A/N: For anyone who feels the ending to this one is a cliffie...Sorry-not-sorry. This was the best place to split the event happening just now.

Under Pressure

Soon after, Ishan and the Innkeeper returned to the room to work out where everyone would stay, and Ed and Ishan left as the others were shown to rooms. He was thankful that was over with, because it had bothered him a great deal—he'd been happy to see everyone again, his mother and Aunt Sarah and Uncle Yuri especially, that was true (it would be impossible to deny), but the discussion itself hadn't been great. In a way, though, getting out the news of Minerva's identity and pending arrival was a relief and cathartic. Her thanks had been worth it, too—and he'd need to get used to hearing her again, having her interact with him at random moments.

After the two returned to the Market, Ed told the Priest he was going to look for 'Ali' and 'Winna', so they parted ways. By the time he found them at the shop where Winry fixed and made stuff—and she was pointedly ignoring everything but her current task—it was almost supper, so he managed to get them both back to their homes with him. It was odd to feel thankful for all the years he'd lived, but it was because of all those years (some where he'd even had children himself) that he actually knew how to get Winry away from her work when she clearly didn't want to focus on anything else.

The update on the work in the Temple was that they'd be able to finish the arrays first thing in the morning—maybe an hour's work—then activate it, so Ed was happy and spent most of supper smiling.

When he and Rashad were alone, he told the man, "My parents and Winry's are here with Roy, Riza, and Maes. I wondered if they would come, but I'm glad they did, and it was good to see them again after so long."

After a startled moment, the man sighed tiredly and asked slowly, "So, how much longer will you be staying with me, then?"

Blinking, the boy replied, "I'm not about to move away from Minerva's landing site or Ishbala any time soon, you know. Why would I be staying anywhere else any time soon?" Somehow, though, the response only caused Rashad to give him a wryly amused and sad smile, which puzzled and irritated Ed, and made sleep somewhat difficult that night—

But it became moot when Minerva almost shouted into his mind in alarm, :Something has changed! You are in danger, Ishbala's people are about to be attacked! You must find a place to hide, quickly!:

His eyes shot open and widened in alarm, then he pushed himself up, pulled on the nearest clothes at hand, and ran to Rashad's room, shaking him awake. "Ed, what's wrong?" the man asked tiredly as he rolled over and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Wrath's decided to attack the city, and because of what Minerva said, I'm sure he sent someone to get me," Ed told him tightly. "Basically, as much as the attack's going to be real, it's being done as a distraction so I'll be easier to get away from my keepers. We have to go, and the Warrior-Priests need to be warned—before the fighting starts."

"Is this true?" Shiro asked tiredly from the door to Rashad's room—Ed had forgotten the man was staying with them and had been sleeping in the living room.

"I don't have any reason to think Ed would lie about it," Rashad answered, grabbing his own clothes to dress. "I have to go to the Temple to warn them, and I can't take him with me or I'll be making him and them all targets. As much as my brother and sister-in-law are skilled alchemists, they also don't know how to use it combatively..."

"I will take him," Shiro replied flatly. "I protected him once already, and I have every reason to protect a gods-touched child. There is no way I would willingly allow him to be harmed."

Rashad paused as he finished dressing to just eye the younger man for a long moment, then nodded and agreed, "Fair enough. Head away from the front line. I'll leave the rest to you."

Shiro nodded and ushered Ed out of the room with him, pausing only to pull on his outer robes. Rashad ran out past them, and a few minutes later, the Japanese man led Ed out, pausing to knock on Zahir's door. When it was answered, he told the sleepy man the situation—and Zahir came wide awake with alarm and agreed to start waking everyone in the area so they could leave. That had taken only a few more minutes, then Shiro and Ed were running down the streets towards the outskirts away from the Amestrian camp.

An explosion and the sound of rapid gunfire from the direction of the noted camp made Ed flinch. "I'm running away when people are dying, all because the Führer wants me..." he said in a pained tone.

By then, they'd reached the outskirts and were behind a ridge of jutting rocks, so Shiro stopped, grabbed the boy by the shoulder, and turned him to face the man. He knelt and held Ed's shoulders as he asked sharply, even gaze meeting Ed's, "Exactly how is this different from him having slaughtered these people in the other time you lived in, Edward?"

