Chapter 21

A.N. Well...hello there? I am alive, I guess and any apology about how late this chapter is useless at this point really and will take just too much space, so I will leave it for the bottom note.

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence and torture. Really this chapter has some dark parts and I tried to keep the explicit level to a minimum. Please just rush through them if you don't want to read them (they are mostly related to Alette's P.O.V.s)

Most of her days were marked by silence and darkness. Nothing changed in the dim room where she was held, the only light source being a flickering neon. But behind a glass wall there were always different visitors at all times, as quiet as she was. This time round a pair of violet eyes watched her intently, upbeat, almost as if they did not want to miss a single breath of the lonely figure in the empty concrete room.

"Are you still down here, Envy?" a feminine voice resounded in the closed, empty investigation room from which the other room was completely visible, and along with it the unmoving girl. It was a long deserted part of the facilities from above. If he were to listen to Pride or Father, they had been like this since the expansion of Amestris. Not that he cared much about history. He had been there when it was made after all.

"It's not like you to not come out and play. With the plan to cover Hughes' eventual death you should relish the pandemonium the humans make above." She chuckled slightly as she reached him, standing next to him and facing towards the glass window separating the two rooms. "What ignorant creatures they are," she commented disdainfully.

"What have you decided on doing?" he asked half-heatedly. Inside, he was annoyed. Lust had only come there to ruin his game. And if it hadn't been her, there would have been another one of his siblings prying. Thankfully, the centuries had been quieter with Greed gone.

She moved around to watch him, her heels being the only sounds in the deserted room. He watched her from the corner of his eye as she finally decided to gracefully sit herself on a solitary, wooden hair, the old material creaking at her weight. He could not stop the annoyed sound he made at her actions. It had always bugged him. Maybe because she was the only daughter in their family, but her gracefulness, her posh air when she spoke, the way every gesture was naturally polished…it annoyed him plenty. Especially when he knew that this kind of inhuman charm could not be achieved even by other non-humans like himself….Not that he wanted to charm the enemies anyway. It would have just been useful for a human chameleon like himself to possess, that was all.

"We decided to scrap over the initial plan. We cannot kill him now quietly without raising an outrage in the other ranks. They would put the blame on some sort of organisation that wants to turn over the government. As if," she scoffed.

"Couldn't we make it seem like the attack of that Ishbalen…Scar, was it?"

"No. The wounds don't match anyway." At that he paused. "Somehow my spear pierces have disappeared though."

"Oh?" he asked, but his attention moved back to the figure. Until now she had been a puzzle. 'What are you, what are you?' The question had been puzzling him since the moment he had seen her. Envy hated puzzles.

"Anyway the main plan is to hospitalize him."

"Wouldn't that hurt us more?" At that Lust chuckled.

"Not if he does not wake up," she said self-satisfied. The words registered in Envy's troubled mind eventually, and before he knew he gave a small laugh himself.

"Huh. You are devious. Was Father okay with this?"

"I don't know. He is again occupied. I ran over it with Mother, though. She wasn't pleased." At that she made a small pause. "When are you going to tell her of our little impediment here?"

"Eventually," he conceded. "When I have something to tell her."

"Envy," she admonished. He couldn't help roll his eyes at this. Lust, despite her cold outer appearance at times had the most ridiculous out-bursts of sisterly affection. "It had been a day. You ought to do something about her. You can't afford to play with your little mouse."

"But wouldn't you like to find something about her? Lust, she is dangerous."

"She is dying," she affirmed almost bored, as if she had repeated the fact too many times already. "Give her to Gluttony and end this."

"She used alchemy without a circle." That made her stop. Envy was smug. Finally reason got to her. "You've seen her yourself," he said turning around to face her.

"I did," she finally conceded. "I thought I imagined it…"

"Fool. Even so she used minimal movement in her alchemy and that would still mean some closure to the Gate." As he spoke the word he shuddered.

"You think she's a Human Sacrifice."

"No," he said grim. "I think she's more. And we ought to include her in our plans. If we let her go we will fail." Lust fell quiet about it.

"What do you think she is?" he asked after a while.

"I don't know. She is human. Her pathetic act was all disgusting… but…"

"Yes?"

"Doesn't matter what she is anyway. She hasn't stirred since we brought her here," she exclaimed exasperated.

"Eventually, she will wake or move. She isn't fooling me," Greed countered. "That girl is not dying. I have seen too many dying men. She did not have that look in her eyes."

"Drama queen. You base all this on a look?" she said somewhat amused. Or as amused Lust could sound in her monotone voice that rarely held much emotion.

"Shut the fuck up you bitch," he snapped.

"So, you will get the info out of her when she wakes up?" she asked ignoring his outburst. At her words Envy let a satisfied smile play on his lips.

"Of course I will. And I will see what is happening with those wounds of hers."

"She is not healing, Envy."

"We will see then," he spat mostly annoyed at her scepticism.

Lust met his eyes with hers. In a way he could say they were the same. They had the same colour. Almost the same size. But at times like this, when she was watching him like this where it was clear she loved to judge him for what she had come to call his 'emotional judgement', he was reminded how different she was from him. Of what he had once been. And it annoyed him greatly, wanting to fight and kill her just to show her she wasn't any different from him. Oh, how he despised his family at times.

"Well," she said raising from her chair and moving to leave. "Your little mouse is waking up." At once he turned around to see, and indeed the slightest stirring in her arms was visible. Anger was suddenly forgotten, a feeling of excitement taking over Envy.

"I will give you a week. And we'll need to switch. If not, Pride will get suspicious. And Mother will find out." She pursed her lips. "I do hope you will find something from her or I'll kill you myself. You know what will happen once the other will find out about this."

Envy only smiled more. "Tell that shadowy fucker to go fuck himself dead." Lust only shook her head before exiting the room, the metal door closing behind her. Envy just turned to the window and watched. 'Soon', he promised himself. 'Soon, you'll find what that bitch is.'

Truth gazed at the human wheezing in front of him. At times like this he wondered himself how could she be up for his task. But unfortunately, she was the only one up for it. There was no other person in this world who could take her place because of who she was. The problem came when he thought on which 'she' he referred to, since he was no longer sure.

He watched the girl with pity. He always pitied humans. Not because they were weak but because they could endure so much without getting broken. Sometimes to break was preferable to the pain of living. Carefully, he walked towards her. She was crouched on the floor, her hand to her mouth as violent coughs rattled her body. He felt his lips purse. Weird. He was no human to react to emotions like that. He cocked his head to the side while watching her. Could it be that this connection was more than he bargained for himself?

Still there was no time. Now she had no time. The Gate was restless begging its Keeper to send her back. He pushed back the feeling and watched the girl. Indeed, he should pity her. For a second a human adjective appeared in his mind. 'Selfish' huh. What did humans know of selfishness? They were made selfish to survive. He wasn't selfish. He wasn't human. He didn't exist at all. Yet, oddly, he thought of what he was putting on the back of the girl and felt selfish for it. 'Stupid, what are you doing?' he admonished in his mind. 'If there is someone's fault, it's the other's fault. She started all this.' And the girl had to end it.

"What is happening?" she wheezed, her voice strained. That was right. She was sent here as a consequence of her actions not because she was needed to come. She did not have time for this. The world did not wait for her. She had to go back. She just started to get closer.

"You used too much of your power. My power."

"How?" she rasped, a tinge of annoyance evident through her pain. "I just used the lines…"

"Which you see because of me. Those are not merely lines, foolish human. And then you healed that other human too. And then you had to heal yourself. You still do."

She kept quiet for a second, her breathing still laboured.

"What did I do when I healed Hughes?"

Truth wanted to scoff. She hadn't even thought before she had done that, had she?

"You used the energy connecting you to me. You transferred some of it inside him. You should not have done that. This complicates things. You did not merely heal him."

"Is he bound to the Gate too?" she gasped, her head moving upwards to look at him. He looked at her in return, unseeing but not blind.

"No. He is not. Right now he is kept alive by your soul inside him. Though that will not last. He should by any means be dead."

He knew that will infuriate her. She was so predictable when it came to her humans.

"You…You…Damn you! Why did you let me see it! Why did you give me the choice to save him if he would have died anyway?"

Did she ever listen to him, he wondered? "Because I promised you." At that she froze in her attempt to stand. He smiled. "Did I not? I said that the next time you will know and you will have the choice to attempt to change the fate." He watched her. What did she feel? He could not imagine it when she wasn't yelling it to his face. "I am sorry you did not succeed entirely," he added after a moment of thought. Didn't humans feel sorry for others as a sign of understanding?

He expected an outburst and more curses. Instead after she stood, her shoulders shook, and he thought she should cry. By all means. Instead she seemed unable too, a pain from inside her moving her physically. He scoffed. He did not have the time for human emotions. He had to tell her before it was too late.

"Alethea. Listen to me. You used your power. You don't have access to all of it by any means, since, as you figured out, you are too human to use something like this. The roads do not strengthen the bond but you are unable to use them efficiently because of your nature right now. Your power is trying to regather itself to reform the flow and connection so you can you use it once more. But right now it can't."

The words had the right impact on her. He saw her fight for control before she raised her eyes. He could physically tell the barriers she raised to shield her mind and emotions, burying them deep down. 'Good,' he thought. You don't have time for them right now. He watched her eyes as she thought on his words. Were they different? The colour seemed different. Strange how her human body tried to imitate his as she got closer and closer. He could see it in her eyes. There was a steeling in them that hadn't been there before, not even when she had died.

"Because my body is regenerating," she figured out eventually. "The power cannot gather back together because it's spread into my body trying to heal the wounds."

He was surprised. Did she feel the course of it inside her? It was unexpected. But she was right. The main focus was always keeping her alive and well, as she could not die. Not as long as he existed anyway.

"It is correct. You are too human to access a flow that would let you use it while you are still healing. Mostly every time you are greatly injured you will be incapacitated."

"What about Prayer Alchemy," she asked and he snorted. The Gate was getting restless. She had to go.

"Fool," he answered moving aside. "You will not be able to use your hands."

She opened her mouth to ask for answers but the words never came as the Gate started to open. She looked at him almost accusingly, and for some reason he felt the need to apologise that he could not buy her more time. Surprising him, she started walking freely meeting the black arms in the middle before they pulled her inside.

He sighed. If there was a God, he should really look upon her.

Alette's P.O.V.

The first thing I realised was that it was dark even with my eyelids closed. The second thing was a sarcastic remark of how this was going to become a habit with all of my losing consciousness and coming back from it in pain and in a dark place. I almost snorted at the idea, but the sudden intake of breath made me want to hiss instead. With a great deal of effort I stopped both actions as one pressing question entered my mind.

Where was I?

Before I could answer myself a loud noise came from somewhere in front of me. My eyes opened to see but it was just more blackness, and my neck was bent from the limp position I was before in. Fast, I closed my eyes at once and forced my muscles to relax, hoping that I haven't been seen. And then light burnt through my eyelids, orange invading my vision at the sudden assault, the neon lights making small unsure noises as they were turned on. Cringing inwardly I thanked the hair hanging over covering my face. Soft steps came closer and closer towards me, and I could barely think on who the person before me was before my head was snapped back painfully, a hand gripping hard on my hair.

"Stop pretending. I know you're awake," Envy sang as he shook my head painfully. Realising my cover was probably done for I snapped my head to the left, my mouth closing in hard on the arm I thought was there. And then I bit. Hard.

