WHAT IF I TOLD YOU

THIS WASN'T ZAKURO

Well, you'd say "Whatchou talkin' 'bout, suckah? Only Zakuro would open with such a lame line!"

I would respond, "Yeah, you're right. Zakuro is kind of an idiot."

And then Zakuro would be offended and tell you the reference was 'Thor 2, The Dark World', so the winner was RogueGhost10. Then Zakuro would tell you this chapter's reference is in another dumb omake at the end of the chapter. Then Zakuro would say something along the lines of "ONWARDS AND UPWARDS! TO VICTORY!"

Of Post-Trauma and Planning Wars

"Get away from my son," Roy repeated softly. "Right now."

Edward's scrambled mind could only process so much. He was having trouble piecing together everything that was going on. "Le… Leave me alone…"

The people surrounding him moved back, opening a path between the two Amestrians. Edward hid his eyes behind his bangs and dashed forward, throwing himself at the man who'd rescued him from the probing strangers.

Due to the boy's obvious lack in height, Roy found Edward latched around his chest and shaking like he'd seen a ghost. And judging from his next words, he actually had.

Clinging to the Colonel like he might disappear at any moment, the boy whispered in his ear, "It was here."

Roy's eyes narrowed in worry. He set his arm on Edward's back and suddenly his expression changed dramatically. He let out a relieved sigh, closing his eyes. He felt his own legs trembling with easement. "I'm sorry."

He looked up to the small crowd gathered in the hallway and nodded saying, "He'll be fine. I can take care of this from here. Thanks for helping."

They slowly dispersed and Edward detached himself from his superior as they did. He was shaking violently, looking on the verge of total breakdown.

"Alright," said Roy, a little ruffled. "Come back into our room and we'll go from there."

He started to walk off, but Edward grabbed his wrist. "Wait!"

"Yes? Is something wrong?"

Edward appeared to still be in a state of agitated fear, obviously badly shaken by whatever had scared him. "Don't leave me."

"I'm not leaving you," Roy told him. "I want you to come too."

"I'm not scared," said Edward quietly, attempting a brave face. "I-I'm not sacred. But don't leave me alone."

Roy walked back to him, placing his arm around the boy's shoulder. "I won't."

And he pulled him in tight, walking him over to their room. He sat the young alchemist down on the sofa, then took a seat next to him.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

Edward shook his head. "I can't tell you."

"Yes, you can," Roy assured him. "You're not afraid of it, remember?"

The boy nodded a little, emboldened. "I'm not."

"So you can explain what you saw. And then I'll tell you what I saw."

Edward went on to explain what had happened, how he'd been drawn into the corridor by a knock on the door. He told Roy how he'd seen someone around the corner and had gone over to investigate, but found only a pool of blood. He told him how the monster had teased him and jibed at him, and how it had appeared right before his eyes.

By the end of his explanation, he was shaking uncontrollably once again and looked absolutely terrified. Hoarsely, he whispered, "A-am I going mad, Roy?"

The sentence struck fear into the Colonel's own chest, leaving him briefly speechless. After a couple of seconds, he shook his head. "No. I severely doubt it. You're just going through a rough patch. We both are. I know that sometimes, when you've done things like we have, bits come back to you…"

He put an arm around the boy once again. "You'll be fine. I'm sure of it."

Just then, a fleeting memory drifted through his mind and it clicked.

That's it… The things Edward and I are both being tortured by… He smirked, but it was out of a kind of distressed dread. Oh, he is good.

Edward closed his eyes, blowing out a calming sigh and rubbing his head. He looked to be a lot less shaken now, as he were finally managing to sort himself out.

Claudio's preying on events that happened in our pasts. Events that caused us a lot of pain, physical or emotional. In Edward's case, both. What he's doing is cruel, but effective. What he's doing…

Roy released his grip on the boy's shoulder and he laid back on the couch, his metal arm on his forehead and his flesh one hanging off the side.

…is inducing…or perhaps aggravating…aggravating… He couldn't do it. Couldn't finish the thought.