"He's only doing it because he wants me—" Ed began.

Shiro cut him off with a derisive snort. "No, he is doing it because he wants to spill blood here, and that has not been working well of late. You are merely an excuse for something he would have done regardless, and which would have happened without you. The only purpose he would have to target you in particular is because he feels you are directly interfering with his plans, and needs to know the extent of the interference to mitigate it. In the meantime, this attack still benefits him, even should he not succeed in capturing you, and he would have done it regardless. What amazes me is that you somehow believe such a thing, even knowing what would happen here without your presence."

For a moment, Ed gaped at him, but then sighed and nodded. "Let's go, then. There's no sense in making it easy for him."

Nodding, the man rose and they kept heading away from town, through a narrow passage between two more sections of jutting rocks. They were effectively following a game trail, as it was far too narrow to transport goods yet still showed signs of active use. And it was as they stepped out from that particular passage that both froze in shock.

In front of them stood a very tall, muscular man in the Amestrian military uniform, including the silver chain of the State Alchemists' pocket watch. He was mostly bald with a blond curl of hair on the top of his head and a similarly curled mustache, his eyes blue and combat gloves on his hands. Right then, he also looked completely serious and rather resigned. Ed knew him as Major Alex Louis Armstrong, who had fought on the front lines during the War, but hadn't been able to bring himself to obey orders to kill women and children.

But what was he doing out in the middle of nowhere?

"Forgive me, but I must take that child back to the Führer," the Alchemist said. "If you won't give him to me, Mr. Mori, then I will take him by force. All I've been asked to do is keep the child unharmed, not any of those with him. I would rather not harm you, though—you're a good man."

Ed's eyes widened in shock as he realized someone had predicted their likely escape route.

"I will not allow you to take him to a man who means him harm," Shiro replied coldly, shifting into a fighting stance.

"He wants the boy unharmed—" Armstrong began.

"He already tried to behead him once, you fool, and it was only my presence which prevented that outcome!" Shiro snarled. "I know—I was the one who blocked his blade a bare inch from the boy's neck!"

The other man looked stricken, but slowly shifted his stance to a fighting stance and said, "Then so be it. You shall bear witness to the beautiful alchemy which has been passed down through the Armstrong family for generations!"

"He's strong!" Ed hissed to the Japanese man.

A moment later, Armstrong's fist slammed into the ground and energy surged in their direction, shattering the ground and turning it into a lethal weapon composed of chunks of earth. Shiro crouched and held a hand forward as he generated a shield which...looked an awful lot like an actual Shield spell, and also acted like one as it deflected both the force of the attack and the ground and debris which had been turned lethal. What he wasn't expecting was for a sudden, direct blow of Armstrong's fist to shatter that Shield, or for him to attack directly immediately following the Shield's collapse.

Ed's eyes widened as the two men clashed with force, sending out bolts of light and energy so rapidly he almost couldn't follow it. Honestly, it was like watching Veld (the Restrictor) fight another Restrictor, or Genesis fight someone like Weiss. The level they were fighting at was absurd—all of it over possession of him. Which was all too often the case, now that he thought about it. While he was used to that happening on Gaia, it happening on Earth, and in Amestris, was singularly eerie.

Then, Shiro hit the ground and Ed heard bone shatter as the man went limp. He paled, then held out his hands to cast the strongest healing he knew—Full Cure—causing the arrays to form and do their work. The injuries were knitting themselves back together when an arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him—and Armstrong (because it couldn't have been anyone else) was carrying him towards the Amestrian camp rapidly. Being moved suddenly had disrupted his casting, so he could only hope he'd been able to heal Shiro enough for him to be okay.

As he was pulled tightly against Armstrong's chest, his own situation hit him and he began shaking. It was only Minerva urging him to calm and to think—he had her resources available now, after all—which kept him from ending up catatonic, but it didn't take away the fear. He was far too close to panic.

"Please let me go," he begged the man.

"I know you're scared, but the Führer doesn't have a reason to harm you," the large man told him in a shockingly gentle tone. He then paused before asking, "Was that healing alchemy you used on Mr. Mori?"

