Mustang watched on with an amusement he hadn't felt in a while as he watched Ed attempt to flip a page with his mouth without tearing it.
To his credit, he was managing to keep the paper intact. He was not, however, managing to turn the page, and growing increasingly frustrated at each failed attempt.
Chuckling, Mustang finally decided to take pity on him and flipped the page. That earned him a glare, to which he smirked in response before returning to his own book. At least Ed brought some amusement to an otherwise daunting task.
He and Ed were tearing through every book in his house that could even slightly relate to Ed's situation, in the hopes that they could find anything that could help at all. Of course, biological alchemy wasn't really Mustang's forte, so he didn't have much to go off of, but he wanted to look through what he had before trying to figure out how to sneak a cat into the library. He could already tell there was no way in hell Ed would let him go without him, and he could use the extra set of eyes, anyway. He'd just have to cross that bridge when he got there.
He wouldn't say it out loud, at least not so early on, but Mustang had serious doubts that he'd be able to fix Ed. He could separate him and the cat, sure, though it would be difficult. Though Ed mostly looked like a normal cat, all the matter from both their bodies was still there, and thus could be split from each other (and he did have questions on how Ed's body was so easily condensed. He must not have been a very tall man). But could he keep them, or at least Ed, alive during the process? It was a miracle that he survived being transmuted in the first place - chimeras were rare for a reason. Could he live through it a second time?
Mustang would at least try, for Ed's sake. He was almost afraid what he might do if left to undo this mess alone. That, and he didn't think he could live with himself if he didn't do everything he could to help. He'd fucked up enough people's lives back in Ishval. He didn't need to add anyone else to that list.
There was also the matter of dealing with Shou Tucker himself. The man needed to be arrested. Who knows how many people he's hurt already, how many he'd hurt in the future? They needed to gather evidence against him. He'd have to talk to Hughes about that when he got the chance, maybe drag him back over to his house and have Ed write to him to prove it.
He was brought out of his musings by a hiss, followed by a crash. He looked up to see a book that had fallen on the floor and Ed flicking his tail in agitation. He raised an eyebrow. "Is this what we're doing now?" Ed scowled. It was an oddly childish action on his part, but Mustang attributed it to his clearly growing frustration. Or perhaps it was just cat instincts.
He sighed. "I know, I'm getting sick of finding nothing, too, but throwing books around isn't going to help." He ran a hand over his face tiredly. "Look, why don't we take a break for now, okay?" Ed's hackles raised at that. "We're bound to miss something if we're too stressed while we're doing this. Let's go take a walk or something for now and come back later, alright?" The scowl was still on Ed's face, but his fur was no longer standing on end and he was jumping off the table and onto the floor, so Mustang took that as assent.
He just hoped it would help Ed for now.
Tucker was gone. It was time for Alphonse to make his move. He wasn't sure when his next chance would be, if he ever got it.
Tucker was a reclusive man, but he still had to leave occasionally. He'd gone on a grocery run, telling Al to watch Nina for him while he was gone. Al resisted the urge to scoff at that. As if he hadn't been doing that this entire time.
Focus, he chastised himself. Tucker was weirdly protective of his basement, and though Al had believed him at first when he'd said he didn't want to risk any damage to his research, he wasn't buying that excuse any more. There was just something odd about everything, and Al was going to find out what. This was the best chance he was going to get.
The door was locked - unsurprising, but nothing a little bit of alchemy couldn't fix. He crept down the stairs as quietly as he could to keep an ear out for Tucker or Nina. The girl wouldn't try to get him into trouble, he knew, but there was always the chance she could mention it to her father if she saw him. If Al was right in distrusting Tucker, then he didn't want to face the consequences of being caught. He wasn't sure if Nina was old enough to fully understand that yet.
He froze as he made it fully into the basement and could see what was inside. Whatever he was expecting, cages with animals wasn't it. No, not animals. "Chimeras," he whispered. They all looked so miserable. His heart ached for the poor things. He wished he could do something for them, but that would be far too obvious and he still had to see if Tucker had any information on his brother.
He began searching through every drawer and cabinet as quickly as he could. Nothing. It was dead end after dead end after dead end. He found himself growing more and more frantic and once again wishing he could breathe so he could calm himself with deep breaths like Granny had shown him. "Come on, there has to be something!" he bit out.
He grabbed a notebook out of the next drawer he opened and began rapidly scanning through it. It's Tucker's research notes, he realized. He began flipping through to find the last filled in page. If he'd written anything about Ed in here, no matter how unlikely that was, it'd have to have been recently.
Al didn't have lungs, but as he found the most recent entry he felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. Was what he was reading really true? He could hardly believe it. He didn't want to believe it.
Tucker had planned to transmute his daughter and Alexander together. Tucker ended up using Al's brother instead. And succeeded, apparently. And now Ed was gone.
But alive, he tried to reassure himself. Frustrated scrawling over the final page revealed that Ed had apparently run away. Al found himself shaking with rage as Tucker's writings expressed only disappointment at losing his "experiment" and how he could never recover from the setback in time. Was that all Tucker cared about?
Don't get distracted now, he scolded himself. Ed survived the transmutation. He had to be out there somewhere. Edward was resourceful and smart; no way would he have died since then. He just had to keep believing in his brother.
What if he's not even your brother anymore? a traitorous part of his mind whispered. What if his mind's more animal than human at this point? What if he can't even remember who you are? Al wished then more than ever that he could cry.
He shook his head. He couldn't think like that. Ed would be okay. He had to be.
Gripping the notebook in his hand, he raced up the basement stairs, no longer caring to be quiet. "Nina!" he cried out as he ran. "Nina!"
He heard racing footsteps before Nina appeared, worry and confusion on her face. "Al? What's wrong?" the little girl questioned.
He crouched down before her. "We have to go now, Nina." He didn't want to risk Tucker turning back to his original idea of using her in a transmutation.
She tilted her head to the side innocently. "But what about Daddy? Won't he wonder where we went?"
How could Al possibly explain any of this to her? "…Your daddy isn't safe to be around right now," he tried to say as gently as possible. Her face scrunched up in confusion. "I promise it'll make sense later. Just please trust me for now, okay, Nina?" He held out his free hand to her, which she accepted, though she still clearly didn't understand what was going on.
They couldn't waste any more time. Tucker could be back at any moment. He walked as quickly as he could without running so Nina could keep up. He didn't know where they'd go or what they'd do, but that didn't matter. Staying with Tucker was absolutely not an option anymore.
He wouldn't let him take Nina from him like he did Ed.