Why hello! Fancy seeing you all here at the beginning of the third (and last) installment of the AlMei Interconnected Oneshot Collection. ITS THE BEGINNING OF THE END MY FRIENDS... haha...

Sorry if I freaked anyone out if you got a message saying that this was up and then couldn't find it... I did delete the story after I posted it. There were some things that were wrong with it that I wanted to fix and I didn't want people reading the unfixed version, so I just deleted the whole story. Sorry! But it's up again!

This takes place only like a month after the end of ASOH

"Bassdor Night, come in!"

"I hear you, Blond Butterfly."

"They've captured Liwu!"

"Uh-oh. This is getting serious Blond Butterfly. We might have to retreat."

"No! We can't! We have to get the cookies!"

"But the risk! Blond Butterfly, it's too dangerous, I can't let you do that!"

"I can do it, Daddy!"

"Bassador Night."

"I can do it Bassador Night!"

"But Blond Butterfly, you know what will happen to you if you fail."

"I can do it."

"… I wish you luck."

"I don't need luck."

The spy abandoned her communication device and crept slowly down the halls. She was the top spy in the whole world! She would succeed where all others had failed. This was her mission. There was nothing but the mission.

She ducked under a razor that was going to cut her head off and jumped over a laser that would tell the enemy that she was coming. The spy got down on her hands and knees so that she could sneak past the guard who was trying to catch her.

"Bassador Night, I'm past the dragon!"

"The guard's a dragon! I thought it was just a person!"

"No! It's a dragon with big nasty teeth and fire!"

"You'd better be even more careful then!"

"I will be!"

The mission had to go on! A dragon wouldn't stop her! The spy crept forward, staying quieter than she had ever been, eyes fixed on her target. It took all of her strength to push the boulder to the ledge in the cave so that she could climb on top of it and reach the target.

The cookies.

"And what do you think you're doing?"

The spy's eyes widened.

She had been caught!

"Bassador Night! I've been caught!" she yelled.

"Blond Butterfly! Don't give her any information!"

"I won't talk!" she cried out, turning to the evil dragon guard.

"Oh, you won't will you?"

"I won't!"

"Let's see how a bath with loosen your tongue, eh?" The spy's eyes widened.

"No! Not the bath!" The guard's eyes twinkled with evil.

"Yes. The bath!"

"No!"

The guard went to grab the spy, but she was too quick for the guard and jumped off the boulder. She ran past the cages where the prisoners were kept to be tortured.

"Oh no you don't!"

"Save me!" the spy cried out.

"Blond butterfly! Hurry up, I'll protect you!" The spy hurried as fast as her legs would carry her, but the dragon took off, flying through the air breathing fire and caught her in its talons!

"I'll make you talk!"

"I won't, I won't!"

"Your partner's already told me everything!"

"No! Give Liwu back! Stop torturing him!"

"He's on my side now!"

"No! He wouldn't!"

"Yes, he has."

"Noooooo! Daddy, save me!"

"I'm sorry, I'm helpless! You know my powers are useless against her!"

"Save me!"

"Be brave Blond Butterfly!"

"Daddy!"

Alphonse Elric was left on his knees to watch as his daughter was dragged into the bathroom by the monstrous dragon that was his wife.

For having just endured his daughter's torture at the hands at his wife, Alphonse Elric was in a pretty good mood. The seven year old had emerged from her bath twenty minutes later with a suspicious smudge behind her right ear, but with her hair wet and hanging around her in blond strings. She was pouting, but Al was able to tell that she was forcing it. As much as Nina complained about baths, she knew that it really was important to be clean and that it was possible to have fun while taking a bath.

But she certainly didn't want anyone thinking she liked them. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Perish the thought.

He had successfully cooked dinner for the family for the twelfth time in a row. While he and Mei usually took turns cooking, ever since Emily's birth a little over a year ago, he had been taking on cooking responsibilities more and more so that she could get her rest. The entire pregnancy had been very hard on Mei, especially since she had been stuck in her bed since the moment her doctor heard about her pregnancy.

While Al knew that his wife would probably tear his head off for ever calling her any synonym of the word "delicate", and she really wasn't, if there was one thing Mei Chang was not, she was not delicate… but she hadn't exactly been at her strongest since Emily's birth. And having to care for a baby as well as keeping watch over Liwu and Nina… he was more than happy to take some of the burden off her shoulders by cooking dinner.