"Uhm...I guess it's a type of alchemy, but it's a lot harder to mis-use..." Ed blinked, not sure how much or what to say to Armstrong. It was so difficult because he was truly an honorable man—he remembered that much from his last time through—and had difficulty doing things which harmed others. Which made him being in the military very strange, because kindness had no place there. They were heading towards the camp quickly, so he didn't have long to decide, and Armstrong had likely only been able to retrieve him at all because he'd been told not to harm 'the child'.

"I thought Ishbalans loathed alchemy, despite all the good it can do," Armstrong commented.

"Most do. There are seventeen of us who use it," the boy willingly offered. "And we also realized that if you chart every war Amestris has had in the last five hundred years, they form a circle—a massive, nation-sized array—bound with blood. You can check it yourself. This is one of the last places where they need to spill enough blood to hold the array—there's still, like, Lior, way out in the desert and a couple other small places, but this is the last big one. What's scary is what the array's for."

Armstrong's suddenly troubled gaze dropped to him for a moment before he asked, "And...what is it for?"

"Ask Doctor Tim Marcoh, one of your fellow State Alchemists. He knows," Ed replied. "And in the meantime, please let me go. Your Führer isn't a nice man, he just makes a good show of seeming nice. He's also well aware of what he's doing to Amestris, as are most of the highest-ranked generals in the military."

The large man sighed and said, "If it was completely my own choice, I would do it..."

For a moment, Ed was quiet, but then said, "But you're a man with free will. Kidnapping is a crime, no matter who's asking you to do it. No one is forcing your body to move—only you are doing that. Yes, you can choose to let me go if you don't agree with it."

After a moment, Ed blinked and stared in befuddled bemusement as the Major started sparkling. He was really emitting honest-to-goodness yellow and pink sparkles, which were floating in the air around him, and Ed really hadn't known humans could actually do that—he'd thought before that it was a perception thing, not an actual fact. What the fuck was Armstrong?

"Thank you for your advice, child," the man said—then paused as he saw another man. Ed turned to look, hiding a cast of Sense to see who it was—and even though the man was only ranked at Second Lieutenant, he was also Envy. "It seems I took just a bit too long to make that decision..." Armstrong sighed faintly, slowing to a walk as he approached the other man. "Where is the Führer just now?" he asked.

"In his tent, though he may still be in a meeting and we'll have to wait to go inside," Envy-in-another's-skin said, falling in with him. "Well done, Major. Was there any trouble?"

"Apparently Mr. Mori was left in charge of him. That was a difficult battle, but I was able to subdue the Ambassador and retrieve the child unharmed, as ordered," Armstrong explained.

"Mori," Envy sighed faintly. "Yes, the Führer mentioned that our new Ambassador was displeased with their discussion yesterday. I'm not surprised. But there was no one else?"

"Not that I could see," the Alchemist replied, and Ed began mentally planning what he could do to defend himself—especially since he'd already had to put holes in the wall twice and was already feeling tired. Obviously, with Envy there, he wasn't going to be getting away easily. And Armstrong's strength had never been in question, it had been his ability to obey orders—by his skills alone, he'd have been easily ranked in the 'General' category, which had four levels in itself.

The two men fell silent for a minute as they passed through the largely deserted tents of the camp, but then Envy commented, "It's odd that only one man would be left to protect the child when he's obviously important to them. And...if you found him where the Führer thought you would...who warned them?"

"If you had left someone other than me, I'm sure they'd have gotten away," Armstrong replied. "Mr. Mori is easily as powerful as Brigadier General Gran and others of his ilk, though he uses his skills somewhat differently. Someone less reliant on physical alchemic combat may even have failed dismally, let alone just 'failed'."

Envy's sharp gaze moved to Armstrong for a moment, then he nodded. "Are you sure you defeated Mori, then?"

"I'm sure I defeated him. And I'm sure the child tried to heal him, and it was working, so I felt my best bet was to grab him and run before it took and I'd have to fight him again," the Alchemist replied, and Ed flinched slightly as Envy reared back and froze in shock.