Hughes had mentioned it once, a few weeks after Ishbal, but had quickly dropped the subject after seeing Roy's snappish attitude towards it. He'd heard the term tossed around in the base, even heard it from Eastern Command's own psychiatrist at one of his mandatory visits.

He'd always managed to dismiss it, always evaded the subject, and the man had agreed that it was unlikely. But that might just have been because Roy still hid so much from him. And now, perhaps he didn't have a choice but to face up to the possibility.

What Claudio is doing is… He clenched his fists and looked to Edward. Seemed like he was almost asleep. …bringing post-traumatic stress disorder to the surface.

As much as he hated to admit it, it had always made sense. The nightmares and bad sleeping, the feeling of regret, avoiding the topic, his tendency to not concentrate on occasion…

He sighed and closed his eyes, shaking his head. It was even worse recently. Flashbacks, panic attacks, over alertness and sensitivity…

The situation just got worse and worse. With every symptom he checked off, the fear in his chest grew heavier and heavier. This was the thing that had been niggling in the back of his mind when Edward…

Edward.

He looked again at the boy, who opened one eye and met his gaze. How shaken up he must seem.

Edward had always had nightmares, Roy knew this as a fact. He had trouble getting to sleep at night, this was obvious too. He'd had flashbacks on one occasion, and perhaps again just then. He was always irritable, always avoiding the point of his human transmutation. He'd admitted to blocking out bits of the event. And over the last few days, his condition had worsened the same way Roy's had. It was noticeable now.

The way he startled so easily, his sudden despair for the future, his emotional instability and now this. All of it pointed to one cause.

Roy broke his eye contact with Edward and let out a moan as he put his head in his hands. How had he missed this? He was missing a lot of things. He must be losing his touch.

Or his mind, a darker part of him added.

"Is something wrong?" asked Edward in a weak murmur.

He couldn't bring himself to voice his suspicions to the boy. Not yet anyway. It was hard for himself to take in, let alone Edward.

What would Hawkeye and Alphonse say if he told them? What would she have to do about it?

"I'm not feeling so good," Roy lied. "I'm going to see Tyrell."

"Oh." Edward frowned a little. "Will you be gone long?"

"No." Roy flicked his wrist and handed his hidden knife to the boy. "There. Keep that on you."

Edward fingered the little blade before setting it on the coffee table at his side. "Alright. You be careful though."

"I've got my gloves," Roy assured him. "I'll be fine."

As he locked the door and went out into the corridor with the intent of asking Tyrell what he made of it all, a thought struck him. What was the original reason he'd come running back? That's right, because Tyrell was with the enemy.

This triggered a flood of thoughts.

What if it wasn't a flashback?

What if it had been induced?

What if it was an illusion…created by a skilled shaman?

He made his way briskly down to Tyrell's room, forcing the door open and stepping in without knocking. "Right, shaman, what did you do to him?!"

He failed to find any trace of Tyrell at first, but then he caught a glimpse of white hair in the corner.

The boy was hunched over with his forehead against his knees, a sandy poncho thrown over his formal clothes. He looked to be shaking.

"Tyrell?" Roy called, suspicious. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a glove.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to do it." His voice was quiet and hard to distinguish.

"You…" Roy shook his head. "Get up and come over here. I want a word with you."

"I'm sorry!" he cried, voice wavering. "I really didn't want to hurt you, but he made me! He made me do it! I'm sorry!" He lifted his head up, and Roy saw tears streaming thick and fast down his cheeks.

"Tyrell, what did you do to him?"

"I-I cursed him," the teen choked out. "Prince Claudio made me do it. He threatened my family. I didn't want to do it, I really didn't, I swear, I never wanted to hurt you! I don't see why we're hurting everyone anyway! I don't want to be his spy…"

Roy narrowed his eyes. "So it was you. This whole time, you were giving him information on us."

Tyrell nodded, sniffing. "Yes. And I'm so sorry. Claudio had most of the information on all the others, because we have bases and infiltrators in most of their countries, but you were impossible to get at. What files we did find on you were useless. So in order to find your weaknesses, Claudio employed a group of bandits to stop your coach. Then we'd be on the same coach, and I would be able to get as much out of you as I could in a confined space."