She had retired early and Al was currently in charge of the entire brood. Nina and Liwu were both working on their homework at the kitchen table while Al sat in the living room with Emily, who was quite fascinated with their cat, Cookie. Cookie was understandably trying to stay as far away from the grabby baby as possible, but Emily just thought it was a fun game and would always stumble after the cat.

"Dad?" Al looked up over the rim of his glasses. He had been reading, though making sure to pay attention to the cat's squeals.

"Yes Liwu?"

The Xingese boy frowned, tapping his pencil on the table and chewing on his lip. "Will you… Will you teach me alchemy?"

Al's eyebrows rose. That was unexpected.

"What?"

"I want you to teach me alchemy." Nina had stopped working on her own homework to stare at her brother. Al felt like mirroring her expression.

Well… Liwu was almost nine. He had been about that age when he went to learn from Teacher, and he had already known quite a bit about alchemy at that point. Mei had been even younger when she entered Master Hishu's tutelage.

He and Mei had never really talked seriously about teaching their children about alchemy and or alkahestry. They knew that if/when they ever did they would make sure to be completely honest with them about the risks and dangers of it. They would do everything they could to make sure their children learned something from their mistakes. But they had never really talked about when they would teach them. It had just never come up before and it just hadn't happened.

"Why do you want to learn?"

"Well I… I want to… I want to be able to do it. To… to be like you…"

Al blinked again. "Liwu…"

The eight year old stuck his chin out, not breaking eye contact. It reminded him a great deal of a younger Ed.

"Alright."

Liwu blinked. "Really?"

"Of course. Are you sure you want to do this though? Alchemy's not easy."

"I want to do it, Daddy."

"Okay. We can start lessons tomorrow if you want. It's a bit late to start working on it today, but we can start on it tomorrow for sure. " Liwu nodded. "Would you rather learn alchemy or alkahestry? Or both?" He would have to talk to Mei about this. He could of course teach Liwu either one, but she might want to get involved in he was more interested in alkahestry than alchemy.

"Both," he answered almost immediately. "If you don't mind teaching me…"

"No, I'd love to," Al said, genuinely grinning now. He hadn't realized how much he had wanted one of his children to take an interest in alchemy. The idea of teaching Liwu excited him. He would start with the basic concept; what alchemy was. That was a concept basic enough that it applied to both alchemy and alkahestry so they would work with that concept for a while before splitting into the differences between the two… Liwu was already familiar enough with the principle of qi so they wouldn't have to spend years getting him to feel it…

"Would you like to join us, Nina?" he asked, turning to his daughter. "I'd be more than happy to teach both of you."

The blond took a lot longer to consider the offer.

"I dunno Daddy…"

"You should at least try it out. See how you like it."

"… okay."

Al grinned again. He found it a bit hard to focus on his book from that point on.

"Why do you want to learn alchemy?" Quyi asked, frowning.

"Because it's really cool! And… I want to be like my dad."

"You mean sitting in boring meetings in court all day?"

"No! I mean someone who can help other people. Dad's an alchemist and an alkahestrist. He's helped people all over the world in Amestris and Xing and in East. I want to be able to help people! And I thought that maybe if I did this… Dad would…" the rest of the sentence came out in a mumbled mash.

"What?"

"Never mind," Liwu snapped, red.

"You don't have to get mad at me, I just asked what you said."

"You wouldn't understand anyways."

"… what do you mean?"

"See? You don't even understand that." Quyi frowned.

"Because I'm an idiot."

"What?"

"Because I'm an idiot. I know. Everyone think so." Now Quyi was mumbling enough that Liwu had trouble understanding him. The Prince was staring at his shoes.

"What? No!"

"Yes you do! Everyone does. I only know how to do stupid pranks and annoy people. I can't use fancy words or sentences like Fu or even do half the things Jun-li can… I'm just stupid."

"No you're not! Only the courtiers think that, and they're just stupid."

"Even Vien is smarter than me."

"No she's not, she's only a baby. She doesn't even know how to talk. Emily's smarter than her."

"Then Emily's smarter than me."

"She's not smart at all. You know a lot more than her. That makes you smart."

"Yeah… right." Liwu had never heard his cousin talk like this.

"Quyi…"

"No, you're right. Just go learn your stupid alchemy." Quyi sat down cross legged propping his head on one hand.

"Quyi."

"What?"

"… why don't you learn it with me?"

"What?"

"Why don't you learn alchemy with me? I'm sure Daddy would be happy to teach you to. He's teaching Nina too, so he'd probably not mind teaching you too!"