Envy yelled and released me at once tugging his arm free from my mouth. The sudden move made my bite only stronger as I drew blood, my teeth sinking in on the soft flesh. The sensation was disgusting to my stomach making me immediately spit the blood as soon as I was free.

"You bitch!" Envy yelled his already healing hand pressed hard against his chest. "Damn you…stupid…" I knew it was coming before it did but the hit still surprised me. Envy braced a little back, before his palm slapped my head to the right. I heard the crack more than I felt it as my head snapped to the side painfully, my teeth rattling with the blow. My blood invaded my mouth making me swallow it.

"Learn your fucking place!"

"Fuck you!" I yelled in return, a jolt of pain running through my jaw. Dislodged probably.

"Oh, don't anger me! You are already done for, it would do you no good to be this disobedient." As his words settled in, my eyes darted around the bare room. Beside the chair I was tied to and Envy nothing was present. The walls and floors were old concrete, with no window in sight. Somewhere on the other side of the room must've been the door Envy entered from. The old lights flickered still not decided on staying turned on, the whole place giving me a strange vibe of old and unused. I could say it reminded me of old abandoned factories from America and all kinds of scary movies. In a short note I was in deep shit.

As Envy moved watching his bitten hand with disdain my eyes glued to him, for the first time I started to feel really scared for myself. I had to make a plan. But how? It looked at best that I was somewhere secluded, and at worst underground. I could not escape and surely no one knew about where I was. On a short note, shit. Shit, shit, shit, fucking shit. But I could not ponder on how many shits I could call this situation as Envy fixed his eyes on me. I watched him almost fearful as he moved aside. Behind him I could see a metal rusted door…and was that some sort of foggy window? By the looks of it was. A surveillance room? Was somewhere there watching us? As the only exit looked through there I so hoped not.

"Let's start this again, shall we? Now then, what is your name?"

I barely restrained myself from telling him to fuck off once more, instead choosing to glare at him. Envy just smiled seeing my reluctant attitude.

"C'mon now. It isn't like I don't know you have one," he shrugged. "That guy you tried to save so much - Hughes was his name? – called you something. What was it? Aledeha? Aledhea? Alde? You have a pretty weird name kid, I have to tell you."

"Fuck you," I growled, my eyes full of hatred at the mention of Hughes. I was desperate to find out about him and if he still lived but I restrained myself. No need to show them how much leverage they had on me.

At my words Envy turned serious. "Really now? Fuck me? I wouldn't advise you to say that if you don't mean it." My blood ran cold, as a bucket of ice flooded my veins. He could not mean…I felt panic grip me, making a whole out of my stomach that churned in disgust. He wouldn't…

"Oh, so that had an effect on you then? Too bad it was the one thing I would not do. I have standards and I am not a pervert." At the sight of my face he added, "Don't look so relieved, girl. I would not rape you, but I am many other things. My favourite thing is murder, you recall?" As he spoke he closed the gap between our faces, his eyes watching mine intently. "I will torture you slowly and painfully until you beg for death," he promised with a deadpan voice.

Without wanting to I felt my palms sweat in the close bound they were tied together at my back and I flinched away, my back curling on the chair away from him. At that he laughed but moved away. But with that move I realised I was actually still very hurt. A throb started in my lower back and spread to the front, and as I moved my hands I realised how my right hand was burning.

"Realised you're hurt?" Envy guesses my discomfort. "Though I am surprised. You should have bled to death countless of times until now….it does makes me wonder. What are you?" he demanded. I stayed silent since it was a question I could not answer. Envy watched me with a sour look on his face before his face lit and he bumped his fist on his other palm.

"Oh, I know. Would something in return make you speak? What do you alchemists call it? Equivalent Exchange, right? Well then," he concluded. "Don't you want to know if your friend is alive?" He knew he had me as anger flashed on my face. His malicious grin spread over his face as hate boiled inside me. 'Oh, you will pay,' I thought.

"Alette," I spit out. "My name is Alette." Envy watched me, his head cocking to the side almost confused.

"Eh, but that isn't much better. Your name is weird. But you haven't answered my question," he almost pouted. Was he a mental Homunculus?

"Actually, I did," I answered much more leveller as I gained control over my emotions. "You did not say which I had to answer. Now tell me you fucker what have you done with Hughes?!"

At that he stopped and analysed me once more as if he gained a new piece of the puzzle. "Oh I see," he finally muttered before he shook his head and smiled once more.

"He is alive," that I can tell. As I sputtered annoyed at his lack of more information he just came forward. "I did also say that that I will only tell you if he's alive." He sighed. "I hoped I would not come to use this?"

"You hoped what?" I couldn't stop myself from asking. Envy just watched me with a disappointed face before he raised an arm. I didn't have time to see it change, I could only see the flicker of metal in the dim lights. And then I screamed.

"Okay, I lied," he laughed as he pressed the knife further through the tendons and muscles of my upper leg. I gritted my teeth at the agonizing pain, besides the actual cut, a feeling of pressure putting strain on my knee as the knife buried itself deeper and deeper, pushing, cutting and crushing.

"Now, then. One move and I pop your knee open," he said cheerily as I fought against the screams forming in my chest trying not to squirm.

"So tell me Alette, what are you?"

Roy's P.O.V.

Roy was crouched in the park his hand tracing a faint black line with his gloveless hand. For a second the barely contained fury inside him made him want to punch the asphalt just to release some steam, but with a great effort he abstained from doing so. Instead, he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply before letting a big breath out.

When he had found out about Hughes being mortally injured and hospitalized in Central he immediately left for the city. Annoyingly, his whole team wanted to join him in his immediate trip to Central. His mind was a jiggled mess of memories from the past and facts from the present. 'They are well intentioned, don't need to lash at them,' he reminded what Riza had told him.

He rose from his crouched position near the grass and turned around to his 1st Lieutenant watching him from the side lines. Maybe it had been better if he hadn't brought Riza along, but at the same time he did not pretend that he had had a choice in the matters. As he raised himself he gave one look to the scorched parcel before he walked towards her. Standing next to her, tall as always and with a grave face, stood Major Armstrong. Roy noted dully how the Major's features seemed to have aged a decade in the time he had not seen him, his eyes underlined by big, dark circles.

"Colonel," Riza said as he got closer, "Major Armstrong came." At her words the Major dutifully saluted him. On instinct he responded, though his mind was wandering on other thoughts. Looking around he saw himself standing next to the phone booth they said they found Maes' hurt body. A shiver went through his body as he looked at the bloodied glass, his stomach churning as his blood ran cold. How could this had happen? Without looking back he nodded to the lower officer that had brought them there and motioned to the Major and Lieutenant to follow him. They walked through the park alleys a little in an odd silence. It was a beautiful day, still sunny for an autumn sunset, but Roy found no joy in it. If something, he despised it.

As he stopped under a tree and turned to the Major he cleared his throat before starting. "We have an idea of the ones who attempted murdering Lt. Colonel Hughes," he started. Roy dutifully noted the use of plural. Still his temper from earlier rose with the affirmation and without wanting to, he snapped.

"Then why don't you take them in custody?!" he rose the voice. Immediately he regretted it even if his blood boiled with unaltered fury.

"We have an idea, but we don't know exactly who they are," the Major calmly replied. Roy felt himself frown. What was the Major trying to say? Why all the vagueness? With the rushed journey from East City, lack of sleep and interrogation his day was getting far longer than he expected. Frustration arose followed by a heavy lingering feeling of helplessness and guilt.

"What do you know? Tell me in detail," he said, his voice still angrier than he would have wanted.

Immediately the Major replied. "I cannot."

"I, a Colonel, am telling you to speak," he said slowly hoping to keep what was left of his temper in check. "Are you going to disobey a senior officer?!" he couldn't help but add frustrated.

At that the Major turned his head towards him. Their eyes met, onyx against pale blue. At the look in Major's eyes he felt the need to change the order in a more polite request. Still he held his position, his eyes set in stone.

"I cannot speak," the Major answered pointedly his eyes never leaving his. At his answer, Roy felt his features form into a scowl before he rewinded the conversation. He felt Riza's worried eyes on him as he pondered with the notions in his head. As he reached a conclusion he let out one heavy breath before answering.

"I understood. Sorry for calling you here," he added after a moment. The tinniest flicker of amusement rose inside him at the confused look Hawkeye gave both of them, her eyes wide in surprise with the sudden turn of the conversation. "You may go."

"Yes, sir," Armstrong said before saluting. Roy rose his hand in a dismissal before the Major turned on his heels with a precision learnt just in the military academy, before starting to walk away. He only took a few steps before stopping and speaking over his shoulder.

"Sir, I forgot to mention something. The Elric Brothers had been staying here until a few days ago."

"The Elric Brothers?" he repeated.

"Yes, the Elric Brothers," the Major repeated still without turning. Roy felt his lips twitch. He would not have expected the Major to be this sly.

"Did they find what they were looking for?" At that the Major turned slightly.

"No. What they are looking for it's almost legendary." Without wanting to a slight sentiment of admiration and gratitude creeped through Roy's stormy emotions. He felt himself give in to the smallest smirks.

"I see. Thanks." At that the Major nodded before starting to walk again. After a few steps he stopped once more.

"Oh, they also had a friend over. I knew she had been staying at Hughes' home before leaving."

"Had she not left Central again?" he couldn't help but ask. He did not expect of her to linger so long in one place. It seemed as if she always had her own agenda.

"No, she did not leave as the oldest Elric was still hospitalised. Though she seemed weary of the Hospital. Too much blood is lost in one place to make sense. She seemed troubled by many things every time I saw her."

Roy nodded once even though the Major already starting leaving once more.

"We couldn't get much out of him, could we?" Hawkeye said after watching Armstrong's leaving form.

"Seriously, the Major is truly good-natured," he said to himself. Riza only raised a questioning eyebrow at him. Perhaps he was too tired as he found that amusing as well. It reminded him of childhood when he talked to himself about alchemy and a very young Riza would just raise an eyebrow from where she stood on the couch waiting for an explanation. On instinct he started detailing.

"He specifically said 'the ones who attempted to murder Lt. Colonel Hughes'. Which means they were several. It could be that they're working as an organisation. Also, if he can't speak, even under order from a colonel, that means someone higher ranked than me is imposing silence on him." Before the next part he made a short pause. "We can assume the top of military is behind it." If that was true even by half, the game they were playing was starting to get very dangerous indeed. 'Maes, what have you gotten yourself into?' Roy wanted to ask.

"And the thing the Elric Brothers are looking for…In other words, the Philosopher's Stone." At that Riza gasped shocked. He did not blame her.

"An organisation that has a hand in the military leadership, the Philosopher's Stone, and Lt. Colonel Hughes…Just how does it all relate?" she asked whether to herself or him. Still, he answered.

"As for now, we don't know. Still, the Major left another clue," he added after a pause.

"Alethea?"

"Indeed." He just now remarked how some of her expressions slipped into his speech pattern. "But to be honest the variable that she brings in does not add at all."

"What do you mean?" Riza asked more confused. He just nodded and started walking as well as speaking.

"After she came to Central from wherever she was at when she knew Fullmetal got hurt she called me. I guided her to an outside line at Hughes' house." It couldn't be that she knew something from then… Was that the reason behind the strange hospital call? He remembered even then how cautious she was when speaking. He frowned.

