A/N: Xing's culture, society, and prominent people are pretty much non-existent in FMA/FMA:B/manga, but Ling Yao is only around five years old right now and Mei Chang has only been born recently. There's NO way they'll be showing up in the story unless it's an epilogue cameo appearance (which isn't decided yet). Because we only know how many siblings the two have and nothing about any Clan names besides their own, I have to make all that up to come up with adults who would reasonably have been sent on this trip.

As such, the people in the second part of the chapter are semi-OC's, though they would have 'existed' in the original story line and were just not mentioned or fleshed out. All their names are random for no particular reason, and Xingese names in FMA/:B/manga are noted to be with the given name first (like with Wutains), so the Xingese people's names who are formally introduced are arranged that way, not in the traditional Chinese style.

And don't forget that it took Ed's Ishbalan caravan around a week to get to Lady Shinra! That's true of the Xingese group heading up from the other side, too, and this is only happening around the time of Ed's discussion with Sonna and Tseng!

New Arrivals

Rufus and Angeal, along with all their accompanying forces, reached the northwestern pass into their area sooner than expected, given the terrain and distance they had to cover on the way. They only knew they were there by the presence of the pillars Ed had mentioned, and only got there just in time to meet an obvious military force coming in—they had already crossed the line of sorts marked by the pillars. If he was reading it right, there were no civilians there at all, so it was either a military probe or a land take-over, neither of which he could allow.

"I don't think we should let them through the rest of the pass, otherwise they'll be able to scatter into forest," Angeal commented from beside him.

Rufus turned to have a look at the troops with them, seeing a decent helping of all three ranks of SOLDIER, twice that number of Infantry, and four Turks besides himself—and he was grateful for that. One being Kariya would give them much-needed crowd control, especially since they were effectively walking into battle with no time to rest after a long, hard march. The other three were Sirra (another excellent pick on his mother's part, in his opinion), Lakis, and his pick, Reno, who was also great for crowd control. Part of their choices had been to balance the Turks who had formerly been Guards and Hounds, and because Reno had been a Guard spying successfully on the Hounds, he was one of the ones who qualified for both groups.

Of the troops, the ones in the best shape were the Turks and SOLDIERs, so he called out, "Infantry, line up, guns at the ready! You know the signal to shoot, but don't engage personally if you don't have to. SOLDIERs, Turks, be prepared for combat and march just behind myself and my representatives! Angeal, Kariya, you're with me, with Sirra, Lakis, and Reno immediately behind, and SOLDIER ranks behind them!"

As the others scrambled to obey, he turned back to the approaching force, which had halted at the obvious commands—he couldn't possibly have given orders to a force so large without being heard. He'd planned for that, and marched out from the tree cover with Angeal and Kariya flanking him and the others lined up behind them as ordered. Since he wanted to see if negotiation was possible, he hadn't immediately drawn his weapons, and neither had Angeal or Kariya, though everyone behind them had, anticipating battle.

After approaching far enough for the SOLDIERs to block the pass, Rufus stopped to wait for the other group to do something, either send someone (or a few someones) to talk or to retreat or attack. If what Ed had said was true, attack was a strong likelihood, but he wasn't sure they would actually be so stupid when faced with people they didn't know. Then again, his own father would have been so stupid in the name of claiming land he wanted, so with that precedent, it was feasible to say others could also hold by that view, and they already knew Ed's homeworld wasn't perfect.

It only took a few moments after they had halted for someone on the other side (probably their commander) to shout something, and for the whole group of Drachmarans to launch themselves forward in an obvious attack.

Score one for child Ed, then. For some reason, that left him a mixed sensation of amusement and bitterness, and he wasn't really sure why—he was used to Ed giving them valid and viable data like this. Though, he wasn't used to the one giving it looking like a six-year-old...

With no time to really think on that, he gave the motion for the Infantry to shoot, even as Angeal drew his sword; Sirra, Lakis, and Reno were already attacking, and Kariya lobbed a bomb into the middle of the attacking group, killing a large portion of them and forcing them to scatter—well, as much as the pass would allow. He drew his own dagger as Lakis sent Ice out into a slick which made most of them slip and fall, and as they recovered, the SOLDIERs rushed past him to attack them directly, following Angeal.

Reno and Lakis stepped up to his sides as the red haired Turk began using the Pyramid function of his EMR to trap some of the more dangerous of their attackers. Lakis switched to protective Shields to keep bullets from hitting them—those were shooters from further back behind the main force of attackers, on ledges up the walls of the pass. Sirra and Kariya both ended up on those ledges as well, the former to shoot down their shooters and the latter to drop bombs and Fire spells on the advancing force.