Roy listened as the boy continued to unravel the elaborate scheme, sobbing and wiping his eyes.

"After they'd completed the work he'd paid for, the bandits turned on Claudio and tried to attack the coach, but you stopped them. Your panic attack on the journey was a perfect coincidence - it gave me all the information I needed. I then told Prince Claudio, and he used it against you. I kept working on you, picking out every fact that I could until I realised…"

He stopped, letting out a sad laugh. "…that I liked you. Edward was the first person who ever called me their friend, and you were always so kind to me. I didn't want to keep hurting you, so I tried to tell Edward what was going on, but the Prince saw right through me. He… He…"

"He choked you, and threatened that he'd do the same to you as he'd done to your father," murmured Roy. "We saw. You couldn't tell we knew?"

"You never thought of it directly." Tyrell's violet eyes filled with tears again as he shook his head. "My dad was sick of always being pushed around by the King of Aerugo. He tried to break away, to ally with Amestris, but the King had him…had him…poisoned…" He let out a hacking sob. "His life's hanging in the balance back home. All the shaman say it's unlikely he'll make it. Claudio and his father are the only ones with the antidote to save him, so I have to do as he says… He has it here, too. A full bottle of it. He uses it to bribe me…"

Roy let himself go slack. Tyrell obviously wasn't going to attack him. "He beat you up as a child, didn't he? It would explain why you act the way you do about him."

The teen nodded. "He did. And only recently, he told me to step it up a notch. Their army is going to be here to take over in a couple of days, maybe less, and he wanted all the threats out of the way. So he brought me in, told me to help him get rid of the last threats. You and Ed. He thought he'd have you out of the way fast, and he had no idea about Edward. He didn't consider him a threat until he saw you both fight the other day… He told me to make Edward so weak he couldn't fight anymore. I tried to protest, I really did; for the first time, I said no. But he…" Tyrell's voice had begun to shake again. "He said he'd have everyone in Orato wiped out if I didn't."

Roy didn't think his hatred for Claudio could exceed an twelve on a scale of one to ten. But hey, it had just hit twenty-three.

"So I cursed Edward, made him have a nightmare that would scare him so bad he'd have nothing else on his mind than his deepest, darkest fear. Then I could read it…and…and use it against him…" He sobbed a few more times. Numbly, he whispered, "So that's what I did. I made him see what scares him the most."

Roy's dark eyes flicked over the scene. He looked around the room, searching for anything suspicious, but found nothing. Evaluating Tyrell, he decided that from his body language, there was no way he was lying. Everything the boy said was genuine, as was his pain.

"I'm so sorry," Tyrell whispered. "I never wanted to hurt anyone. And I can't even imagine…what you've had to suffer through…because of me…"

Roy looked away. "It was hard, yes, but Edward and I are better than that. We aren't the type of people who'll just give up the second something goes wrong."

"I figured," said Tyrell, smiling a little. "That's why Claudio's so fixated on you. Everyone else was easy to break, but you… You refused to succumb."

Roy gave a single nod. "Edward is the same. But he's younger than I am… What you're doing could easily scar him permanently." At least, worse than already… "Can you remove the curse?"

Tyrell nodded, wiping his eyes with his wrists. "Y-yeah. Just bring him here, and I can get rid of it."

"No," said Roy, walking over to the boy. He flinched as if expecting an attack. But the Colonel just held out a hand to help him up. "You come to him. You owe that to him at least."

The teen nodded. "I guess I do."

He took Roy's hand and rose to his feet unsteadily. He gradually regained his balance and offered a crooked smile.

"Something funny?" Roy asked warily.

"It's just that I was supposed to be the one breaking you down," he explained. "But I think the situation's been flipped."

Roy nodded. "The world has a tendency to do that."

After Tyrell had grabbed his curse-breaking supplies, the pair made their way down the corridor to Roy's and Edward's quarters, walking slowly to accommodate the young shaman's shaky legs. Not for the first time, the Colonel wondered why Tyrell's hair was so white. Maybe everyone in Orato had white hair. Maybe it was a bloodline trait of the royal family. He knew that all the royals of Kambei had an odd birthmark on the underside of their wrists.

