Far earlier than Mustang would have liked to be up came a knock on his door. Hughes was here. Here's Ed's one shot at getting justice. Let's hope it pans out.

He paused with the door half-open, staring at the giant armored man behind Hughes. "…Uh, Hughes?" he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know. "Who's that?"

"Oh, sorry! Forgot you didn't know!" Hughes chuckled slightly and Mustang felt his eyebrow twitch in annoyance. It was way too early to be dealing with this shit. "This is Al! He brought up the problem I came to talk to you about in the first place." Hughes sobered a bit at that last sentence. "He apparently knows quite a bit about alchemy, too, so he came to help out."

If their problems were as related as Mustang suspected, the extra help would be quite useful. He supposed he couldn't complain too much about Hughes bringing him over with no notice if that was the case.

The armored man slightly inclined his head in a polite greeting. "Alphonse Elric, sir. It's nice to meet you!" came his surprisingly high voice.

Wait. "…Elric?" he asked hesitantly.

Al raised his head at the recognition in his voice. "Yes, sir."

"You wouldn't happen to have any relation to an Edward Elric, would you?"

That got Al's attention. He nodded vigorously. "Yes! He's my big brother! Have you seen him?"

Mustang nodded. "I suppose that means you're trying to solve the same problem me and him are, then?" Looks like my hunch was right.

Al slumped in relief, like the weight of the world had just been taken from his shoulders. "You and Brother are working on it? So his mind's still human?"

Ah. That explained his reaction. Mustang couldn't imagine spending so long not knowing something like that. He softened a bit. "Seems like it. For the most part, anyway." Al tensed again slightly at that. "He did bat a book off the table like a cat at one point, though."

Alphonse relaxed again. "Ah, no, that's just how Brother is when he gets frustrated."

What an interesting pair these two were. Mustang shook his head, unsure of how to respond to that. "Well, no point in putting this off any longer. Go say hi to Ed and then we can get started."

As he fully opened the door, Al rushed past him. He and Hughes trailed after him.

"Brother!" he called out. Ed leapt into his arms, scrambling as close as possible. He burrowed his head into the crook of Al's neck, as close to a hug as he could get in his current state. It was surely uncomfortable with the armor, but it didn't seem to faze him any. Al wrapped his arms around him almost desperately.

He felt an elbow poke into his side. Hughes was grinning at him obnoxiously. It confused him for a moment before he realized he'd been smiling at the scene. He quickly wiped the expression off his face, replacing it with a scowl. This only prompted Hughes to laugh at him. Why do I put up with him? Mustang found himself wondering.

He cleared his throat, grabbing the brothers' attention. "I hate to interrupt, but we do have work to get to. I assume you want to get this done as soon as possible?"

"Right!" Al set his brother down, looking up at Mustang expectantly. "Where do we start?"

Hughes pulled out a notebook from an inner jacket pocket. "These are the research notes Al recovered from Shou Tucker, the man behind this incident." He handed the notebook to Mustang. "I figured this might help."

Yes, it most certainly would. "You have no idea, Hughes."

Hughes smiles brightly at him. "Great! If you need anything else from me, let me know!" When Mustang offered no further requests, he continued more seriously, voice lowered so only Mustang could hear, "And listen. Even a guy like me knows enough about this human transmutation stuff to know the government would love to get their hands on Ed. I can't go searching Tucker's house for evidence until we're ready for them to know." He turned to look at Ed for a moment before returning his attention to Mustang. "Not to mention having Ed in a state where he can actually testify against Tucker would help. Just…let me know when you're ready for that, okay?"

Mustang nodded seriously before turning back to the brothers. "Alright, I'm going to be honest, I seriously doubt I have any books here that could help us figure this out. Pretty sure Ed and I have already looked through anything that could've possibly helped here, anyway. I can get us into the restricted section at the library since I'm a state alchemist, but I have no clue how we're going to get Ed in. They're not going to just let us bring in a cat."

The brothers exchanged a look Mustang couldn't read before seeming to come to a consensus. "Um…we might have a way to do that. But you have to promise to listen to us and not freak out, okay?" said Al.

Mustang raised an eyebrow, but nodded in acquiescence. Al turned to Hughes, who also nodded despite looking just as confused. Al took a moment to steel himself.

And promptly removed his head.

"What the fuck." That earned him another elbow from Hughes.