It didn't take them long to reach him, Lakis, and Reno, forcing them to engage directly as well, and all three fought hard, both other Turks also keeping up their protective and crowd control efforts as well. In the end, while quite a few of the troops would reach them at once, they were standard foot soldiers no different from the Infantry and only marginally better trained, so they were largely easily defeated. What was irritating was how long it took to do so, and by the time the three finished with one group, another was coming up.

They were just cannon fodder, and Drachma probably practiced conscription to get those kinds of numbers of throw-away troops—and he and his mother both loathed that practice. Troops were never to be 'thrown away' just for random, minimal gain. Then again, the land on the other side of the pass was good land to grow things like food, so they may actually have had need of it. Of course, getting excess food could have been done with trade and didn't require attack, so that was one more point against them.

Suddenly, Rufus felt the need to dodge an incoming attack, and he'd learned a long time ago not to dismiss those feelings, so he dove to the side, shocking his current opponent—and, incidentally, placing the man in the path of the incoming attack he'd been aiming to avoid. To his surprise, the large man who had come down on his own fellow soldier didn't even bat an eye at having just killed one of his own, and that set Rufus on edge, even as the large man straightened to face him, bushy black beard and hair obscuring most of his features.

If he didn't care about his troops, he was no better than the majority of Deepground, the ones who weren't with them now. By extension, he was someone Rufus had no reason to spare, and for some reason, this man had targeted him, making him glad of his Turk training. When the man attacked him directly, Rufus found himself in an even match, and was having to fight hard to deflect the attacks while he looked for an opening. Much to his annoyance, the man wasn't giving him one.

Did he have a comparison to the force and skill of this man? Specifically, no—his combat style was a complete unknown. However, in many ways, he was like the 'honorless' Wutains (they had worked with Fuhito against their Emperor's orders) or the Restrictors who hadn't survived to reach Earth. He wasn't like Azul as much, though the comparison could still be used, and it wasn't just power he fought with, so dipping, diving, jumping, and dodging were frequent methods of evasion of blows. His size made it harder for Rufus to dodge rather than easier, and he was able to move shockingly fast for such a large man.

In fact, Rufus was so absorbed in the battle against this man the he lost track of the rest of the battlefield, still looking for an opening his opponent refused to give him. More than once, he'd even managed to land on the man's sword after he'd brought it down, but that didn't help when the man would just twist it to the side and throw him off rather than trying to lift it with his weight on it. In that regard, it was obvious this man was also an active strategist and one of those fighters who would do things which were unexpected if he thought it would help him win.

That made him dangerous on many levels, and Rufus didn't like 'dangerous' in this case. It was likely this man was attacking him in particular because Rufus had been taken as the leader of the group (which he was, in a way), and by logical extension, taking down the leader would take down the group through lack of direction. The man couldn't know Angeal and all four other Turks could take over, or even any of the other Firsts. Which made Rufus' life difficult—and admittedly interesting—just then. He never failed to get a particularly strong opponent.

Finally, as the man scored a hit on his leg, he paused for a moment. That moment was all Rufus needed to bypass his guard, only barely catching the moment as the man began to pull back (maybe because he realized the hit wasn't downing Rufus?). And by then, the blond was both tired and irritated, so he decided for expedience and just aimed for the man's throat, striking it with all the force he could muster, right through his massive beard. It was almost amusing to note the man's eyes widen in shock as the blade hit home, but then he dropped in what felt like slow motion and Rufus let him fall before applying healing to his leg wound.

When he looked up, he noted a moment of stunned silence, then the SOLDIERs and Infantry began cheering. It was obvious the battle was over then, but Rufus wasn't sure celebrating was the best idea right then. Sirra landed beside him and he faced her to ask, "What happened when the big man went down?"

"The last few guys up on the wall and a couple shock troops who hadn't made it into the middle of the fight yet ran," she told him flatly. "I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they bring along a larger force. Of course, by then, we'll be both rested and established here, so we'll have an advantage."

For a minute, Rufus thought about that, then gave a nod and waited for the cheering to stop. He then called, "Good job, all of you! Especially after being forced to fight on the tail end of a fast march!" Another, short cheer roused from the rest of the force there, and when it silenced, he said, "Despite that, I doubt this will be the only time we meet them in battle—they already have a habit of attacking our next nearest neighbors repeatedly. As such, Turks, I'd like you all to scout out the lands past the pass and see if you can find a good lookout point to watch for them. The rest of you, set up camp, since it looks like we'll have to establish an outpost and literal border crossing here."