"I bleached it," Tyrell mumbled, making Roy jump. "Everyone in Orato and most of Aerugo has the same dark brown hair. I tried to stand out a little."

"I see." Roy stopped before the door, fumbling about in his pocket for the keys. "And Edward's a blonde. I'd like to say my hair's actually blue, but it really is just black. I guess it stands out back home though. A lot of blondes there."

"Black would stand out in Orato too, I guess. It wouldn't offend my mother as much as white either," Tyrell said thoughtfully. "I should dye my hair black." He paused. "I really am sorry about everything. Giving Claudio all that information, making Edward see those things… I didn't want to hurt you."

"That's foreign affairs for you," Roy said with a shrug as he finally shoved the key into the door. "These things happen. Don't worry about it. I understand what's going on - I know people who've been in your situations."

He patted Tyrell on the head as he pushed the door open. "It's Edward's forgiveness you'll have to worry about receiving."

Tyrell looked at his feet. "I don't know if I can admit what I did to his face…"

Roy nudged him with an elbow. "You might not have to. Look."

Tyrell glanced up, puzzled. "Hm?"

Edward was standing a couple of feet away, leaning against the couch with his arms folded. "You seem to forget the doors aren't made of marble."

"I'm really sorry!" Tyrell burst out. "Please forgive me!"

Edward gave him a wary look. "Why did you do it? Just…why?"

"Claudio was blackmailing me," Tyrell explained quietly. "My father was poisoned by his father and Claudio has the antidote. He used that to bribe me into spying on you, and then he told me to torture you into weakness. I said no, but he threatened my entire family and country. I'm sorry, I really am. There wasn't anything I could have done. I tried to tell you, but… Well, you know how that turned out."

Edward seemed to be at conflict with himself. His pokerface was solid, but as usual, Roy saw the turmoil in his traitorous eyes. The boy could hold the longest grudge over the tiniest thing, so all Roy could do was hope that the small streak of empathy Edward hid deep in his heart shone through.

Please, Ed, don't do this to him, he thought to himself. I don't think Tyrell can take much more.

The young alchemist's eyes narrowed and he stood forward off the couch. He stalked towards Tyrell, looking angry.

"We gave you our trust," he said softly. "What you did to Roy was cruel and dangerous."

"Edward—" Roy tried to interject, but Edward cut him off by raising one hand.

"You put both of us through hell, your own friends," he continued. Tyrell looked down at his bare feet, on the verge of breaking down again.

Edward halted before the shaman, and a second later his thunderous expression shifted to a semi-sympathetic smile. "It must have hurt. Sorry we put you through all that."

Tyrell's eyes widened and he raised his head. "Y-you mean…you forgive me?"

"M-m-m…" Edward squirmed a little. "That might take a little time, but I think so. I mean, you had to hurt us. Two new friends over parents, a brother, sister and an entire country? I understand your choice."

Roy let out a sigh of relief. Thank god you're not entirely an insensitive prick.

"So we're still friends?" Tyrell asked hopefully.

"Heck, why not make friends with the enemy?" Edward said with a shrug and a grin. "Sure."

He held out his balled fist and Tyrell bumped it with his own, laughing in his relief. "I was worried you'd hate me."

"If you didn't have a reason like that for hurting us I'd have punched you right out, but I think we're good," Edward told him. "And for the record, you should keep your hair white. It's unique."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at Roy. "And now you've given me an idea. How would you like it if I coloured your hair to match your uniform?"

"How would you like it if I coloured your skin to match your cape?"

"Okay!" Edward raised his palms in mock surrender. "No blue hair for Colonel Dramaqueen!"

Roy glowered, and the slight tremble in Edward's hands caught his eye. This reminded him of his original reason for bringing Tyrell along.

He cleared his throat. "As you probably gathered from what he said behind the door, Tyrell needed to curse you to do what Claudio ordered. If I'm not mistaken, there's a black mark on your arm he needs to remove."

Tyrell blinked. "You know about curses?"

