I don't own.


When Alphonse came to it was black.

"What-"

Before he could even finish the word, Alphonse felt something hit his right cheek.

Something hard.

Hard enough to rip right through his jaw to the other side. He felt the blood splatter,

"Hack!"

Alchemy buzzed, and Alphonse momentarily saw his environment… a windowless room, with only two chairs and a door at one side.

"You killed him!!" Al's eyes immediately recognized the voice.

"Gah!!" Ed's face passed by in a flash as Alphonse felt the body slam down onto the concrete, breaking quite a few bones.

Every break, every spill, Alphonse could feel the damage and repair.

It hurt, at first, but the pain was gone the next second as the stone started to work.

Was this how every homunculi felt when they died multiple times?

Edward didn't give Alphonse time to react. Another hit, this time something sharp, stabbed through the middle.

"You killed Alphonse!!"

"Wait-Hagh!!"

A hole through the face.

"You destroyed his blood seal!!"

A hole through the heart.

"I'll KILL you!!"

Alphonse had to find a way to talk to Edward, before the philosopher's stone that powered the body was used up.

"Damn it, Brother!!"

The buzzing Human Alchemy showed Ed's face again.

Alphonse would have gasped if it didn't lose him precious time he didn't have.

Edward's face was contorted in anger, so much that Al would not have thought it was his brother if not for the voice. Al had never seen Edward angered so much. This was pure craziness, lunacy.

"Don't call me that!!" Blood spattered over Ed's face.

Alphonse, trying to recover from losing one eye from the punch, cried out again. "Wait!! Agh!!" Alphonse hit a wall.

"Edward Hohenheim Elric!!!"

The rain of punches, kicks and stabs stopped.

"Wha…"

Trying to stare at Edward through the dim light of alchemy, Alphonse remained still.

"Ed!! I'm Alphonse!!"

Ed shook his head.

"No-Al-Al's blood seal-"

"I'm Alphonse Trisha Elric!!" Edward gasped audibly.

It was wrong, both knew it. Alphonse didn't have a middle name.

But it was one that he and Ed had made up when they were little, when they were making fun of Edward's middle name.

"Please!! Just listen to me! Before Pride takes me over!"

"Ah… uh…" Ed's voice cracked. It was obvious he was trying not to break down. "No- it can't…Al… he…"

"Ed, please," Alphonse prayed, prayed to a god that Edward would hear him. "Just listen to me…"

Edward nodded, then realizing that Al… the other … thing couldn't, voiced his approval.

"Could you turn on the lights? Please?" asked the young voice. It was so… similar to Al's. It was so… tempting to believe him.

"How do I know you're not going to kill me outright?" Edward asked, groping his way to the light switch.

"I swear on Nina's death."

The light went on.

There was a shuffle from the outside.

"I have flash bangs," grumbled Edward, "if this is a trick, you will die before your shadows reach me."

Alphonse ignored the snort Pride let out in his mind.

"Thank-EeAARGH!!"

The scream was bloody, murderous.

Fire burnt through every part of the body, blinding Alphonse and Pride in pain. They could dimly hear Edward shout at someone at the dark corridor outside, but then the fire became stronger.

"What are you doing, Fullmetal, you said he uses shadows-" Mustang glanced sideways, gasped, and turned back towards the sin.

"I thought you –"

Interrogating? What was he thinking … Of course Ed would lose control.

"Damn it, and you told me I was out of it that time." *

"You were…" Ed muttered, pulling Mustang's outstretched hand down, "then."

Alphonse felt the body flop onto the floor, the smoke rising and covering the ceiling as it searched for a way out.

"Get out, we're fine,"

Mustang didn't move. "No."

"Get out, Bastard!"

"I'm not letting you kill it in revenge!" Mustang shouted, slamming the door. "You stopped it from me, I'm not letting you walk the same road!"

Mustang almost killed in revenge?

"Leave!!"

Alphonse, having been restored to normalcy somewhat, slowly rose up, leaning onto the bloodied wall for support.

"Please, sir… leave us for awhile…"

Mustang merely looked at him in disgust. It hurt.

"You don't have the right to speak, Pride."

His heart hurt.

"I'll need to hear this from him anyways," Mustang leant against the door, and gestured Alphonse-Pride-Selim to sit on a stool. "I stay."

Edward glared at the man, but took a seat, motioning Alphonse – Pride to sit as well. "Idiot Bastard."

"Stubborn Pipsqueak."

"Talk," said Edward, crossing his leg, wiping the blood on his face and ending up smudging it further.

Alphonse sat down like he usually did: back straight, legs 90 degrees, fists on knees, facing straight forward. The other two seemed to notice.