"The boy is a healer? As in, a touch-healer? It takes only minutes for him to fix things which should have taken days, weeks, or months to heal?" Envy-in-another's-skin asked in something like shocked horror. Somehow, it was amusing to Ed to see him react that way to a little thing like healing.

"Apparently," Armstrong agreed.

A long silence fell, and Ed realized if he could reach Minerva's core now, he could also retrieve his Materia, and his stored Materia included a Mastered Revive and Final Attack. There was no blockage between him and Minerva, either, so it would be very easy for him to pull them to him, and it was really only a matter of where he'd put them so they'd activate if he needed them. It wasn't fun to experience death, but this time, he had no do-overs, so he needed to stay alive if at all possible. His Mako blood would help that, but it wasn't a guarantee.

As he thought about where to put those two Materia, his mind jumped to Carbuncle, and he realized that Summon would be a highly useful one just now, and it took almost no energy to call. Wrapping his arms around himself, he reached out to his Materia the way he always did and pulled those three to his body, under his shirt so they could be held by his belt. A quick shuffle had them under his belt and pressing into his belly. He then made sure Final Attack and Revive were active (they were), then tapped Carbuncle to wake it.

:What do you need, Ed?: the Summon asked from the Materia.

:I've been kidnapped by some very bad people. You're good at staying out of sight, so I need you to do that while keeping them from being able to hurt or kill me. Are you good with that?: he asked in reply. Then he recalled his size and added, :Oh, but I currently look like a child with white hair and red eyes.:

Carbuncle started snickering as it said, :Kids! I love kids!: The creature was obviously enjoying his new age. :Okay, then! Call me out! It'll be fun to explore the new world once you're safe again.:

:Thanks,: he agreed in relief, calling it to appear behind a barrel they were just passing which was sitting between two tents.

It didn't take much longer for them to reach the Führer's tent, or for him to call them inside—his meeting was obviously finished. Wrath eyed the boy Armstrong carried for a moment, then said, "Thank you, Major. You've done well." In the tent was a large table and several chairs, a detailed map of the local area spread over the table, and a curtained area to one side which obviously held a cot and probably a trunk. Wrath pulled out one of the chairs from the table and turned it so it faced another of those chairs from a few feet away. "He can sit here, if you would, Major?"

Armstrong moved over to the chair which had been pulled out and lowered Ed into it, then took a step back. He didn't go any further, and the Führer also didn't send him away, which sort of confused Ed, especially since it was unlikely he'd get out of this unscathed. Of course, Envy didn't leave, either.

Once Ed was sitting in the chair (folding metal and canvas), Wrath sat in the one directly opposite it and said, "So, you were kept unharmed and no harm befell my man sent to retrieve you. One more odd point in that dynamic. However, now there are none of your own people here to protect or shield you, so I would advise you to speak freely with me."

Ed just sat and stared at him, trying to stay calm after hearing the not-so-veiled threat in the words, and Bradley—Wrath—just eyed him for a long moment.

Finally, he said, "Your father is a Warrior-Priest. I know the other Priests would be aware of you because of that, but they know you...too well. The High Priest being so familiar with you is especially odd. What are you to your people, child?"

Again, the boy said nothing, hands clenched in his lap. Unlike with Kariya or Tseng, or anyone else he'd had both good and bad experiences with, he'd never really had 'good' experiences with Bradley (before or after he'd known he was Wrath) to warrant any desire to share things with him, and the man had already shown he didn't like what Ed would share. Not that he'd expected anything else from a homunculus Hell-bent on helping his 'Father' destroy a nation in the name of the 'Father's' power. Though he supposed it wasn't quite true to say he'd never had 'good' experiences with the man, since when he'd thought he'd been human, their few meetings hadn't been bad ones.

His gaze focused on the man's eye patch, knowing the eye under it was the source of his power—his ability to know an attack was coming before it did. The patch also didn't prevent it from working, it just made it work not quite so well. It would never have hid Winry from his view, only slowed the processing time slightly and reduced the range marginally. Bradley only wore the patch so no one knew what that eye actually looked like, because it didn't look like a normal, human eye.

Why was he thinking about that?