Roy shook his head. "No. I just noticed an odd mark on him that wasn't there before, and what else is it going to be?"

The shaman shrugged. "Fair enough. I'll get to work breaking it."

On Tyrell's instructions, the trio moved down to the bedroom, where he pushed everything away in a corner except for one bed, which he placed right in the dead centre of the room.

"Okay," he said, rubbing his hands. He directed Edward to lay down on the bed with his arms outstretched. "Now, breaking a curse like this takes a lot more effort than putting it on, so this might take a bit. Edward, just relax and try to not be bored or panic. Roy, sit over there in the corner and be useless."

Roy let out a yelp and fell to the ground like he'd been struck. He dragged himself to the corner and thumped down, sniffling and mumbling to himself. "I'm not useless…am I? No, I'm good for a lot of things… Yes… Yes, I am… I make a good candle…or a strategist…or even a paperweight, if you like… I can sit on my paperwork and stop it blowing away… No, actually, I'd prefer it blew away… Which makes me a useless paperweight!"

Tyrell closed the blinds on the window, casting the room into near-darkness. He set up the area around Edward how he had been taught, placing five candles in a ring around him and joining them up in a complex pentagonal design using a kind of ribbon covered in some kind of foreign text.

"This looks a lot like a transmutation circle, the kind we use in alchemy," said Edward warily. "You're not going to transmute me, are you?"

"Shh!" snapped Tyrell, but shook his head nonetheless. He pulled out a feather quill, long and luxurious, and dipped the tip in an ink well. "Fantara minzunona nima," he murmured. "Give it the power."

He moved over to Edward and began to write on his arm. He circled the black curse mark three times around and then continued to draw another complex pattern about four inches across on the boy's arm.

He used his free hand to push Edward's head down each time he tried to look.

Roy continued to angst in the corner, looking up on occasion.

Tyrell then marked Edward's palms with an odd symbol, both flesh and metal. He did the same to the tops of his feet and his forehead, before drawing up a sixth and final mark on his collarbone.

"By the way," he said. "This ink doesn't wash off."

"What?!"

"Kidding, kidding. Now shush."

He used each of the five candles to light a stick of incense before snuffing each flame out. The incense burned thick and strong, clouding Edward's head and making him feel sleepy.

Roy excused himself at this point, complaining that incense was too strong/made him feel sick/gave him a headache/gave him trouble breathing/didn't smell nice/made him dizzy.

Edward blinked his golden eyes slowly as Tyrell brought out a small knife. It was silver and curved like a rounded lightning bolt, but the handle was gold. The entire thing was covered in weird markings he couldn't read.

A distant part of him thought that perhaps he was a sacrifice to Tyrell's gods and he should probably get out of the way. But the ninety-eight percent that was thinking 'Hmmmmmm, I'm tired' won.

The one percent that was neither of those was wondering what the Philosopher's Stone smelled like and if he could get Den to sniff it out.

After what seemed like ages since he'd began, Tyrell held out his hand and traced a line of blood on his fingertip. He pressed it to the black mark. Edward would have protested if he'd had the energy or motivation.

To finish the ritual, Tyrell stood behind his friend and raised his hands in front of himself, palms down. "Santara badara uizanana, uopantorana intera kantera," he chanted. "Undo what has been done. Remove the curse from this soul."

Edward felt a sharp stab of pain in his arm, but it was through a haze of drowsiness. "Ow," he mumbled.

Tyrell lowered his arms and let out a breath. "There. Done."

Edward glanced down at his forearm. The black mark was gone. It had disappeared from the centre of the design Tyrell had inked onto his skin, vanished as if it had never been there.

"I was worried it wouldn't work, with your auto-mail and all," the shaman confessed. "But it looks like it did the job. You can scrub all those marks off when you've recovered from the dullness."

He took a couple of steps and collapsed onto the other bed. "All this is taking a lot out of me. I'm exhausted!"

He closed his eyes.

"Roy…" Edward called blearily. "Roy…! It's done…"

The Colonel's face appeared in the doorway. "So I can let all the smoke out?"