"Apparently, according to the Major she stayed and left with the brothers. I did not expect that."

Riza nodded. "She does seem to want to follow only her instincts." That was one way to put it…Thought he had a more than ominous feeling about the current situation.

"Major was right. She was troubled. I haven't heard her this… confused even after that incident with Scar." He felt his mouth go weak at the memory. He remembered the fury of seeing her there protecting Fullmetal. And then there had been her breakdown. Why was he feeling this strong for a foreign girl? "Apparently it was about Fullmetal finding out how she really got here, and also about some actual circumstances."

"Actual circumstances?"

"Yes. It seems like she went in Dublith for some reason. There she told me she encountered some interesting creatures. Though she said she couldn't yet say what they were. Tch, most likely it is yet something we ought not to know. But she did say it had strong connection to Central and we should be wary…"

Roy stopped for a second feeling as if the whole affair was giving him headaches. He was angry, tired and heartbroken. The only thing moving him forward was his stubbornness. He did not want to think why he was moving forward, why he was researching this and why he couldn't ask his frien-…

He stopped himself from continuing the thought until it wasn't too late or too much. He needn't think about that now; he couldn't allow himself to. But in a way he knew it was futile to try not to do so as a sudden burn behind his eyes reminded him that no matter how much he tried to pretend he didn't know he still did.

'Concentrate Roy', he tried to admonish himself. 'You are not allowed to break down, yet'. He let himself concentrate on anger instead, because anything else would have made him crumble.

"He also mentioned another important detail," he added after a pause trying to regain his focus. Hawkeye was beside him studying him but did not say anything at his slip.

"What else?" she asked. Roy was grateful for what she was doing. Not that she would ever admit it. It had started as a routine years ago. Perhaps in Ishbal, perhaps later on, it did not matter. Roy always needed someone to hear him out to sort all of his thoughts or he couldn't think clearly, as if he was engulfed by them, drowning deeper into the spiral of his mind. He didn't know when Riza had caught on that, but she did, and it had become a habit from her part to coax the thoughts out of him so he could put them in order. Now more than ever he was grateful for her steady presence by his side when the world around his was turning into dust and burning away. He wanted to say something else, perhaps talk about the pain starting to boil inside him, how his chest was hurting while feeling hollow, how his mind couldn't function properly and his lungs were inhaling ashes of an inexistent fire. But he didn't.

"I have to give it to the Major, he is more cunning than I would have expected." At Riza's confused glance he looked at her in the eye and explained.

"The Major mentioned blood," at his words Riza's eyes widened slightly. "There was too much blood lost in one place to make sense."

"But why would he say something like that about the hospital?"

"Was he really talking about the hospital though?" He made a pause. "No, he wasn't. It was related to Alethea."

"But how?"

"What had the Sergeant in the HQ say? Maes had been bleeding since before he had reached the telephone booth. But he was still found only a few blocks away from the HQ even so in this park. And he had been bleeding the whole time, but still not enough to kill him. Yet at the hospital he had almost died of blood loss."

After that he made a few steps towards the phone booth. "Also there is this," he mentioned his legs hitting a darker spot on the grass. Riza came besides him and watched the spot before she spoke, her voice clipped.

"A scorch mark."

"A scorch mark, indeed," Roy confirmed. "Not only here, but around the phone booth too." There was no way he couldn't recognise it. He had seen them so many times before, from his younger years to the present. This marks especially were made by inexperience and a lack of finesse when handling the Fire Alchemy, but that's what they were nonetheless. Roy gritted his teeth.

"That idiot, what the fuck had she been doing," he said not louder than a whisper, anger making his words harsher than intended.

"The Major said it was too much blood. Does that mean…"

"Most probably," Roy answered in return. "There was no way for Maes to bleed that much or for that long. He had said something was on her mind… Is she stupid?!"

"Colonel," Riza snapped him out of his tirade, and Roy had to force a breath out of his lungs to calm down enough.

"What does that mean?" Riza continued.

"This means, that she was involved here somehow." As he spoke his body turned towards the scorch mark on the ground, his eyes pinning it accusingly as if he could glare at its maker that way. "From the looks of it she jumped in trying to help Maes…" He needn't add the words that rung in the silence afterwards… 'And failed.'

"But where is she?"

"She isn't with the Elric brothers that's where she isn't. The train left on the same day that this happened. But the Major said it so surely that she left. So no one knows she returned for this…"

"But that doesn't explain where she is!" Riza exclaimed and Roy was surprised at the urgency Riza's voice held. The possibility was also on his mind, looming over them. He didn't say anything, his dark eyes meeting her brown ones. There was no need for words like this, her big eyes unveiled showing him the urgency and sudden fear. He understood it.

"As soon as we are transferred to Central we must look into this. Until then we will try to access the data of the passenger log for Dublith. In secret," he added even if it wasn't needed.

"And until then?" she asked and Roy bit the inside of his cheek, fury and helplessness coating his insides into a sickening colour.

"Until then we wait…"

Alette's P.O.V

"Just one word, and I will stop."

I screamed, the sound echoing painfully in the small enclosed space, piercing my ears with its shrillness. Even so I didn't stop, the act being beyond me, my raw throat hurting with every prolonged second the sound left my lips. But I did not stop. I couldn't even if I wanted to, the agony of my body muffling any other pain. The sound was inhumane, a scratch of nails on a blackboard, so unlike myself.

And as sudden as before the agonizing pain was reduced to a burning throb. I didn't care; compared to before this was a balsam. Like a mechanism, the sound died in my throat along with the sensation, the scream turning into pitiful whimpers and ragged breaths as my lungs tried to breathe to no avail. My eyes darted around unseeing, just a desperate move my weakened limbs could not perform.

I had no idea how much time had passed. I just alternated between states of pain, greater pain and agony depending on Envy's mood. My body was no longer putting up a fight, just a broken shell struggling against its fate wanting some relief. But, oh boy, was I going to disappoint there was no relief coming for me.

My eyes settled on violet and Envy grinned at me before he plucked out his hand from my abdomen, making me scream more from reflex than horror. At first I had tried to stay stoic, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing me plead or scream. He asked the same question over and over again.

'What is your name?' 'Where had you come from?' 'What alchemy do you use?' 'What is your connection to the Lieutenant?'

Others followed as my body was tortured further on.

'Why do you heal?' 'What are you?' 'Where had you come from?'

And the worst of all: 'Can you die?'

I never answered him. At first he got angrier with every second I stayed silent. I remember putting up a fight, swearing at him, cursing him. That made him angrier. He started to get bolder with every wound. He started small at first. Wounds that were meant for torture only. His fingers turned into claws and starting digging into the bag of my hand. Then he started to play with my joints, cutting through and in them, dislodging my fingers one by one, every move slow and deliberate. As I grew more erratic in my pain he grew more restless with my silence.

That's when he first broke my arm. And then my leg.

That was when I first screamed. Soon enough tears followed, and suddenly I didn't care anymore. About my secrets, about my past, about what I was protecting. Everything that existed was pain, agonizing, blinding pain, in so many different forms, one worse than the other. It had become a constant the pain. No matter what I did or what happened it didn't go away anymore, plaguing me, coating me in its sick feeling, hurting me all over.

Reason left me and the only thoughts that remained were those of an ending. I didn't care how or why, I just wanted to make it end. So I plunged deep into the flow inside me, letting it run free through me, not caring it hurt me further if in the end it made it go away. That's when I started to get very sick and spitting blood out of my mouth and ears. But Envy did not stop his work even if he was surprised. Still, it reached its purpose as my wounds started closing up faster, but yet not fast enough. Envy was delighted, growing more savage with every wound, more frantic in hurting me than searching for information, a maniacal glint reaching his purple orbs as he slowly started to realise my condition.

But even so the power inside me was growing weaker every day, not being able to compensate for the amount of damage my body was inflicting. So the wounds started to stay open and fresh on, gauzes deep into my skin, white bones breaking through tissue and fat, the image so disgusting and sickening that it made my stomach constrict so violently I thought a hole was made in it. Of course, then I didn't know what it meant to have a hole in your stomach from where the acid could roll out and coat your insides to burn them all slowly up. I threw up, or tried to so many times, the stomach jerking painfully but nothing was left in it, the acrid smell becoming a common thing to my nose. Of course, I still spewed blood at times, since it had become the only substance I ingested.

And the blood was everywhere. It was always pouring, also coating me in it, surrounding me, splashed on the walls, on Envy, just everywhere. A part of me wondered where it had come from. Most of them didn't care. It just flowed, and flowed, warm and sickening, the substance coating me everywhere, imbedded in my clothes and skin, much thicker than water. It was everywhere, even in my nose, the metal combined with the putrid smell of faeces and urine, as well as with something else entirely, unknown at first, a smell sweet and disgusting. Soon after I realised it was decay, parts of my organs that were kept too much outside my body starting to rot away. The realisation had made me scream and put up a fight at first, and if my hands were free I would have clawed at my own body in fear, wanting to take it all out, plunge it away from me. But I didn't. Instead what was left of my consciousness concentrated the flow on the bigger wounds, mending them together in a precarious state to keep my body alive as much as I could. I knew it was ineffective, and I wondered how an infection wasn't devastating me to death.

But I couldn't die.

Envy smiled as I gasped, the sickening feel of blood pouring out of me coming in the wake of his missing hand. I launched my body forward, not thinking, the pain a bolt through my body as I tried to keep my insides in. I failed, as the handcuffs behind me were so tight they barely let me make the slightest moves, the momentum dragging me back upright, my back hitting the chair painfully. I let a yelp, and the furniture shook, but I did not fall over. The first time I started squirming like an uncontrollable beast, trying to fight Envy off he just stopped, and before I knew it he had the chair pinned on the hard ground.

Envy just watched me in the eyes as he brought up between us his left hand, the arm covered in a dark red all the way to the middle of his forearm. He mostly enjoyed to have it turned into something resembling a bird's claw, his finger elongated with sharp, cutting edges, followed at the end by long, sharp nails. It was a disgusting sight just to see, and I tried not to think of the damage he had done to my body with it this time, but my inner self was already assessing the distorted white lines belonging to my body. All of them were so jumbled together, nothing coherent and intact in my abdomen anymore that it was a miracle the tissue was even holding together.

Envy looked me straight in the eye as he brought two fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean of blood, dragging them out with a sickening pop. I wanted to scream at him, to growl, but I did neither. I was too tired to even feel fury and disgust, my emotions turned off completely, making me a spectator caught in my own body. So I just watched him with tired eyes, my body going limp against my holds. I knew what he was doing, not being psychopathic enough to eat raw meat, but the damage the sight made on me was enough to please him to do such a disgusting thing.

Envy frowned at my lack of response, his hand going to snap on my throat. I barely gasped as those nails dug deep into it, cutting the skin, but not piercing it entirely. I was surprised. I had yet to experience chocking on my own blood.

"Are you done fighting me?" he asked, his voice serious. I just looked towards him not bothering to answer.

"What is your name? What are you? How much do you know?" Without wanting to the corner of my mouth jumped higher at the last question. Envy immediately saw the move and growled in my face.

"You bitch, do you think this is funny?" When I didn't answer he pushed me like a rag doll. "Answer me."

Only silence greeted his answer. I stood there unmoving, inexistent, my hollow eyes looking at an iridescent violet.