"Don't use that kind of language around them!" he scolded in spite of the shock evident on his face. His bafflement must have shown on his face, because Hughes continued with, "you can't use that kind of language around kids!"

Mustang blinked. He was pretty sure he was getting a headache. "Around what."

"Oh…I guess it's not obvious, huh?" Al said. Mustang turned to look at him. He was holding his helmet in his hands. There was no head sticking out of the armor. "I'm eleven. Brother's twelve." Edward bumped into Al, flicking his tail in annoyance. Al sighed. "Almost thirteen."

A cold horror was encroaching on Mustang. A twelve year old who had been transmuted with a cat and an eleven year old who seemed to be a suit of armor. What the hell had happened to these two?

Hughes made his way over to Al, peering inside the armor. Al shifted in place slightly in clear discomfort, but allowed Hughes to look. "Holy shit," he breathed. Mustang quickly followed suit.

It was completely empty, except for a single alchemy circle. A binding seal, though he couldn't tell what exactly it bonded to the armor. And was that blood it was drawn in? He gazed down at Al questioningly. "What the hell happened?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story…"

Insane. That was the only word for it. Ed and Al were truly insane.

How was this not the first human transmutation they'd been involved with?

He supposed he could understand it, though. They'd had what was probably the only good reason someone could have to commit such an act, to be honest. Mustang was not a bleeding heart like Hughes, but even he couldn't help but feel immense pity toward the boys.

And now here he was, walking into the restricted section of the library with Al, Ed hidden inside his armor - the only reason Mustang knew so much about the boys in the first place.

Mustang was pretty sure his life couldn't get any weirder at this point.

Once in the restricted section with no problems (except for the librarian giving Al a weird look, but that was to be expected with the whole giant suit of armor thing), they gathered up piles upon piles of books and huddled into the most secluded corner they could, Mustang and Al positioning themselves to better hide Ed with their bodies. People didn't usually come back there - there weren't very many state alchemists to begin with and most of them were spread around Amestris, unlikely to be in that particular library, and the librarians typically left the few who did come by the restricted section alone to research in private - but it didn't hurt to be careful. The presence of a cat was bound to cause questions if someone were to spot them. Better safe than sorry. Mustang placed Tucker's notebook where they all could reference it as needed (and didn't miss the way Ed flinched slightly at its presence) and they began reading.

The hours dragged on slowly, as if coated in molasses. Creating a chimera in the first place was difficult, never mind separating one. It was not surprising that finding an answer was proving difficult, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. Mustang thought he might go insane if they didn't make any progress soon. He carefully picked up Tucker's notebook, carefully examining the sketched transmutation circles. He was grateful they at the very least, Tucker didn't encode his notes the way Mustang always did. It made his job at least a little easier than it otherwise would've been.

The basics of the circle Tucker had used made sense, at least. The arrangement of lines in a way that allowed the circle to fuse materials, runes for each material used in the transmutation. He recognized most of them - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on - but there were three runes that formed a triangle in the center that he didn't recognize. "The hell…?"

Alphonse looked over to him. "What's wrong, sir?" he asked, polite as ever.

Asking a child for help with an alchemic problem felt ridiculous, but he supposed Ed and Al had to be prodigies of some sort to have attempted a human transmutation and survived. It was worth a shot, at least. He moved the notebook so Al could see. "These three runes in the center…I've never seen anything like them before."

Al studied them for a moment. "Oh, I know these! These two," he said, pointing, "are each for a soul. This third one should fuse them together."

Mustang frowned. "The lines are already set up for a fusion. What's the point of a separate rune?" he wondered aloud. It was redundant. There was no reason for it to be there in the first place.

He pondered on this a few moments before his eyebrows shot up, eyes widening in realization. "It doesn't fuse their souls. It binds them! A meaningless difference for inorganic matter, but with souls…"

Al perked up, evidently coming to the same realization. "It creates a connection between their souls, but keeps them both separate instead of creating one soul that's a mix of the two! The binding rune overrides the fusion lines for the souls!" The glee in his voice was clear as day. "I've never seen someone try to make a circle do both at once, so I didn't realize it at first!"

Their bodies were one, but Ed's soul was separate from the cat's. They were bound together, but a bond was far easier to separate than a full fusion. The daunting task ahead of them was far less intimidating with this fact confirmed. His soul was still entirely his own.

Saving Ed really was possible.