He glanced around and stepped inside the room, taking in the apparently dozing shaman and partially paralysed alchemist.

"Hm. I guess I can open a window then," he said. So he did. A couple of minutes later, all the smoke had dispersed, which both pleased the Colonel and revived Edward. Tyrell remained seemingly unconscious, his chest rising and falling slightly as he lay on the mattress.

"Alright," said Roy. He clapped his hands. "That's that solved. Now, a plan of attack is required…"

"'Plan of attack'…?" repeated Edward.

"Yes," replied the Colonel. He decided it was worthless to try and hide the attack from Edward now; there was no time to evacuate any more. They'd be fighting their way out. "The whole reason for this torture was to soften us up so we wouldn't be able to withstand Aerugo attacking Kambei. They're coming tomorrow, and we don't have any time at all. I have to formulate a plan before then and save everyone. Understood?"

Edward nodded, his expression grave. "Understood."

Roy began to pace the room, his hand on his chin. "Hmm…"

"W… Will Alphonse be okay out in the city?"

"He'll be fine. He's got Hawkeye with him. It's us and the other representatives who're in danger."

After a couple of minutes, he shook Tyrell awake. The barely conscious boy suffered through a barrage of questions on the upcoming attack, things like 'where are they attacking from?' and 'how many are there?' and 'what are they armed with?' and 'what time will they attack?'

Once Roy was satisfied he'd gathered all he could from the boy, he called Inuya up to the room and put him through the same.

"Give me a list of every single weapon and fighter the Emperor has at his disposal," he ordered. "What kind of soldiers does he have? Where are they based? What kind of weapon do they use?"

Once he'd drained Inuya, he sent the young man away in confusion and set about creating his plan. It would be a stretch, but if anyone could pull it off, he could.

He had to.

The worked right into the night, drawing up diagrams and battle plans and sketches and doing calculations… Anything he had to do to prevent Aerugo from taking over. This had gone beyond the call of duty now; his quarrel with Claudio had made the matter all too personal.

And now he had another factor to work into the plan; Orato.

He had to make sure the king of Aerugo wouldn't try to take out his anger on the tiny seaside nation by slaughtering Tyrell's people after the battle.

Everything was twisting around in his mind and fitting together like jigsaw pieces, each move making his plan more and more effective.

It was two in the morning when Edward awoke.

"Go to bed, Roy," he murmured, motioning drowsily at the other couch. Tyrell occupied the bedroom. "If you keep this up, you'll be too tired to fight tomorrow."

Roy smirked. "I haven't gone through so many all-nighters without building up a bit of a tolerance for late nights. So long as I get a few hours in, two at least, I'll be right as rain. Just watch."

Edward snickered a little at the man's choice of words. "You'd best hope it doesn't rain tomorrow."

Roy's eyes clouded. "I'm honestly hoping it doesn't come down to explosions…"

"Hmm." Edward rolled over and went back to sleep.

After two more hours, he awoke again. This time, he rubbed his eyes and propped himself up on his elbow. He looked across the room at Roy, who was buried in pages and chewing anxiously on a pencil. His sharp black eyes were narrowed and calculating.

"Roy…" Edward called softly. "Get some sleep. You'll exhaust yourself before the battle's even started."

Roy glanced up. He put the pencil down and scanned his papers. Seemingly satisfied, he gave a nod. He organised them all into a pile and sat back.

"I think I've done it," he said. "If I have, this will be the best tactical victory of my entire career so far. I just pray it works…"

"Sure it will," the boy assured in response. "But you'll need energy to fight. So get some sleep already! You look beat."

Roy twitched a little, averting his eyes. He rolled his shoulders and let out a yawn. Suddenly, he looked totally drained. "Nhhhh… I think you might be right."

"'Course I'm right," Edward said, puffing out his chest and smirking a little. "I am a genius, after all."

"Don't get cocky," Roy scolded exhaustedly. He folded his arms and settled down on his couch. "You might think you've got it down and then…"

Edward waited for the rest, but looked closer and saw Roy had fallen fast asleep mid-sentence.

He smiled.

"I am so right."