"How long are we going to play this? Three more days? Four? A week? A month? Because I am not going anywhere, but I am going impatient." With his words the claw around my neck tightened, the nails digging further into the soft tissue. "How long are you going to resist to this? Even with your temporary healing your body is failing you." He watched me straight in the eye. I knew he was right. I was drained, and had been like that since the fight. "You haven't slept or ate, you are constantly losing blood. Do you wish to die that bad?"

I did not bother answering. Envy just persisted, talking, apparently loving the sound of his voice. "This will go and on forever. Until death claims you. Who are you protecting? What are you hiding that is worth more than your life? Have you got no wish to live enough to try to make a bargain?" He made a pause in which he searched my face. "Unless, you are not afraid of that. But why wouldn't you. Every disgusting human like you clings to their pitiful existence with all their might. Why aren't you then? Is it perhaps because you can't die?"

I tried not to react. I did, but something must have given me away. Perhaps my stupid heart raising its beats enough to make more of my blood flow. Perhaps there was a small hitch in my breath. Perhaps Envy read it from my eyes. It didn't matter. With a delighted howl he released me and took a few steps back, his head snapped backwards, all the while a sadistic laugh leaving his lips. I cringed, trying to subdue the sudden panic inside my body, scold my features into submission. He couldn't know that. But somewhere in my mind I knew it was futile, since he had figured it out. He was right. There was no way a normal human could have actually lived through this.

"Oh this is exciting. You can't die," he told no one in particular, his hands snapping back to normal. "Do you know what this means?" he asked, his eyes moving downwards to pin mine.

"Oh, you poor, poor thing," he mocked coming closer to me once more. "I am immortal also. I have all the time in the world. But you? You not dying is going to be the best present ever. You are such a perfect toy, defiant even after all this." His finger traced my cheek and I couldn't help the snarl directed at him. He just chuckled lowly. "Oh, you can't see it now? Let me tell you a secret. No one is coming for you. No one knows you're here. And since you can't die… we can do this game as long as it takes. Forever, ever and ever, until nothing but a cage of your soul remains attached to the ruin of your body."

And as Envy's words settled in my mind with the most painful truth ever I couldn't help the shiver than ran through me, as well as the panic. I couldn't die. He could just keep me there forever until he got tired of me and even then I would be alive. Death was mocking me because I ran away, and I wanted to scream at the sudden realisation of my immortality. Seeing people die around me? Living too much? No, I always feared the wrong things.

Envy watched me with a satisfied smile as he realised his words settled in.

"I have lived the lives of a thousand man. If I know what to break best, those are immortals. Oh my dear, mute birdie…. I am going to enjoy breaking you."

Al's P.O.V.

Al watched his brother sulk into the corner of the of the train cart. His eyes were glazing angrily towards the window, the sun illuminating them as they took in unseeingly the scenery running before his eyes.

Ed had been mad. No, that was an underestimation. Ed had been crazed when Alette literally vanished in front of their eyes and it had taken every ounce of conviction he and Winry had to make him board the train. And even so, almost a week and something after that Ed was positively fuming.

Al wanted to sigh, but that would be a more imaginary move than anything else. He wanted to say something to his brother to appease his anger… but he couldn't think of anything really. He was also a little scared of Alethea. Never before had she mentioned her power of disappearing into thin air, and even if he knew she wasn't affected by it, he was still worried. It frightened him. Even though he was a suit of armour and weirdness was the daily quota for him and his brother… she was on a different level. Coming from the other side of the Gate? Alchemy without respecting the basic rules of alchemy? And now this? It was getting a little too much for him. Though he felt extremely guilty, he couldn't stop being awed and afraid of Alethea.

His brother made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat making Al snap his attention back to him. Ed seemed not to have moved, but despite that, Al could see the traces of annoyance in his posture being much more pronounced.

"Brother…" he tried reasoning while bracing for the explosion that would come. Ed did not disappoint. As on cue his eyes flashed and he turned around, pinning Al with one of his angry stares. Al without wanting to counted down in his head. Three, two, one…

"Don't even start it, Al! I mean you know what she did! She just disappeared. Disappeared Al, in thin air! And you and Winry were just defending her with words like 'trust' and 'duty'!" Al sighed this time. It did not matter how many times Ed had this discussion with him and Winry in Rush Valley, Ed just got angrier every time.

"How could she? She just gave us that crap and ran away! Keeping all that mysterious air and giving us stupid clueless, like how the fuck am I supposed to know who to give this knife to?" As he spoke his hand went to the inside pocket of his coat where Ed kept the knife from Alette for safe keeping. As much as Al wanted to express his frustration too, he kept silent wondering how to make his brother calm down.

"Well she knew where were we going? Perhaps it was intended for someone in Dublith…"

Ed did not answer that presumption.

"Ed." Only when his brother looked at him did he continue. "I don't like this any more than you do. But we must keep our cool right? She will be fine. She must be." As Al said those words a silence settled between them, heavy with secrets and worry.

"It isn't just that…" Ed sighed. "I mean all this was freaky enough even before… But now? I don't even know myself what is happening anymore. What is her end goal…? What is she trying to protect or do…? I mean she is just as lost as we are… but, Al," and the next words Ed said with his eyes boring into Al's. "I am a little scared of her. I mean her powers, and what she knows… We don't even know that. I am worried, that's all."

Al listened. He wanted to say something to defend their friend. An image flashed into his mind, Alette dressed into pyjamas, lounging lazily on the floor a book in front of her, a pen caught between her lips. Alette laughing and dancing with only the soft light of a weak light bulb to illuminate her moves. Alette coming close to him outside, bundling close and just staying there until they talked all the nonsense in the world with only the light of the moon to help him make out her features. And there it was Alette fighting Scar, Alette disappearing into thin air, Alette looking with blue cold eyes towards them in Mustang's office. Al was just so confused, and so tired at the same time. He couldn't make her out only because the pieces she knew weren't available to him. Even 'Truth' that scared his brother so much wasn't a known fact to him.

Al wanted to find the right words to defend their friend. But he couldn't. He didn't know anything after all.

Alette's P.O.V.

"Envy how long are you going to play this game?"

The woman's voice startled both us. Envy turned around to the door blocked from my sight by his frame. As he moved for a second I caught a flash of black, long hair, and my tired mind recognised Lust's form.

"What are you doing here?" he asked snappy, his tone high and bored. He sounded like a petulant child.

"I could ask you the same," she said entering the room, her heels clicking on the concrete. As she walked she carefully avoided a puddle of blood from the floor, her nose scrunching in disgust. Only after she was too close did I realise she wasn't alone, the disgusting balloon Gluttony following her silently behind. As he came closer to the chair I was tied into I could see the wide nostrils of his nose flame up as he sniffed the air carefully. After he did so, his blank eyes settled on me making me snap at my bindings in an attempt to get away from him and his hungered gaze. Envy gave me a bored looked over his shoulder at my sudden move before he settled his eyes on the intruders once more.

"I am doing business," he drawled.

"Poorly, from the look of this room," Lust answered unfazed, stopping only inches before Envy. I had never realised until then how tall she was, her form towering slightly over Envy's ridiculous hair. "So, tell me, what did you find?"

Envy remained silent, his back stiff, and I saw the way he clenched and unclenched his hands. I imagined the same hands strangling my neck only moments before and I suddenly wanted to snarl at Lust for angering him.

At his silence she let out a distinguished puff of air, before flipping a hand through her hair. "Nothing? I cannot say I am not disappointed. Have you been going easy on her?" The question was redundant, and more of a jab. The quantity of blood on the floor was clear indication that the fact was not true. Envy snarled deep into his throat, an animalistic sound, and for a second I felt some sense of fucked up pride at his unwillingness to let her get the upper hand. Then I was scared knowing that whatever was about to come for me after they left was going to be unbearable.

"Had you come to bother me? Go ahead and leave then, I am busy."

"So are we," she said before walking away from Envy. She made a few steps through the room, her moves graceful and controlled; a predator having fun. Before continuing her idea she looked at me from head to toes, all covered in blood and bruises.

"We have a mission. You've been neglecting your duties. Things are getting restless in the HQ and Wrath can't deal with them alone.

"Hmpf. So why is that my problem? That bastard is getting too old from sitting his sorry ass on a chair all day?"

"Envy," she said, her voice suddenly serious. "Pride is getting curious."

At her words a silence settled over the room, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. A memory trickled in the back of my mind, a sensation of fear and foreboding, and suddenly I did not want to know.

"When did that bastard come back?"

"A few days ago. He was more than surprised of you not being here to… welcome him." Then she made a pause. "I am covering up for you because this has a lot of promise. But I won't put up with that monster interrogating me."

Envy barked out an unamused laugh. "You've always been a coward."

"I've always been smart. Something you should try. We need you back."

"I told you already, I am busy. Send Wrath to deal with your human pets."

"Wrath is going South."

Whatever Envy wanted to say then was abruptly stopped. I couldn't see his face yet as he was still turned with his back to me, but I could imagine his face dropping, his eyes widening. I have seen his face in so many different ways for a while now, I could recreate even how his pupils constricted in anticipation to the news. I was completely and utterly disgusted with myself.

"Why?" he asked finally, his voice more silenced, more controlled and cautious.

"You will love this actually," and Lust gave Envy a dazzling smile, all teeth, as her eyes crinkled mercilessly. "We caught whiff of our dearest, lost brother." It took me a second too much to understand her words to which Envy reacted. Immediately, he was at Lust's neck, his hands grabbing her by her shoulders and pinning her to the wall behind her. She did not let a sound escape her lips, but a grotesque crack was heard when her head snapped backwards hitting the concrete wall. Envy did not care, his hand morphing in a metallic scythe, the mean gleaming blade suddenly pinned against Lust's throat. A growl let his lips as he uttered the next words.

"How? Why haven't you told me before," but despite him being more menacing than I had ever seen him, Lust seemed just bored.

"Been going so long at this girl and you're still this bloodthirsty? That's a new record." Envy did not say anything, instead starting to bury the blade into Lust's neck. Behind her Gluttony let out a whimper, followed by a menacing sound, his small feet taking a few steps ahead. I saw Lust's eyes go to him before I heard her voice.

"No Gluttony," and surprisingly the fat monster stopped. Then she looked at Envy. "Would you stop that?" The sparks of her healing were giving her violet orbs a red glint, making her look like a demonic princess for a second. Envy just pressed the blade further in before stepping away. Still he did not morph his hand back. As soon as the metal was gone, the bleeding at Lust's neck stopped, the wound disappearing with a sparkling red. I was jealous. I wanted my wounds to close as fast as hers, but I did not say anything too afraid to breath.

"What are you planning to do with that fucker?" Envy snapped.

"With Greed?" Lust inquired, her hand rubbing her neck as if she tried to check the skin was as smooth as before. "Mother decided he was too incompetent. Father agreed, and so they ordered Wrath to bring him here and have him reversed." Envy just stared at her in silence, but I did not care about his reactions anymore.

That person again. Mother. My mind was suddenly very active and frantic. Whoever this Mother of the Homunculi was, she was one of the divergences of this world. She was going to impose a problem for the story and the brothers when time was right. A wish to speak up and ask rose into my soul, at the same time as all my self-control fell over it, crushing it painfully. The result was just a weird gurgle leaving my lips, the wounds in my chest making me unable to speak anything as it all resulted in me chocking in my own blood.

