very cold––concrete. My blindfold was ripped off, brutally exposing my eyes to bright light, and the rag was taken out of my mouth. Wiggling a bit, I found that my hands and legs were tied. "Ed! Edward! EDWARD!!!"

"Scream all you want, the Fullmetal Bean isn't going to hear you. He won't even find this place."

"That's where you're wrong. Ed will find me, I know he will."

"Insolence!" Envy smacked me across the face and we glared at each other.

The woman wearing the green dress came out of the shadows, and I noticed the mark of the Ouroborous in the middle of her chest. "Envy, try to keep the violence to a minimum."

"But I can do anything else with her, right Lust nee-chan?"

"Yes, minus the––"

"Minus the violence. Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. " Envy rolled his eyes. "Now can you give us some alone time?" The green haired homunculus leered at me. The woman rolled her eyes and left the room, her destination unknown to me.

Ed and Al snuck out of the library and made their way to the fifth research center. They jumped the fence, found the main entrance to be locked, and discovered that the only way to get in was via a small furnace duct. Standing on top of Al's shoulders, Ed managed to climb in. "Are you going to be all right?" Al asked.

"All right or not, you'd never make it through here with your huge frame. Sit tight, I'll be back in a minute." With that, the blond disappeared into the building.

The suit of armor curled up in a ball, depressed. "It's not like I'm big because I like it that way!" he sulked.

The Fullmetal Alchemist crawled through the vent while musing about his position. "Dammit, this is smaller than I thought! See, if I was normal sized, I wouldn't have fit, and we would have had to call this off. It really IS a good thing I'm so small!" He paused, realizing what he just said. "AHHHH, NO IT'S NOT!!!" Ed kicked a grate open, and dropped to the floor in a crouch. He then inspected his surroundings. "Lights are still on. How do they explain that one? They say they don't use this place anymore." Turning a corner, the state alchemist stepped on a stone slab that sank into the floor. Oh crap.