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOLIO

I DOES THE THING

Okay, I REALLY wanted to update today, so I did! XD I normally wait a couple more days, but last chapter was a cliffhanger, so...

Yah.

I'm going to say it again just to annoy you, but I tried to research Claudio again, and failed again. It frustrates me to no end that I can't just play the game he's in because I don't speak Japanese! All I've seen of him was in a bonus comic at the end of one manga volume and some Google images, and he seemed a little evil, so... I never meant to make him so villainous, though. *le sigh*

Also, I smashed my USB in two by accident! I was really sad! It had my precious, irreplaceable 247 page long word document of funny pics I've been working on for four years on it! I had to replace a lot of stuff, and I lost so many gifs and my science games where I can blow everything up too... Such sadness... *sniffles* I have an new USB now, and it's teeny. It's black and red too, so it's like an Ed USB.

I'm forgetting to mention something again... Oh well. C'est la vie~!

There's a hidden Hetalia reference in that chapter somewhere... I'm going to Oz Comic Con this Sunday, and I hope I get to see Todd Haberkorn and maybe even Benedict Cumberbatch if I'm lucky... No one guessed my cosplay last chapter, that was Ed... I bought a cool shirt with the Amestrian military crest on it that says 'Amestris State Military', it's cool... Let Me Take A Selfie is on the radio... I am the King of Procrastination, I did all my English, Maths and SOSE homework the night before it was due and got good grades... Yeah, that's like, everything that happened in my life since the last update.

REEVEEOOW RAYSPONSAYS:

Do a Barrel Roll: No face kicking here, sadly, but the finale involves A WHOLE DAMN LOT! YEEUH!

NorthernMage: ALL OVER THAT TYPO LIKE THE DUST ON MY MATHS TEXTBOOK.

MadManWithATimeTravellingBox: *shudders also*

sierra. steinbrecher: ZOMG! I didn't realise the site thought your username was an address! It kept taking it out! Any time in the response bit of previous chapters where it just says ':', that was meant for you...

FlamingFlyingFoxOfDoom:I like to torture them both ways at the same time... *pokerface meme* I LOVE MOMMY!RIZA. THAT WILL DEFINITELY BE IN HERE. It was in my last story, too.

Zangetsu50: A couple of my other fics (Freezing Cold and Pack Animals) have a good bit of Riza as Ed and Al's somewhat mom, but Freezing Cold really needs a facelift. I'm working on fixing my mistakes. So, there are a few stories under my favourites that are like this, but there was one called 'The M-Word' that was really Parental!RizaEd. 'Dailies' also has a lot of mentions of it. If that's not what you wanted, try searching Ed and Riza with family in the filters. Cool?

Gothic-Romantic99: Thanks for your reviews! They were awesome!

Victorious-Mind: Not long to wait~! I have a question by the way; is Turkey in Europe or Asia? It's confusing like South Ireland being more north than the North and Australia being so west, it's east.

Thanks again everyone for the many AWESOME reviews! They are what I live off, MUAHAHAHA! Well, that and food, water and oxygen, amongst others.

Birthday shoutout to my friend Leggyolo, my other friend loonyluna901, and my other-other friend Hamburger-san! And belated happy mother's day, United Kingdom! Writing some Mommy!Riza to celebrate!

AND HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY! NO PRANKS FOR YOU THOUGH! I'M NICE TOO!

ZAKURO AWAY! *does the thing with the other thing*

OMAKE REFERENCE

"Edward..." Roy breathed, wearing a strange black mask and brandishing a shiny red stick in a crappy cosplay. "I AM YOUR FATHER!"

Edward fell to his knees, spreading his arms wide as he screeched, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

(That was my stupidest attempt at a reference so far...)

OMAKE TWO (Longest effing author note ever)

Roy burst into Tyrell's room. "Alright shaman, what did you do to him?!" he shouted as he looked for the boy.

A man with silver hair sat in the middle of the room, his chin hidden behind a thick scarf. He smiled creepily.

"You will become one with Mother Russia, da?" he asked with a strange accent as Roy twitched and wondered what was with all the crappy omakes and Hetalia references.