At the sound all of them turned towards me, Envy watching me with interest and amazement, Lust with boredom, and Gluttony just coming closer to sniff the air around me. Immediately, I tried to move out of his way, something in me making all my hairs stand at his proximity, but the bonds wouldn't let me escape.

"Anyway, you will need to go. Mother will ask questions if you disobey now." Envy just let out a snarl.

"A hundred years and half a country away and that fucker still manages to get into my way. Fine, I will do it! But what will we do of our little prisoner."

"Considering your incapability until now, I think whatever I come up with, would be better." Envy just growled, but he stopped himself from launching at the woman this time.

"Well you better come up with something good. Even if her wounds heal, the pace is so slow that intensive torture will just make her body red and her tongue tangled." Lust came around him at his words.

"How fast do they heal?"

"A few days for a deep gash through her stomach. A few hours for a bone in a closed fracture to mend back together." Lust whistled slightly.

"You had fun I see. Well then, how hadn't she died yet? From the looks of it, she now has a punctured lung and many broken bones."

"I don't think she can die." As he said that Lust turned around, her movements shaky and violent.

"She can't die you say? How sure are you?"

"Pretty sure. It was the only time she reacted when I tortured her. She hadn't spoken since that first day. Of course, her screams were delicious to hear." The last part he said with his eyes boring into mine, a sick smile spreading over his lips. I wanted to snarl in return but unfortunately half of my face was numb.

"Well then, it is only a way to find out if you're right."

"What do you intend on doing?" Envy asked suddenly suspicious.

"Me?" Lust asked with face innocent. "Nothing at all. I am not a torture expert as you are, and my methods aren't that effective anyway. No, I won't do a thing," she said turning around and walking towards Gluttony, her hand caressing his bald head lovingly. "No, he will do all of it, won't you Gluttony?"

At the sound of his name the fat Homunculus reacted, his head snapping up to look at Lust, a childish look on his face.

"Can I eat here?" he asked with a sweet, meek tone.

"Just a small bite, my dear."

There were no words to express my fear in that moment. My hands involuntary started to shake, fear plaguing my mind, invading every corner until there wasn't anything but a silent scream numbing all my senses. I wanted to fight, to run and yell, but in reality I did none of those, instead bracing myself with a horrified panic.

To everyone's surprise, Gluttony did not pounce on me like a hungry animal, instead sniffing the air once more.

"She smells wrong."

"What do you mean?" Lust asked clearly surprised.

"She doesn't smell human. She has no smell. I don't like it. Even her blood smells wrong."

"Wrong? Wrong how?" Envy snapped.

"Old. Sterile. Like it does not have any smell in it. I don't think I'll know she was here if I didn't see her."

Lust exchanged a quick look with Envy before she settled the attention back on the fat monster. "But think about how unique she will taste then. Just one bite." Gluttony even after her reassurance seemed reluctant. Envy just sighed in defeat, his eyes boring into mine with an unreadable look.

"I will let this to you. Don't kill her until I am back."

"Oh, we won't," Lust assured smiling wickedly as Gluttony started to walk towards me. Envy gave me one last look before turning around to leave, but my attention was no longer on him but towards the massive form walking in my direction.

"No," I wanted to yell, but instead only an indistinguishable croak left my lips, my voice and throat too hurt for me to speak. Gluttony did not stop, his faced scrunched up in concentration. It would have been laughable if I weren't about to be eaten alive.

"No, no," I tried to protest and fight against my restraints, but my body was so weak, frighteningly so that I barely moved an inch on the wooden chair.

"Oh, don't fight it," Lust cooed from her place, her violet eyes set on me. "It will be just one bite."

Gluttony got closer, his sickening breaths so warm, too warm for my cold skin, the smell of rotten making my insides twist. I tried to fight as his gigantic, meaty hands held me still but I couldn't, my eyes moving frantically around, panic coursing through my bones, my brain, into my very soul, until I did not exist as a consciousness next to it.

And then I felt the wet, warm saliva, followed by an excruciating pain. That sound was disgusting, a pop followed by a disgusting crunch, as teeth went all the way through my shoulder and arm, and before I knew it the sound of my screams flooded the room, so powerful and desperate, drowning everything in it.

I had lost my right arm.

Ed's P.O.V.

Their Master had welcomed them back after all. He could say he was glad for it, even if he still didn't know how to act around the person that had had such a great influence on him when growing up. The secrets of their shared sins pressed a heavy burden on their conversations, and for the first time in years, Ed did not know what to say to the person that had taught him everything he knew.

Still, he was so glad. For her acceptance. For her support. Even if he beat the shit out of them every time they still called her Master, reminding them how she did not teach disrespectful failures like them anymore.

Yet she never kicked them out again. They decided to stay until they could figure something out to bring Al's memories back, but even so, if he were honest he wanted to stay longer just so he could hide. Here he was just an annoying brat doing house chores, not worrying about the Military, Stones or magical girls from other words. He was ashamed of his thinking, yet he could not help it, and, sometimes, when he looked at Al he knew he understood.

"Oi, Ed, if you don't do the chores, you won't be eating tonight, you shitty excuse of a student!" The voice of Izumi Curtis snapped him out of his reverie, and he immediately bolted into the kitchen of the butcher shop. He was supposed to help in there today, while Al was still stuck on cleaning. Sighing, he entered the place only to be greeted by his Master dressed in an apron, a knife dangerously angled in her hand.

He couldn't help the yelp that left his mouth. 'This is how I die,' he thought.

"Move it brat, we have a whole batch of meet to cut," Izumi said, her hand pointing the knife at him. "I hope you haven't forgotten the technique because I will kick your ass if you did."

"I did not, sheesh, a second," Ed commented as he went to the nearest table stripping off his coat, to settle it on it. As a child he often helped Izumi in the kitchen after she learned he was the one that had been cooking the rabbits they had caught on that island. It was a routine he was happy to indulge himself into.

As he settled the coat on the table a loud thud made him cringe and he remember he had not emptied all the contents of his pockets the day before when they had settled in their old room. The noise made Izumi snap her head up from her work, her brows furrowing.

"What in the devil are you carrying in that coat?"

Ed let a sheepish laugh, his hand coming to rub the back of his head apologising.

"Sorry, I forget I was still carrying. It's just a knife my friend from … Central. She gave me to keep it and I had kept in there for safe keeping?" To his surprise Izumi looked more confused than ever.

"A knife? Why in the hell would someone give you that?"

"Dunno, she said to give it back to the owner…"

"Then why don't you?"

"Because I don't know who the owner is! She just gave it to me before disappearing in thin air and let me figure it out!" Annoyance was obvious in Ed's tone because Izumi did not comment, instead choosing to clean her hands with a towel.

"Well, give it here," she finally said, walking around a table towards the blonde. Ed looked surprised at her.

"The knife, Ed. Let me see it, maybe I'll have an idea." Ed sighed but complied, turning around to search for it.

"Quite odd your friend."

"Alethea? The oddest really. She is a walking contradiction. She confuses me most times. And she is so strong despite everything she went through. In a way she is scarily strong, you know? Sorta like you, Master, but she is also very weak," he mused remembering that she actually was not much of a fighter despite her exceptional abilities. "I don't know what to make of her," Ed continued babbling, his hands losing themselves in the sea of red material. Izumi watched him, her face unreadable as he spoke, stopping only when he felt the cold metal hilt. "There it is," and in a move he took it out and put it in his Master's extended hand.

Izumi took the knife, her fingers tightening against the hilt, her eyes gloomy as she inspected the weapon, her lips thinning into a small line. Ed watched her, his eyes smiling, but turning colder and more worried as she kept eyeing the tool before finally snapping her head at Edward.

Ed was surprised, for a second at the look in her eyes, her eyes murderous for a second, before they changed slowly into amused, a short laugh escaping her lips. The laugh turned stronger with every second, until Izumi was laughing boisterously, her head snapped backwards. Ed, if he weren't so surprised, he would have been utterly terrified, but he didn't get the chance the utter a word in before Izumi stopped and spoke.

"That lying shit," she said shaking her voice. Her eyes snapped to Edward, assessing him, and then back at the knife. "At least she got to her friends…"

"What?" Ed asked in a much undignified manner. Izumi just shook her head, her hand tightening over the knife, hurling it up once and catching it back into her hand.

"It was a gift. That stupid girl didn't have to give it back…" she shook her head. "So tell me Ed, how did you meet Alette, really?"

Edward could not say there were many moments in his life when he had had been left completely speechless. But as Izumi muttered the question his mind went blank, his thoughts a jumbled, incoherent mess from which he did not understand much. Izumi just smiled at him.

"Also thank you, for bringing me back my knife that is. It was an important gift for me too."

Alette's P.O.V.

I was moving between unconsciousness and reality continuously. And as much as I hate being switching between there and reality, I was never in my life more grateful to see Truth. Envy had kept me from falling asleep in an attempt at torture to lose my wits. But no one could have prevented me from passing out when Gluttony bit my hand off.

The first time I've seen him I was a screaming mess, red blood colouring the infinite white. We didn't have much of a discussion, it was more of me sobbing and yelling, while trashing and fighting, hurting myself and trying to feel my missing limb, but finding a miserable hole and shards of bones piercing my left palm. I had screamed so much, I did not know where I was at first, did not see Truth, did not hear him, did not know something was changed until I was plunged back into reality and I was suddenly in a burning agony, each pump of my heart sending a fiery pain through every piece of me.

I had seen Gluttony munching on my hand, my wrist moving around with every bite he took of the opposite end, like the palm of a broken doll, and I felt nausea sweep me. I puked, my stomach fighting within itself, clutching my insides into a grasp that was too insignificant next to the pain throbbing in my arm, blood and bile coming out of me in a sickening flow, the acid burning my throat, filling my nose with its acrid taste.

When I was done I felt some sort of numbness take over me, enveloping me, making the pain disappear, and before I knew my vision blackened again, and I was there again.

The cycle continued ad infinitum, pain there and here, white versus darkness. I did not know how much time it passed. I knew some did only because every time I woke up in reality I could see a stump starting to grow where my right hand had been. It was more bone than anything, pieces of flesh starting to mould together on it, a disgusting theatre of gore happening with my own body. I didn't even had time to feel pain, instead I was too fast swept up by nausea at the sight of it.

Lust was there every time, but I could pay no mind to her. I did not know if Gluttony was there or not, but she was there, having brought a chair and sitting there watching me struggle in and out of it.

It was hell.

-/-

"Aren't you a pitiful human," he said. I did not answer, staying still in my laying position, my eyes unseeing into the infinite white. I heard him sigh. It was the first time I was more conscious to hear his voice talking to me. I did not want to answer. I did not want to exist at all.

"So that was your limit. You've snapped." I wanted to agree. But I couldn't.

"So what are you going to do now? Will you beg me to die?" I did not answer. He snorted. "Not even that. Is it because you are tired or because you still cling to your pitiful life even now? Humans are pathetic."

I opened my mouth, the question rising before I could stop. The sound of my voice was so raspy that it wasn't unrecognisable, and every syllable hurt. It sounded like many different levels of broken, shattered glass pressed against a boulder. It seemed fitting for the sensations it gave me.

"And what about them?" I asked. He did not answer. "They aren't human. So what are they to you? Better than us? Stronger?" Truth laughed.

"You know nothing girl. Is that what you think? That creations of your kind are by any many less faulty than the original? And besides," he said coming closer. "How do you know they aren't human?"