Sirra gave a sharp nod and the four Turks in black quickly vanished down the pass to see what they could find. As for setting up the camp, Angeal took over to give the orders for that, and Rufus left him to them as he began healing random injuries the troops had, which included some of the Infantry. When had that happened? Either way, once that was done, he then found a place a bit away from the camp to sit so he could call his mother to give her an update on the situation. He only wished it could have been a better update.

FoWD-HC

For a few days now, Argento and her team had been at the southeastern bridge into their lands, and she was still boggled by the clearly crafted metal bridge, and by how it stretched out of sight. If little Ed was right, there was a bridge just like it in the southwest of the land mass, giving them a rather large inland sea—a definite salt one—to work with. The one they'd crossed to get off the island had been fresh water and a definite lake, rather than a sea—the creatures in the two were very likely to be vastly different.

It also meant the land tilted ever so slightly so the island and lake was at the highest point (other than the literal mountains), and everything else was below that. From where she stood, looking between the land they had crossed and the sea, Argento was fairly certain the general difference in elevation was only about twenty-five feet. And that was only just enough to be sure the fresh water flowed into the salt water and the salt water flowed away into wherever the oceans of this world were. Minerva had obviously taken pains to do such a thing, just like how she'd arranged a literal orchard at the place she'd made the bridge off the island in the lake.

Once everyone had gotten over their bout of illnesses, Lady Shinra had begun sending them out to places Ed was sure they would be needed, and she was fairly certain the order of their recovery had decided where they went. Angeal had recovered fastest, oddly enough, so he was sent with Rufus and all his functional troops to defend the more dangerous northern pass. She had gotten the path they next most expected actual interaction from, but they weren't expecting battle here. Since she was more of a diplomat, that made sense, regardless of recovery order.

Weiss, Sephiroth, Genesis, and Rosso had all recovered while she was preparing to go, and Weiss had been given charge of the northern pass opposite Rufus', where the most likely danger was barbarians or bandits more than an army. The result of meeting someone there was also entirely undecided and unknown, making it viable to place someone with Weiss' mildness and deadliness there. At the southwestern bridge, though, all they were doing was posting an honor guard of a sort to meet and greet new arrivals—at the moment, they weren't expecting anything (or anyone) dangerous.

Just then, she was watching with some bemusement as a group approached over the bridge—what were likely the expected arrivals from Xing who were generally to be taken as friendly, other than in possible trade, at the moment. The group was still too far away for her to identify many details, but it would have been foolish of them to travel without guards, so she expected likely half the group to be such, or more. As she watched them, others joined her to have a look, but they all knew it would be awhile before the group got to their end of the bridge—probably around sunset.

She sent most of them to do tasks needing doing in their camp, telling them to rejoin her after supper to wait for the new arrivals to reach them. For herself, she worked on some mending and weapon care while she waited, keeping a vague eye on the approaching group the whole time. Kunzel joined her as he worked on a similar task—she hadn't immediately been sure of why he'd been sent, until he'd informed her she'd need someone who was a Mage with her in this case. Apparently, the Xingese were big on something they called alkahestry, which was a form of Mage skills.

As far as other Mages went, Genesis had other work to do and Ed was out of the question, along with any other 'Mage' who was still a child. Lakis had already been sent to the northwestern pass, and for some reason, Sonna wasn't an option. She thought that had a lot to do with Ed. Shelke wasn't military so they couldn't send her, and they were avoiding sending Cetra to these posts. While there may have been other Mages, most, if not all, the military ones had other posts already, and the rest were civilians. It might have been safe enough to send a civilian to her post, but that didn't make it the right thing to do. That was also why Yu—kisa wasn't one of the Turks sent with her, since Shelke would have followed her.

That had left her with Kunzel, who never got assigned unless Genesis allowed it, and apparently, he'd allowed this assignment. And she was really puzzled by why that was, because Kunzel was a First and recognized for his skills with magic nearly as much as the Commander was—he should have had the right by then to choose his own assignments.

"Something on your mind?" Kunzel asked her in amusement as they worked some time after supper.

"Just wondering how it is that you've proven your skills but can't choose your own tasks," she answered, looking over at the approaching group. She'd have to get up soon.