"… really?"

"Yeah. Think of all the pranks you could do if you knew alchemy!" The Prince smiled.

"I could…"

"Yeah! And we could practice it together!"

"… okay!"

Liwu grinned. "Should we ask Uncle Ling?"

"… yeah probably. But he's busy…"

"… well Dad's only teaching us the really basic stuff today so I'm sure Uncle Ling won't mind. And if he does then Dad can talk to him."

It sounded good to the two boys.

Al was a bit more hesitant when they came to him and asked him, and Nina seemed a little upset by this new arrival to their lessons, but he eventually decided that the first lesson wouldn't hurt.

"It's only information that anyone would be able to learn picking up a textbook," he told them. "It's information that anyone could learn. But I'm not going to teach you any further until you have your father's permission. I know for a fact that he hasn't had the best history with alchemy and he if doesn't want you learning it, I'm not going to go against him."

"Okay. I'll talk to him when I can…"

"Talk to him today after the lesson."

"But he's busy…" Al smiled.

"He'll make time for you, Quyi. Though, if he seems hesitant about letting you learn, I would suggest promising to hold back on the pranks a little." Quyi grinned sheepishly, but nodded.

"The first thing I'm going to tell you kids, all three of you, is that alchemy isn't for everyone. Some people never understand it no matter how hard they try. Some people understand it really well, but they can't actually perform a transmutation right to save their lives."

"Like Uncle Ed?"

Al paused before answering. "No, not like Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed used to be able to do alchemy. He used to be better at it than me."

"What happened?" Quyi asked, honestly curious. He had been very shy about asking his Uncle if he could join the alchemy lessons, but Al had been more than happy to let the Prince join them, though he did say that they had to ask Ling about it before they got to actual theory.

"That's a lesson for another day. But I promise I will answer that question completely." And he would. That was information that had to hear. It was a story they hard to hear. A lesson.

"But what if I want to know now?"

"It will make more sense if we wait for later."

"Hmm. Okay..." Al smiled a little at Quyi. He was certainly the most curious of Ling's sons. Or… at least the most openly curious. He was sure that Fu was just as curious; he was just far sneakier about how he went about getting his curiosity sated.

"So if you aren't good at alchemy, I don't for one second want you to think that there's something wrong with you. Most people can't perform alchemy. And if you're one of them, obsessing over it will cause more harm than good. I'm not going to continue teaching it to you if you drive yourself mad."

"Okay," Nina said, nodding. Quyi followed her example, and while Liwu hesitated, he eventually gave in and gave a sharp nod.

"Now, can anyone tell me what alchemy is?"

There was confusion.

"What are you actually doing with it?"

"You're changing something into something else," Liwu eventually volunteered.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. Alchemy is when you use energy, tectonic or qi, to change matter. Matter is what everything is made up of. Everything that you can see or touch is made up of matter. My hand is matter. The water we drink is matter. The air we're breathing is matter. When you use alchemy, you can change that matter. So this ground in front of us," he bent down and drew a quick, simple transmutation circle in the dirt, "can be changed from dirt," he activated the array, "into something else." A small earthen cat now stood in the circle.

Quyi's eyes were wide. "Whoa! Do that again Uncle Al!" Liwu smiled, happy that his cousin was impressed. Nina, who had seen it before, was nonetheless excited.

"And we're going to learn to do that?" Quyi asked, eyes still wide.

"That's the idea."

All of a sudden he was alert and ready. Al grinned, remembering another boy just discovering the thrill of seeing something change from one things to another by this magical science.

"Now, there are three steps of alchemy: Comprehension, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction…"

If anyone's confused about the seemingly random Quyi hating on himself in there... uh... to be honest I don't know where it came from? I just seemed like something that would be a serious issue for Quyi, people thinking he's an idiot because he likes to pull pranks and goof around. We all sometimes get these ideas in our head that we just believe everyone accepts as fact even if they're totally not true and we're the only one that thinks other people think that. As for it belonging in the first chapter of my AlMei story... um. It just kinda happened and I believe that a lot of the time you just have to go with what the story wants you to write. Hope ya'll think it wasn't too out of place.

Sorry there wasn't much Mei in this chapter. I realize that it is an AlMEI story, but... once again using the what the story wants to write thing, she just didn't really fit in there? She will be in the other chapters, don't worry.

Anyways, Yay! Alchemy lessons!

I'm glad to see you all here, and here's to another 24 chapters of AlMei fluffs and feels and lots of loves!