I furrowed my brow. "But the story…"

"But is it the story? You're starting to see it don't you. That things are different. Does it scare you? That it will slip your grasp? You love it, don't you? The feeling of control. Knowing and trying to act like a god. You are worse than those alchemists in that regard."

I stood in silence, his words swirling in my mind. Was I? The legend of the arrogant human building wings out of wax thinking he could reach the Sun? Was I that? Had I thought I knew, only because I was the most ignorant of them all? Was this my fall?

"Perhaps," I answered, and Truth came to sit next to me, his white form swirling at the corner of my vision.

"Get up. Stand up and move." I did neither of those things.

"You kept your promise," I answered. If he had eyebrows now one of them would have twitched in annoyance. "You promised me then that when someone was about to die I would know before so I could try to turn fate."

He watched me for a second, folding his arms before nodding reluctantly. "Did I turn it? Is Maes really alive?"

"He is," he spat at me. "Do you know what you had ruined with that stunt? He is in a hospital in that world. But Mustang is hoping to save him, his wife can't move on with her grieving, and they hope he will come back. Instead, he cannot since you tied his fate with yours. He isn't there anymore, that is a corpse kept alive by your selfishness. How is that better?"

Tears willed themselves into my eyes, eventually flooding over them, spilling out on my cheeks, and going down towards my neck. I wept in silence, Truth watching me, his mouth pressed in a thin line.

"But can I bring him back?" I chocked.

"Do you want to?" When I nodded, he shook his head.

"Stupid fool. You want to repair this timeline? They why are you breaking it? Humans are so selfish. They wish to do what is best, what they think they should, but when it comes to something they consider 'theirs' they would destroy the whole world for it. That is how it all started after all…"

I wanted to ask what he meant but I did not have the strength. I wanted it all to end. To be let alone…

"But you cannot. I am holding you accountable for our deal. You had done enough lagging around already," at my confused look he chuckled. "You had forgotten already? Has your current selflessness erased the selfishness that had first brought you here? The riddle, my dear, dear human. You have a task to do. We are playing a game after all. And you are losing. Have you become so fond of this place? Of here? We could end it all now. Say you'll give up and I'll keep you here, let that half dead carcass of your body die, and we'll spend eternity together…"

I listened to him, his words going over me, not making really any sense… But as he spoke in that multilateral, inhuman way, the words started to make sense, take for in my mind, settling on fear.

How could have I forgotten?

In an instant I was on my feet, but my balance was off, the missing stub of my arm making my body feel oddly unbalanced. My left feet slid back, making me take a guarded position, my left arm flailing, but eyes set on Truth burning. As I felt stable enough on my feet I leaped forward, my left hand grabbing his neck clumsily as he had also risen to his feet himself. Even so, I tightened my hold on it, fury making me blind.

"You bastard. You annoying bastard! You have told me that I won't forget that part!"

"But did you," he answered, his voice not the least changed, even as my hand dug into his airway. "You could have remembered it at any time. You did it always with so many other things. Even with those I kept from you. You actually fought me on them, breaking them free of my hold. But you did not want to, Alethea. You see, all your mighty talk about living and all that, but you had wanted to die. In your world, then, now, you want to vanish and die, but you desperately cling to life."

"Shut the fuck up, you're lying! You are lying! I have always wished to live, to beat this game called life! You just keep messing with my head!"

"Are we back to that game of throwing insults," Truth asked, his voice bored. His right hand snaked around my hold, and for the first time he initiated a touch, his pale white going up to touch my cheek slightly. The gesture was so odd I immediately let go of him, but I couldn't move my body away, as his hand went to caress my face. It was the oddest feeling I had ever felt. It was like being touched by nothing and everything in return. It was the coldest thing I had felt, so cold it actually burned, heavy, yet lighter than any feather. They were so soft, so lean his fingers, so unlike anything that existed in this world. It made me shiver and want to recoil away from it, but at the same time I wanted to lean in closer to it. It felt oddly right on my skin.

Truth chuckled. "My dear human, we are beyond that phase. We know I am right. So stop this nonsense." And as sudden as he had touched me, he leaned away and I was let there, waking up from under a spell, gasping and panting, horrified and furious.

"Never do that again," I spit out. He just laughed delighted.

"Now come then. You need to go. You had played this game enough," he said looking at my stump. "Heal just that, then keep your powers in check and gather energy enough to break out of those binds. You are embarrassing me, being chained by something so mundane. Let the connection in you with me stabilise a little, you're literally draining too much out. It will give you strength to set yourself free and then heal yourself..." he stopped looking at me in an odd way. "You'll actually see what you've done with this stunt. Just get your arm back and stop healing yourself with every drop you get, and let some of it come free."

"If I do that…" I stopped, my throat constricting with emotion. "If I stop feeding power off entirely from that flow… will… will Hughes die? You said I have bound him to by pushing my power into him. But if I stop…"

Truth watched me, his features much more serious than usual. "Yes. Right now besides healing yourself you're also subconsciously keeping that body alive."

"But if I stop he will die. Forever," I chocked. "Roy will lose his friends, Gracia her husband…"

"Alethea… He is already dead. You are toying with a human because of your own desires."

I chocked, my left hand running to my mouth to keep the sounds inside but failing. Tears rolled down my cheeks, for the first time in how long my heart twisting with a well-known pain. Truth watch me break apart as realisation hit me. I had to let him go. How could I still? How could I face Ed or Roy? Oh, Ed… he will be crippled by guilt.

"And then what?" I chocked out. I couldn't dwell on it. I felt the time running out, and I needed to know what I will do when I got back there.

"Then what? That depends on you. But knowing your stupidity you'll run to save your friends. You'll need to keep yourself in check until then. And then…"

"Then what?" I asked, but he had already turned away from me, his face towards the Gate. He walked towards it, and I heard the crack of it before I saw it start to open up, the thick blackness greeting me, the eye opening drowsily to watch me. Black tendrils rushed forward, ignoring Truth's form, and as they grasped me he turned around smiling.

"Then Alethea… Then Alethea we will actually start the game."

As the Gate closed behind her Truth fell to the ground panting. His breathing became rougher, until he felt like coughing. He wanted to ask what was happening, but he already knew and he cursed himself. He mostly cursed that damned human. He had never expected it to happen like this. She was linked to him, but every day he was linking himself to her. He wanted to know what that meant, but for the moment he did not understand himself. He just knew he was acting like a human fool.

He wanted to hate her. But hate was a human notion.

Roy's P.O.V.

Roy watched the lying figure on the hospital bed. His best friend looked more faded away than he had ever seen him. It had seemed that in a month he had lost all weight and spirit, looking more like a corpse than a patient. The beeping of the machines were the only sounds in the room illuminated by a fiery sun, the sunset painting the white walls into a beautiful orange.

He remembered that after Ishbal he had wished to die. Had even tried to. Unfortunately, he had failed. He wasn't sure he regretted it. Roy knew that dying required some sort of passion. Some burning pain and will, a fire that wished to be extinguished as it roared inside himself and burnt everything to a crisp. He thought it had been fitting considering the way he had taken the souls of others. He was a monster that deserved to burn.

But right now, watching the wasted figure of his friend he thought he felt neither of this. He did not feel the bitter bite of revenge, the burn of fury and guilt. He was just so empty and spent. Just so tired. He couldn't muster the will to join his friend, to avenge him, to apologise. He could just stay there in a defeated silence, the weight of his life and world crushing him. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't. He was just a spectator watching the slow waste of his friend.

A door opened and he imagined Riza entering, her eyes shining with worry. She would say nothing, just stand by him, and that was the only thing that Roy wanted. Instead a feminine voice snapped him out of his trance, his head moving in a sluggish way towards the door.

"Colonel Mustang, I did not think you'd be here," Gracia said, her voice monotonous. Roy watched her enter the room, the door sliding closed behind her. He watched her and he thought she looked exactly like he was feeling. Her clothes were mismatched and slightly crumpled, heavy bags under her eyes showing her tiredness. But what scared Roy was the look in her green eyes. Maes had always described her eyes like a sap in love, jewels shining with emotions. Looking at him now Roy could see only faded colour and apathy.

"Miss Gracia, I have told you to call me Roy," he forced himself to speak as the silence became too heavy. She sighed.

"It seems fitting to call you by your title considering we're in a military hospital. Not that it isn't ironic. Those who tried to kill him are trying to keep him now alive." Roy jumped slightly at her harsh words and cold tone. Despite what she said Gracia did not seem to react, choosing instead to sit herself down, her skirt flowering over the chair. She moved it closer to the bed, the legs making a loud piercing scratch as she leaned forward to catch her husband's arm.

Roy watched all of this not knowing what to do. Or say. What could he say to the wife of his best friend that was clearly dying out alongside him?

"How is Elicia?" he asked.

"A friend is watching her as I visit. I-I don't want her to come here. To see her father like this… She should have happy memories with him."

"Hughes isn't dying." Gracia just hummed.

"Not now, but he is. And even so how much would they let him live anyway!"

"Miss Gracia!"

"I am just telling the truth," she snapped at his tone. "My husband is dying Roy Mustang, please let me cut the crap because I am tired of it all." As she said the words her voice broke, and her head fell forward. Roy stood rooted in place watching as Gracia brought Hughes' palm in between her to her forehead, touching it slightly as her shoulders slum forward and soft cries left her lips. He wanted to say something. Anything. But there was nothing to say to that kind of loss.

"I am falling apart Roy. And you know what's worst?"

"What?" he choked out, not really wanting to know. He just knew Gracia had to say the words no one else had to hear. His eyes were burning, and a bleeding whole was gaping into his heart. He had the certainty he was staying at the side of a great abyss, an inevitable fall waiting him that will leave him forever changed. He knew that whatever Gracia said would be the first fall into that hole, the world changing. So he feared her words but he could do nothing to stop them, the inevitability of the moment leaving him shaking with an undiluted pain.

"I wished he had just died all at once. Now he is just a light fading away, and I have to watch it extinguish. And there is no other choice for me than to die alongside with him, and I can't, while at the same time I do not want anything else than to waste away," she whispered her head bent. After she said the words the silence ringed in, a deafening scream trying to stifle in vain the traitorous sounds.

Gracia raised her head, tears falling down her cheeks, her eyes lost to the world, fixing a point somewhere behind the curtains filtering the light coming through the windows. Roy felt as if the ground underneath him had crumbled. His knees were shaking and his breaths felt gulps of some infested poison. He wanted to scream, to demand her to take her words back, but his traitorous mind was already agreeing.

Without saying another word he turned around and left. Riza waited for him in the hallway and wordlessly handed him his uniform hat. Roy just pulled it hard over his head, angling it forward to hide his eyes. He did not wish for anyone to see him cry.

Al's P.O.V.

He watched the man in front of him with fascinated horror. No, not the man, the Homunculus. His mind couldn't yet understand the reality of what lay before him. He wanted to gasp at the way the head reconstructed on its body, the small red sparks of alchemy flashing as flesh formed over bones anew.

When Greed finally had his head back on its shoulders, he wiped the blood dripping from his mouth and smiled.

"Now, this one death for me." Al just watched in horrified fascination his mind whirling with thoughts while staying blank, all at once.

"No way…," he muttered in awe, unable to fully wrap his head around the reality he was seeing.