"How do I say this…" Alphonse re-organized his thoughts briefly. "I am Alphonse, and I am Pride… as well."

Silence fell.

Just when Alphonse felt uncomfortable in the silence, Mustang stepped forward, Edward clapped and placed his hands onto the floor.

Another stool appeared.

Mustang calmly nodded his thanks, to which Ed ignored, and sat down on the stool.

"Start from the beginning, when you two were first trapped."


By the time Alphonse had finished his story, the room was transmuted back to its original shape, with four windows and a hole in the ceiling to let the smoke out.

Edward was leaning on his knees, hands holding his head as he tried to process the information. Mustang sat between Al and Ed, gently massaging his head as he tried to get his voice box to work.

"Damn it… This is shit load of…"

Alphonse shrunk back. "I'm sorry…"

Mustang smiled at him. "Don't be… how did it happen?"

"… I don't know…"

Edward lifted his head, looking at Alphonse- no Selim- no Pride – Alphonse in the eyes. It wasn't angry anymore, but it was almost… sad… relieved?

"Can you get Pride for us, Alphonse?"

"No," Al shook his head, "if I let go of the control, he'll kill you guys."

"Can you ask him about-?"

"We talked about it as well, he… doesn't know."

Both Mustang and Edward sighed.

Al then realized that for the first time, Ed and Roy were not … fighting each other.

Did something happen while he was in the dome?

"This is getting really complicated…"


Alphonse had at last come out of the room. People were staring, mainly Roy's crew, who knew/know that Selim Bradley was/is a homunculus.

Alphonse kept fidgeting as he walked next to his battered brother.

He didn't notice it before – when he was being beaten – but Edward had his left arm in a sling, bandages around his head going several times over his left eye, a light limp and black and blue bruises covering most of his face and neck.

"I'm sorry… brother…"

"It's… alright." … and the wheeze. Edward must have some broken ribs. Or a concussion.

Alphonse remembered to keep his face neutral when Edward turned to him and smiled.

"So, how do you like it having a body?"

Alphonse smiled as well. "It's … not all that different from a suit of armor, really."

"I don't feel pain, and I don't feel tired," he said, as they reached Roy's new office – the Fuhrer's office - "but I do feel things when I touch them and… and I guess I don't die of hunger, but I'd like to have some of Winry's apple pie."

The brothers laughed. Alphonse fell silent for a second, and smiled… grinned wickedly at Edward.

"Pride told me to tell you: 'I hope you don't mind having two little brothers, Mr. Small-Metal Alchemist'."

"Don't make me hit you."

Al laughed. "You can't hit me, I'm your brother!"

"He's right, Fullmetal," smirked Roy from the other side of his desk, still signing away.

"Damn it!!"


Alphonse was surely enjoying the little time they were having together as brothers; even though the body wasn't his, it gave him a little hope of returning to his own.

Of course, a little investigation of why exactly he was in this body would come first, to understand and prepare the process of eliminating the Sin.

Pride muttered something incoherent on the other side of his mind.

"So you see- the others haven't touched your blood seal themselves, you know?"

Alphonse felt like he should feel skeptical. "But Lust- she used her nails-"

"That was with her power, right?" exclaimed Edwrd, his eyes shining and jumping from the text, Alphonse, then the air as he remembered events of the past. "I mean, Pride touched you with the shadows, didn't he?"

"I guess," shrugged Al. He still didn't really get it, but it would come in due time. "So, how are we going to get our bodies back?"

Edward sobered up.

"I got a piece of leftover Philosopher's Stone, I didn't know if it would be enough to get your body and my limbs," said Ed, watching Al's eyes widen. "So I was just thinking of forgetting mine, and just giving back yours for the moment."

"But Brother-!!"

"But now you have one in yourself, containing the Sin Pride in you as well," smiled Ed.

Alphonse knew that the intent was killing was there, though not explicitly, and the intent was not directed at him, but he couldn't help but feel… threatened.

"So if we use that stone-"

"But then that would kill Pride, won't it?"

Ed's smiled faded. "What are you talking about, Al?" he asked, "you're not actually thinking of-"

"But he said-"

"He's a homunculus!" Ed shouted, startling Alphonse. "He may have sentiments, he might have feelings, like Mustang had said about Lust, but he was one of those creatures that look at humans as numbers, resources and worthless!"

"But…But still… That was when the Sins had a reason to-"

"They've done it for years, for centuries!! They've destroyed Xerxes!!"

"I really don't want to have to kill him!" Alphonse exclaimed, jumping up from his seat. "Not while we're in the same body!"

"Al…"

"Can't you somehow at least get me out of here before you decide to kill him?" Alphonse felt his eyes water from frustration.

"So it doesn't feel like you want to kill me?"