"Apparently, I only have a fifty-fifty chance of survival in any situation where death is an option," Kunzel told her in a dry tone, making her blink. "Ed and Genesis talked about that once around when he first got caught up in that stupid fight between Balto and Verde and got dragged back to HQ with them. Since then, Genesis has been working very hard to keep me out of those kinds of situations, unless there's really no way to avoid them—the Plate Support Pillar bombing, for example. I get it, and it isn't that he's not making me work—he is—it's just not openly with frontal combat as a rule."

She blinked again and asked, "Do you believe them? Your survival rate?"

"It's Ed, so yes," he shrugged. "He's met me—and seen my death—enough times to estimate that. Zack, on the other hand, has a practically legendary survival rate, so he never gives him any cautions."

Somehow, that was amusing enough to make her chuckle, but then she sighed and rose as she commented, "I suppose we should all get ready for our arrivals." As she made her way to the bridge, everyone else began setting aside their work and moved to their general positions, all relaxed but with weapons close at hand. Emma and Maur, her two Turks, flanked her with Kunzel, but the rest moved into a loose circle around them in a relaxed version of their ranks.

When the group was in a reasonable visual distance, a few minutes later, they paused to rearrange their marching order, and the man she pegged as their commander then took the lead with two women and two men following him, the two non-combatants immediately flanking him and the two warriors flanking them. The rest followed a bit behind their group, wary but not prepared to immediately attack. They also all had looks similar to Wutains, so Ed had probably been right to say these were the ones from Xing—their clothing certainly fit an exotic variant of Wutain clothing.

As the Xingese group began moving again, Danato suddenly paced up beside her and said, "The Mandragoras have either been eliminated or pushed back out into the grasslands. I do not believe they will come here again for some time, though that may only be a few days. You know how persistent monsters can be. I suppose these are the guests we were expecting?" Since he was one of the indigo Motos with a vividly red mane, he was hard to mistake as a normal animal, which was likely why Lady Shinra had agreed to send him.

"They are. Thank you for dealing with them for us, Danato," she answered in amusement as she looked down at him. "You may as well stay here."

"Fair enough," he agreed, and sat down beside her to wait for the other group to reach them.

Soon after, the group approached to a respectable distance before stopping, and the man who was in charge asked in accented but proper Amestrian, "Are you here for a reason?"

Argento's brow rose at the ambiguity of the question, so asked in reply, "Do you mean this specific place or this land in general?"

"Either. Both," the man replied genially.

"We were sent here to act as guards at this path into our lands. We're here in this land because the entity to whom it belongs agreed to have us here long before we arrived," she informed him, which produced a blink of surprise. "So, do you come in war or in peace?"

The man eyed her for a long moment, then commented, "Between that large winged lizard we saw at the pillar border and the large cat beside you, it would be foolish to come in anything but peace. What do you mean, the entity to whom it belongs has given you permission to stay here?"

"The planetary sentience who oversaw this region of your world, Ishbala, made plans with our Minerva to have her land here and bring us with her," the Wutain woman explained easily.

The man blinked again and asked, "And how did you build a bridge so long so quickly out of metal?"

"That was entirely Minerva's doing. She's rather more directly involved with us than most sentiences are with their people," she offered, lips twitching slightly with her growing amusement. She really should have expected those kinds of questions.

"Really?" the man asked as he blinked again, shaking his head a bit in amazement. "Interaction indeed. What was that winged lizard? It was obviously turned back by the pillars, but..." Even though he asked about the lizard, his gaze was on Danato, and Argento suddenly felt entirely amused, not just slightly amused.

"A winged lizard calls to mind a Dragon. What color was it?" she asked, head tipped to the side slightly.

"Green primarily," he offered. "Does that matter?"

"It does," she agreed in amusement. "A green one is the weakest of the Dragons—there are at least four other kinds, red, blue, purple-ish black, and one which is undead, though I believe those originated from some of the purple-black ones. And even the green one is a challenge to fight. Those are unfriendly to humans, so we have to fight them fairly often, hence us terming them 'monsters' rather than animals, which we also have here. First Tarins, would you happen to know what turned the Dragon back?"

Kunzel paused, then said, "My best guess is probably what Ed talked about—the Enemy Away Materia fixed to the tops of the pillars to keep our monsters and animals inside our zone unless another sentience asks for them to be released into their area of the world."

"What does that mean?" the man beside the leader of the Xingese group asked in confusion.

"Leave that discussion for later, if you would," Argento replied before Kunzel could answer. "If it's true you come in peace, you'll have time to do so. In the meantime, I'm Commander Argento, or Mai Kagawa if you prefer, First Class SOLDIER and the one in charge of this group. First Class Kunzel Tarins is also a SOLDIER from the core group, while most of the other SOLDIERs you see here are Firsts, Seconds, or Thirds from the branch group called Deepground. The two in the black suits and white shirts are from the Turks, Maur and Emma." At the two names, she motioned to each of the two Turks. "And this 'cat' you're so interested in is Danato, from the Moto Tribe. What of you and your group?"