"Do you understand now?" Greed asked. "There's no way 'there's no way'. Besides aren't you the living proof of that? An existence with a soul and no body," he added somewhat thoughtful yet smug, sure on the facts he was stating. If Alphonse still had a human body he would have said that his blood would have run cold. As it was he could only stay dazed for a few seconds, a feeling of freezing fear chilling his immaterial existence before he demanded answers all flustered.

"I know just about everything that goes on in this other world," he answered grinning widely, a feral smile of a predator looming over its prey. "Besides, I had a little birdie tell me," he added coming closer, his violet eyes meeting red orbs.

"What are you talking about," Al demanded. "Who told you about this? Who could have known about this?"

"The underground world has its ways, kid. There is always someone desperate enough for some information to give something as precious as this in return. Not to say it won't help you at all to learn her name. She was that kid of annoying person that really tended to disappear into thin air…"

Al stood there speechless, unable to form more question as the Homunculus changed the subject bored of it. As he learnt that his name was Greed, as well as his greedy nature that demanded him to search for immortality even though he had lived that long already, his mind kept thinking over his words, uneasiness coiling somewhere deep into his soul like a plague of unwanted thoughts. He wanted to refuse the idea, to pretend it was a misunderstanding but his thoughts kept replaying the same memory over and over again of a pained face Alette vanishing from Ed's grip in Central. It couldn't be; he didn't want to think about it, but with a sense of foreboding he was sure that he was not mistaken.

What did that mean he wanted to ask, to demand answers. When had she come in Dublith? Had she known about Homunculi? What else did she know? What had she demanded from Greed so important that he had told him about his body in return?

'It is particularly important that you reach Dublith. You will do what you need.'

Had she known? Was this meeting between them and Greed an established thing and that's why she had been insistent that they would go to Dublith?

Al felt nauseated. He wanted to scream and he wanted to keep quiet as if any of those methods were to help him sort out his confusing feelings. He felt hurt, he felt confused and he felt even the smallest bit scared. He did not want to think Alette betrayed them purposely but the facts made it seem to be so. He wanted to understand why, and also he felt more scared with every second he continued thinking about the situation. They had always known as an abstract concept how Alette had knowledge from beforehand about their world and what will happen, that was a given to accept alongside all her weirdness. But until that moment he hadn't realised how careful and secretive she must've been with every bit of unwanted information she knew. How would they have reacted if she had told them before of the Homunculi? What else she knew?

Eventually, his brother and Izumi came to his rescue, and even if Al was grateful to see he would get out of this situation his mind was elsewhere, contemplating once more the complex situation they had all been put into.

Alette's P.O.V.

My fingers were almost completely grown. If I tried hard enough I could almost move my shoulder. I had become immune to the sickening colour of my skin growing over tissues. Surprisingly enough, Lust spent most of her days in silence watching me. Or playing with her nails, or claws as she seemed fascinated to lengthen them and shorten them at will. At times she went missing for hours to an end and came back only to sit more.

It was starting to drive me up the walls. At least with Envy something happened, but suddenly I was caught into a perfect time loop of nothingness. My mind was becoming restless, as my body was healing more and more. Even so most damage was so extensive that I could only say that from mortally wounded I reached the state of gravely injured. The most disgusting sensation of them all was my arm growing back, like a feeling of constant itching as the bones reconstructed itself bit by it. It was making me restless from the constant pain radiating from my right side. Then came the disgusting sensation of muscles growing from scratch, elongating themselves and fixing themselves like a sickening mass of goo over the bones.

Lust grew very bored of watching the process. Or of me. I think the only thing keeping her in place was Envy's wrath. I wanted to speak just to pass time. The only times she reacted was when I almost fell asleep, giving me a large bleeding scar over my cheek. Perhaps it was her way of torturing me, waiting for me to spill the beans by myself. I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.

Days passed like that. Or I thought they were days by the way Lust tended to go away and come back again. What interested me was the way I seemed to have more in common with the Homunculi than with the humans. From thinking over Envy and Lust they did not seem to sleep or need it. They also did not appear to have any urgent physiological needs. Besides Gluttony… being gluttonous they didn't seem to need to eat either. It scared me more than I wanted to admit.

As my hand started to resemble… a hand, I also tried to conserve some power. But the damage was so extensive the only thing I did was to be able to see the white lines once again. The first time I did realise I could see them again I felt I could cry. Instead, I spent my time looking at them wondering if I had enough energy to turn into my immaterial form enough to get out of my bindings. But besides the lines I observed a new addition. On my body I could also see a new set of lines. They were still white, but so much different than the ones surrounding me. The ones marring my skin seemed like an iridescent set of veins, life force coursing through them. They were also incredibly mangled. My right arm was a series of moving dots than a connection of lines, the other parts of my affected body like my stomach also showing a bundle of lines that did not sort themselves out. They all looked so wrong, and even if before I had some mental idea of them being there, seeing them glowing my skin was another thing entirely.

Then there was Lust that seemed coated into a foam of dark red. All around her body there were lines of an incandescent red and violet, glowing bright at some certain points around her body. With my normal vision I could see those points were exactly on the middle of the red dots marring her skin in certain points. There was another new addition to my powers. Surrounding her was a dark aura that I could concentrate on. It reminded me of that time in East City when I had first something like that, but the menacing red cloud sticking stick to her body did nothing but make me want to turn and run in the opposite direction.

In one of those days I was playing with my new asset I felt a change. It was insignificant at first, easy to ignore, but it turned more powerful with every passing second until it seemed every single white line around me was sizzling with energy. And then I felt it myself before I saw it. Something blacker than the darkest shadow started dribbling out of the walls, until it seemed it was going to envelop the whole world. Without wanting to I moved further back in my chair, the binds stretching with my move, but fear was making me irrational.

I looked at Lust and even though she seemed unaffected she had also felt the new presence, giving up playing with her nails to look around. I wanted to ask what was happening but any words I could muster were chocked down as suddenly the world was enveloped in darkness. The lines disappeared and if it weren't for Lust's red aura and my own lines, I would have thought I had gone blind. Instead, the hard concrete was covered by a dark colour, shimmers of black visible around it, so disgusting and awful I immediately tried to move my legs away from it. With a pant I let my vision drop, but even with my normal eyes the darkness did not disappear, the only improvement being the lack of that black shimmer.

And then from the darkness suddenly eyes appeared everywhere, red glowing orbs watching us from every angle and corner on a curtain of dark velvet. And I screamed, the sound choking me as I tried to subdue it because it was like the inside the Gate, but at the same time it was not, those perverted slits that narrowed on me nothing alike like the curious, grey eyes of the Gate.

And my mind knew the answer without me having to ask for it, dread setting like a lead weight in my stomach. Pride. The First Homunculus.

"Lust, here you are," an unearthly voice said. It sounded old and ancient, whispers of the night and death combined into the same voice. It made chills break all over my skin, as goose bumps broke over my body. I realised with dread that it was the first time feeling cold since first waking up like this.

"What are you doing in this cell," the voice demanded, anger obvious in its menacing tone. I turned to watch Lust. Even though she kept casual and bored, I could see the difference in her stance. It made me more nervous than I wanted to admit.

"Keeping Envy's pet under supervision," she answered before shrugging. Pride just squinted all his eyes at her, and I could swear the darkness gave a small ripple before settling down again.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"She is the one that interfered in Lieutenant Hughes' death and made the plan fail." After she said that all the eyes in the room were on me again. I tried not to breath in an obvious manner.

"Is that so?" Pride demanded, and most eyes slid from the walls to gather around me. I tried not to squirm.

"She is quite an odd one. Besides being a Human Sacrifice, Envy says she can't die. A thing I also agree with," she said nonchalantly as if she wasn't nervous around this new presence.

At her words Pride stood quiet, his red eyes settling on Lust. "And why haven't you reported something like that."

"I really thought it was just assumptions at first but Envy is right. She had most of her body chopped off by Envy before I took her place. Also that arm has been eaten by Gluttony," she answered pointing at my mangled limb. Pride's eyes settled on me, before narrowing slightly.

"Is that so?" he asked. A tendril of darkness rose from the ground then starting to wrap around my leg, and going up towards my torso and hand.

"Who had given scum like you permission to pull stuff like that?" Lust visibly flinched at his words but did not budge.

"Scum like us are your relatives," she spat. Pride's eyes just turned towards her. "Envy is my only sibling and he is trash. This should have been reported to Mother immediately," Pride countered coolly, his voice so could it could have frozen a lesser person in their place.

"Is Father too busy to talk to us anymore?" she spat. Before she had any chance to react a tendril of black pierced through her abdomen all the way to the other side. Lust let out a painful cough, blood dribbling out of her mouth. Pride snatched back his shadow in a fast move, a few seconds passing before blood started to pour out of Lust's abdomen. Immediately, the red flashes started to heal her wound but that had been more of a warning than a wound intent on killing.

"I would watch my tongue, if I were you. Besides we will settle this now. Growing back limbs does not mean she is in any way special or immortal. It means she is a cockroach. Too resilient for her own good."

"But she isn't human either, Pride," Lust wheezed as the wound finally sealed itself.

"No. But that does not mean so much time should be wasted on this. I will settle this now."

I heard Lust scream something. I thought I wanted to scream. But I never got the chance. Before I knew a black tendril impaled itself into my heart. It was as if time was moving in slow motion; I just watched it in fascination before pain really registered, and then the oddest sensations took hold of me, like a flutter of desperate wings, my pierced organ still trying to function. Blood seemed to invade every space in my body and I felt it rush out of it along with Pride's shadow, but I couldn't even gasp before another tendril raised itself.

I couldn't explain how it happened. I just knew it had cut all the way through my neck, the move so fast I didn't even feel it. And the next thing I felt was the disgusting slide of my neck, my field of vision suddenly changing but by no willing move of mine. I think I imagined falling and a thud, before darkness enveloped everything.

Roy's P.O.V.

He didn't know why he had come back. But he did so day by day. And day by day he was confronted with the reality of his friend fading away more and more, the body lying in the hospital bed looking more like a shell than a former human.

Maes was slowly fading away day by day. Roy knew that and he was conflicted about it. A part of him that had started to sound oddly similar to Gracia's voice, was actually glad for this outcome. Every day he left the small salon and thought that this was it, this was the last day he was going to see his best friend alive, and when the next day he visited he was going to see an empty room and just a shaken nurse to inform him of the outcome. And every day he came back, fear and anxiety constricted his chest like a demonic claw wanting to tear it apart, and every day he was greeted by the sight of Maes looking more dead than before. And for that fact only, that and the way Gracia had started to thin and shrivel even though she had a daughter at home, the way he couldn't sleep at night knowing the next day he had to get through the same routine of fear and anxiety so he was just throwing himself more and more into research hoping to find a clue of who did this and why - the question was plaguing him, a cacophony echoing into the hollow halls of his souls: why, why, why… ; for that only he wanted it to end for Maes.

And he was utterly disgusted with himself.