Annoyance crossed the man's gaze at the boy's silence and he asked sharply, "What, have you somehow only now noticed I wear an eye patch, boy?"

"No. I just realized your eye isn't a human—or damaged—eye," Ed replied softly, hands still clenched tightly in his lap.

A long silence fell as the man apparently processed that, then sat back and crossed his arms. "What makes you think that, child?"

"The same way—Mr. Mori could tell you aren't actually human," the boy answered warily. "And he said it plainly in public, too. Take off the patch and prove me wrong." Actually, he was shocked he had enough guts to retort like that with how close to panic he was just then.

To his surprise, the man smiled, and it wasn't a cold one—it was amused. "Fair enough. He also said plainly in public that you're equivalent to a demi-god with the powers of two beings flowing through you. One of those by your nationality would have to be Ishbala, who I previously never thought could even exist." Wrath was silent again for a minute before saying, "But that doesn't tell me either what you are to your people or why they left only a single man to protect you."

Looking away from him, Ed pondered how he could reply without damning himself, and finally decided to say cautiously, "The point was to move quickly to get out of the area, and my father had to warn everyone else that they were about to be attacked. Mr. Mori was there, so he agreed to take me. How did you know to send someone there?"

Bradley's brow rose at the question, but he motioned at the map and said, "There were a limited number of routes out of town which you could have used to escape without being wide out in the open. I sent a man to each one. Major Armstrong just happened to be the one to find you, which does his service record good. Who warned you we were about to launch an attack on you?" When Ed looked away and down, the man said flatly, "Ishbala. What you called a 'planetary sentience', denying that he was either a deity or a god."

Since the man hadn't asked a question, Ed didn't answer, and the man actually looked annoyed as he said, "Stop refusing to answer me."

Ed glanced up and said, "You didn't ask a question."

Both Envy and Armstrong snorted and chuckled as the Führer blinked slowly, then sighed and muttered something that sounded vaguely like, 'Children and their simple minds...' Since that had nothing to do with him refusing to answer, Ed didn't react. After a minute, the man said, "Fine. Tell me what makes a 'planetary sentience' different from a 'deity'."

Pausing with his own startled blink, Ed sighed faintly and answered slowly, choosing his words carefully, "A deity is powerful and likes a certain environment, but isn't actually dependent on anything other than people's belief in them. Also, they have a strong tendency to not do anything for anyone for any reason—they leave people to muddle through on their own. Basically, they're more like fictional beings humans created just so they could have some sort of 'meaning' in their lives which they were lacking before."

He paused to eye the Führer for a moment, then went on, "A planetary sentience is a part of the planet. They're literally the reason water flows and plants grow, though it would probably take time for this world to die off completely if the sentiences died. When they're strong enough, or if they have a deep enough bond with a person, they actually interact directly with them and do things to help them. That can range from teaching them new skills to changing something in the environment to make things go better rather than worse. Or like how I survived that man attacking me with fire. They aren't all-powerful, but they care about us a lot more than any 'god' ever did."

"Does our world have two of them, then, if you have two different energies in you?" Bradley asked thoughtfully.

Ed shrugged and answered, "This world has at least five. And at least three are involved in the things happening here right now."

"How do you know that?" the man asked sharply.

"Neither of mine hid Winna from you when she hit you with her wrench, so a third one had to've done it," he offered, and the man blinked. "And Mr. Mori even told you that was Amaterasu's doing—the sentience from his part of the world."

"Is there a way to destroy them without destroying the world?" Wrath asked.

Anger at the question broke through some of the fear and he answered in a flat tone, "No. And only someone with a death-wish or who wants to rule a graveyard would even suggest trying that. And I'm sure not going to offer you ways to kill or trap them, since you're likely to use them and doom us all."

"Don't—" Armstrong began in alarm.

A moment later, the man's blade was stopped against a strong shield which sparked and glowed at the sword's tip. Everyone else in the room froze in shock.

And Ed's mind began to blank out from the realization that he'd have just been killed if he hadn't called on Carbuncle to protect him. This was just too much, and when black spots danced in front of his eyes, he realized his mind had decided to shut down entirely rather than let the panic make him catatonic.

Darkness fell as he wondered vaguely how much longer this would go on.