The leader's eyes lifted to hers in surprise, then shot back to Danato's in utter shock as the Moto commented in amusement, "Really, most do not find me quite so fascinating until I talk." All five of the Xingese front group were actually staring at him in mixed shock and amazement at that.

"...Do all your animals speak?" the leader asked, sounding a bit faint.

"No, only the Motos," Argento answered in amusement.

"But don't forget to mention the Cait Siths and Ria—they have an animal-ish appearance, even if they were man-made and have internal parts made primarily of metal," Emma commented in amusement. "They can certainly talk."

"True," Maur agreed. "That would be pretty severe culture shock. Worse than this."

"Which is amusing enough," Danato replied, clearly rumbling with amusement. He then turned back to the Xingese group. "So, who are you?"

The leader paused to draw in a breath, then gave a small nod and said, "I am Lord Cao Long, head of the Long Clan (1) of Xing. The Emperor asked that I accompany the group he planned to send to explore this region and try to determine what may have caused the sudden growth here. To that end, he sent several of our practitioners of alkahestry, including these two, Gan Yao of the Yao Clan (2) and Rin Hong of the Hong Clan (3), who are both highly skilled in their field of study, though we also have others with us. The Emperor also sent with us many guards, at least half of which are his family's personal retainers, including Lian Li and Yuan Ho, who primarily have charge of our guards."

Like nearly all military groups, the men outnumbered the women, but there were some women in both the civilian group and the soldiers behind Lord Long, which was probably part of why he dealt with her as well as he did—women had some opportunities in their land. How many remained to be seen, but if they weren't locked out of power and employment positions completely, they were less likely to refuse to deal with women in such positions, like Lady Shinra. For Argento's purposes, that made it a lot easier to send them forward and have it be viable for negotiations and trade.

"In that case, could I ask what exactly alkahestry is?" she asked of them. While she'd heard it before from Ed, she had never studied it to associate the term with anything, other than knowing it was a variant skill Mages could use.

"We use arrays and energy from the planet to create effects like healing wounds and repairing broken objects—dishes and tools and the like," the woman offered.

"It sounds like a version of what we do as Mages, and what Materia allows the rest of the population to do," Kunzel commented. "Ed called it a version of alchemy which was more closely tied to the Lifestream, or what I think some people call 'the Veins of the Dragon'?" He looked at the Xingese woman curiously (though with his helmet on, it was hard to tell his expression), and she nodded in surprise. "So, in a way, they're Mages, just using a different version of the arrays we know already."

"In which case, if you want to escort them back to the bonfire in the morning, they can question you about it all they like," Argento commented dryly to him, and he grinned and nodded. "We should settle in for the night, then. It's too late to proceed further today, anyway, and we already have a camp set up here. Join us," she offered.

"Thank you," Lord Long agreed gratefully, motioning for his people to follow him into the camp as Argento and hers moved out of the way for them. She didn't doubt that the trip across it would have been a trial on foot, and figured none of the Gaians would be in a hurry to leave until they had cars to do it with. Or they might settle for Chocobos.

The new arrivals were tired enough that they almost immediately dropped off once they were settled, other than a few guards, so she picked a few others to send with them and Kunzel in the morning, including Emma—of the fighting forces they were likely to meet, the Turks had the highest number of women, so it was a good idea to acclimatize them.

Notes:

(1) Cao Long is the head of something like the fifth-ranked Clan in my head-canon, and his sister is the one who was married off to the Emperor (or this would be more like concubines, but I'm calling it marriage for simplicity's sake, since it's not like they have any other options for bed-partners). Since only about twenty of the Clans are actually in the running out of forty of them, it would make sense for the Emperor to ask someone from one of those twenty Clans to oversee the investigation into this new growth his people on that border reported.

(2) Gan Yao is Ling's uncle, but is still with the Clan proper, other than his obvious study into alkahestry. No, he's not Mei's level of skill, but he's no push-over, either.

(3) Rin Hong is another alkahestry practitioner with great skill, and her Clan in general is ranked around fourteenth. She's a more distant Clan relative who happened to be skilled in something the Emperor wanted, so was never anywhere in the line to the Throne. Her cousin something-removed (pick one that's pretty distant—it's not relevant) is the one married to the Emperor.