He felt annoyed, as when he was an armor, he didn't have to worry about crying in important moments.

Not that he wanted to go back to that body, no.

Edward stood up gently, walked towards Al and wrapped his arms – arm – around his brother. "… Alright… I'll… we'll see about getting another body for you, Al."

"I'm … I'm sorry, Ed…"

The elder Elric made soothing noises as he rubbed his brother's back. "Shh, it's alright, I promise we'll find a way to get you your body back before we kill Pride."

"And your limbs," reminded Al, sniffing against Ed's shoulders. Stupid tears seemed to flow at most unexpected moments.

Edward smiled, and ruffled Al's hair. "And my limbs."

As Edward left the room, bending down momentarily to pick up notes from their previous discussion, reading them as he went.

"I'm… Sorry, Brother," muttered Al, lowering his eyes.

Edward shouted from the hallway. "Don't be, you're just too kind, is all."

Had he heard?

Alphonse followed Edward out to the living room, where he and Ed started having a discussion on how to deal with the now even more complicating transmutation.

"I hope you didn't forget I was here, listening to you two." Pride murmured in his cage, back in the edge of Selim's mind. "Don't think I'll thank you."

"I won't," scowled Alphonse, turning 'away' from the Sin and concentrating on solving the equation in front of he and his brother, "we'll still have to destroy you."

"Not if I have a say about it."

Alphonse put down the paper and picked up another.

"You don't."


Another dark room, Al sighed. It was pitch black, but he knew that right under him, there was a gigantic circle, which will get Pride … no, which will get him out of Pride's body.

It almost felt unfair for him to have to be run out of a body… again.

Edward bumped into something somewhere nearby, cursing as it hit the floor with a crash.

From another part of the room, Ling chuckled.

Ed had asked – yes, asked, not threatened – Ling, the new Chosen Heir of the Emperor of Xing, to supervise the homunculus in the pitch dark room where they will be having the final human transmutation. Roy Mustang and his crew were to be guarding the outer walls, just so that no one would penetrate it unless it was opened up from the inside.

"You ready, Al?" Edward sat down at the edge of the circle, where he'd marked with a small protrusion of a wall. "This circle will first get you a new body… and it will simultaneously get rid of Pride and Selim Bradley."

Alphonse remained quiet.

"As soon as I'm out of here, I will kill you all," said Pride, growling at the back of Al's' mind.

"Not if Ranfan and Ling kill you first," whispered Al.

"Right…" Alphonse steadied himself in the middle, unconsciously stopping his breath as he waited for the transmutation to start-
Clap

The second Ed's hands met the outer circle the runes shone bright red, illuminating the room – a somewhat empty laboratory – in a deadly crimson.

And the pain started.


"HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

Alphonse was blind, the world was white. He felt himself being pulled away by force from the body of Selim Bradley.

Another body formed simultaneously, growing skeletons and muscles, organs and fats – and then blond hair.

The body came alive, where it writhed, its mouth screaming silently in pain as its voice chord formed.

Edward was concentrating on making Al's body as perfect – as much as he remembered and as near as what he would expect Alphonse to look like at his age - as he could that he didn't see Pride crawl over to him and grab his wrists. "What-!" Edward's left hand was bitten by a shadow. "GHRAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

"I'm NOT GOing aLOne, AlcheMIst!!!"

The room's darkness turned into Pride's shadows as the light from the transmutation gave it a source to live. Alphonse, although he was still forming, reached out and grabbed Pride's ankle, stopping it from going out of the transmutation.

"Let GO OF MY BROTHER!!!"

Edward gasped – his metal arm was being shredded to pieces.

Pride was making him take his hands off. He couldn't – Al was still - "DON'T!! THE TRANSMUTAT-" Ed screamed as the light turned a darker shade of red. "THE TRANSMUTATION ISN'T-"

Pride was about to gauge out Ed's eye when he managed to lift Ed's left hand.

Edward only had the amount of time to yell "ISN'T OVER!!" when the circle exploded with power, clouding everything – not that there was anything to see now that the light turned dark – with thick black smoke.

"Young Master!" shouted Ranfan, desperately trying to feel for the Sin – somewhere in the mess.

Ling couldn't sense the ki right, no when the transmutation went wrong and merged all three person's ki's into one big explosion.

"Damn it, I can't sense which is which!!"

The prince and his guard had to stay out of the circle overall, as they knew, by instinct, that interfering with the transmutation at that time would mean suicide.

Another explosion boomed, shaking the whole building.


Mustang had to avoid 4 cartridges of bullets to keep his men (and woman) from entering the room.


* By that time, I mean (SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER) that time when Roy Mustang found out that Envy was the culprit for Hughes' death.

... Two.

Mrawgirl09