As usual he entered the room that day, Riza following him a short distance behind, a quiet, worried shadow. As soon as Roy entered the room he was greeted with the sight of the thin body lying on the white sheets. It was the same as always, Maes looking thinner, the machines that were brought weeks ago to help him breathe filling the empty room with mechanical noises. His skin was turning whiter, his fingers gaining a tint of blue from the lack oxygenation as his throat kept constricting more and more, the machines becoming unable to fill his lung with air. He had heard the doctors speak, worrying whether or not there was any brain activity left, but being unable to tell for sure. His friend looked more and more like a corpse, his cheeks hollow and eyes rimmed with dark circles, making Roy want to scream. And the same as always he felt a part of him die and wither at the sight, and not even the hate and fury burning him acidly on the inside, pushing him ahead to search for answers, couldn't ease the hollowness of his soul. There was no need for doctors or machines; he needn't to ask Riza even. Both of them knew from the moment they had entered the room that death filled it with its suffocating presence; Ishbal made you aware of things like that. And perhaps Roy would have his wish granted and today would be the last day his best friend would have to suffer this way, this way his disgusting wish being granted. It was ridiculous really; he didn't know how it happened, but suddenly, for a while now, Maes' condition started deteriorating very fast and very badly.

But his visit today wasn't just a usual check in.

"Hey there, Maes," he said taking his usual seat by the bed. He stood there watching him, waiting for anything, a reaction to show his best friend was still alive, but nothing happened.

"You look like shit," he added. Riza snorted next to the door, and Roy turned to glare at her.

"I don't think you have the right to say that," she said, adding the usual 'sir' only after a short pause. Roy watched her, and even though her appearance and stance were impeccable she was clearly as tired and stressed as him. Furthermore, he knew Alette's missing was wearing down on her more than she wanted to admit. How long had it been? Over a month now? Were they closing in on the second? And the same as with Maes' attackers, she had vanished without a trace. They both knew by now that most probably she had been taken by the same people that had done the attacking since there was no way for her to go missing like this, without any trace left. That worried him sick too, and he was swinging back between trying to find her and his quest for revenge. Riza was worrying about him, but Roy could see right through her how scared she was for the girl. He couldn't say he wasn't surprised. He had never thought she will act like that towards the girl.

"Maes, what have you gotten himself into?" he asked ignoring her remark. He sighed deeply, a sound coming from the depths of his tired soul. "They are trying to pin your murder on someone else," he finally added.

Even though he paused there was no response from the other man so he continued.

"This might actually work in our favour you know. It's the first lead we have for them. Philosopher's Stone? Military experimentation? Seriously Maes, couldn't have you chosen to be curious about gardening?" He laughed, but it sounded so hollow and unnatural in the hospital room that it died on his lips.

"Don't worry. I have a plan. I will get to the bottom of this. I will find out what happened, and why. I will avenge you." He wanted Maes then to yell at him, to call him stupid for choosing as bothersome thing as revenge as his drive, especially when he didn't need it to cloud his mind.

"They also took her. She came to your rescue, the stupid one, didn't she? Don't worry Maes, will get her back too. We'll make this right," he added leaning forward, his fingers grazing Maes' cold ones. But even as he said the words he knew they were a lie, and to his surprise he felt his eyes burning hot with unshed tears for a reason he couldn't quite place.

"I am sorry," he added much lower, a secret whispered to the void that was staring back at him. "I am so sorry it came down to this, I am so sorry I…," but since he didn't know how that sentence would end he stopped himself, and he let the silence ring with echoes of regrets.

They didn't stay much longer after that. Riza didn't say anything as usual, but her quiet presence shuffled closer as they exited the hospital, her silent way of encouragement and promises. Roy didn't know what to do when the evening light burnt his eyes. He wanted to run. He wanted to cry. He wanted to give in the sudden urge to take Riza's hand and ask for assurances because he was so, so lost, and he didn't know how to continue and she was the only sturdy thing in his life. But he did neither. Instead, he shuffled the white gloves on his hands and hopped that the plan would succeed.

As soon as the Colonel and his Lieutenant left the room, the figure lingering in the shadows approached the door of the room they just liberated. Inside there could be heard only the breathing of the machines connected to the body lying in bed. The evening light was slowly dying out, the room hidden into a penumbra of greys, making the face of the dying man hard to see before one reached the bed.

Lust shuffled closer, her heels clacking on the hospital floor, her eyes expressionless as she took in the sight of the man she had failed to kill. Her nose scrunched up at his decaying body, the hollowness of cheeks, the thinness of his body. He looked utterly defeated, but it was worse than the sudden death she had been sent to inflict the first time, since this decaying had taken away his humanity and dignity alongside. It was utterly pathetic, and she could barely recognise the proud man that fought against her and stabbed her in the body lying there motionless.

'Is this what you fought for?' he wanted to ask the girl. 'Is this what you had tried to protect so badly that you had chosen to give yourself away to us? This is what you died for?'

She didn't know what had made her think like that. She had watched the girl being chewed out first by Envy and then killed by Pride. It was just another useless human. Except she wasn't human. And she had been tortured until madness and had not broken down. Perhaps she had become pathetic if acts like this invoked something in her.

She sighed. It didn't matter. She had died. And soon so would he. It had all been so pathetic. Such a big inconvenience provoked by two stubborn humans. She wanted to wake the man up just so she could reaffirm her boredom and irritation with the whole thing.

Carefully, she took out from the folds of her dress the syringe she had smuggled earlier. She didn't know why she was the one to do this, but Pride had been very firm. Normally, Envy would do the shady business like this. She wasn't used to using such devices. That's what she had claws for. But it wasn't as if she was in a position to complain to Pride. What a troublesome thing had come from one of Envy's whims.

Carefully she took the last few steps between her and the bed. It was such a simple way to die. She just had to inject this and it was all over. Somewhat it seemed unfitting, as if it wasn't fair for two humans that fought so hard to die just like this.

Shaking herself off of such thoughts, Lust moved forward and in a second she injected the syringe in the closest IV tube, watching as the white substance mixed with the others, and was slowly carried away into the veins of the Lieutenant. She watched for a second. Perhaps it was even a good thing for it to end like this. The man was already more dead than alive, and the girl would have been cut open over and over by Envy for his amusement. She sighed. She just couldn't understand him or Pride.

Casually, she turned around, the sound of her heels being the only proof of her passing presence. The door closed behind her, the task nicely done.

She only got to turn a corner until nurses rushed by her, the sound of a beeping machine indicating the passing away of Maes Hughes from this life.

Ed's P.O.V.

He couldn't believe what was happening. He had only come into Central when he had been hit by the news of Maes Hughes being hospitalized because he was dying. Maria Ross hadn't meant for the information to leak, but it happened and it had hit Ed like a brick wall.

But it hadn't stopped there.

Ed was in Central only for 24 hours, but it still felt like an eternity had passed. Firstly, he had learnt about Maes, and it hadn't taken him much realise how he got wounded and hounded like that for. Then he had learnt about the arrest of Maria Ross, supposedly the murder of Maes Hughes, a day after he had spoken to her.

To make matters worse, when he had confronted Mustang over the accusation he had brushed him off and told him more or less to piss off. Of course, he didn't; he couldn't, but Mustang seemed adamant to be a pain in the ass and not listen to him. Frustrated Ed tried confronting him on the other matter that had been hanging over his head since he had left Dublith: where was Alette.

What he didn't expect was Roy to watch him with a blank stare, so devoid of emotion, and to say he didn't understand his question. Alette had left Central with them towards Dublith; he was supposed to know that better than himself considering he had transferred there only after they departed.

The answer had left Ed speechless, all force leaving his limbs, and he could only stay in Mustang's new, shiny office and stare, completely dumb struck. Al wasn't faring better, but he at least gathered his wits enough to speak.

Mustang listened to their story with the same void expression on his face, before finally, some life sparked in it, something Ed was so surprised to see coming from Mustang of all people that he didn't even recognise it until much later as pity.

So Roy explained to them how Alette had probably remained in Central most probably for Maes since there were traces of her near the scene, and she hadn't been seen since. Ed had demanded what searches had been made to find her, to which Mustang only raised an eyebrow inquiring how stupid he was demanding something like that for an illegal immigrant from another world that had been sheltered away from the government of Amestris.

In the end Ed left the office more than angry at Mustang, at life, at himself and at Alette. He barely had time to let the fact that Maes Hughes was hospitalised and dying when the strike just fell on all of them, and suddenly Ed was informed by a bleak looking military man that Maes Hughes had died when he had come to visit him a day later at the hospital. He couldn't explain what he had thought then. He couldn't think at all, not even when his legs gave away and Al caught him, or when they stopped Winry from entering the hospital room, telling her what happened and making her break down. He couldn't stop to think of whats and hows and ifs, or anything, he could just feel something in him slowly unravel, leaving him confused and finally pained, in so much pain that he could break with the strength of it.

He attended the joke of a funeral submersed under a wave of numbness. He heard Elicia cries, he saw the easy-going Major break down, he saw the dead look hiding behind Gracia's eyes. He wanted to scream, he wanted to fight them all, fate itself, and finally he wanted to run and faint as the coffin was slowly lowered into the dark earth, a memory so much alike reminiscing behind his eyes making him taste blood with how hard he bit into his lip, his stomach lurching. He knew he left the ceremony only guided by Al's and Winry's presence, all of them gathering in dark and silence in one of the rented hotel rooms, no words left to be said. Ed could only stay still and hurt so badly he couldn't even start to ask anything behind the powerful guilt enveloping him like a stifling blanket. He just absentmindedly played with his Alchemic Watch, his shoulders oddly stiff in the military uniform he had been made to wear. A part of him was snorting at the irony that this would be the first time he ever set foot in such a uniform. The rest of him clenched with determination as his eyes burnt with unshed tears that he would never again be needed to wear one.

But Ed didn't have time to let the grief and things settle in before the arrest of Maria Ross made his world spin once more. Ed didn't know what to think anymore; he just couldn't think. Suddenly, his world was just spinning more and more out of control, a downfall spiral, dragging down everything he thought he knew. The revelations, the events happening one after another in such rapid succession, squeezing his breath out of him.

As soon as he read it in the newspapers he ran into Mustang's office only to be met with a frosty dismissal. Ed liked to think he didn't care much for Mustang's actions towards him since he was just a major dick, but the coldness and angry fire burning behind those dark eyes both enraged and scared him. Still that didn't stop him to follow Mustang out as soon as he heard around the HQ about the break in. It didn't stop him from seeing Mustang burn a woman alive mercilessly, the smell of burnt flesh and death sickening sweet and harsh in his nostrils, the orange of the flames bright in his wide open eyes as he watched the explosion for the first time from afar, his mouth choking on smoke as no words could leave his lips as the horror of what happened sunk in his limbs.

Nothing stopped Roy Mustang from betraying him so deeply he felt like being stabbed, as a metaphorical last drop filled a glass that was already spilling.

And nothing stopped Edward's need to fight to grab and ask Mustang how could he act like this when it was clear that Maria Ross had nothing to do with his actual murder considering the circumstances and that Maes had died in that hospital bed from a sudden heart failure. He wanted to shake Mustang, demand of him answers only he could give as well as answers he couldn't, a desperation clawing at his insides, making him boil with agony and restlessness as he felt his mouth purse over the acrid taste of his spilling feelings. But Mustang did nothing but push him away, and as Ed fell to the asphalt his brother keeping him back from jumping the Colonel, he felt a heavy burden press on his shoulders, so heavy that it seemed to suffocate him and all life and will left him.

And so Ed somehow felt utterly defeated for the second time in his lifetime.

When Major Armstrong suddenly barged into his room demanding him join him in a vacation, he only opposed on instinct at being manhandled so suddenly. Inside he was bleeding a wound so heavily it felt like it spilled everything leaving him drained by the unanswered questions that seemed to carve into his soul.

Alette's P.O.V.

There was a sudden flash of blinding pain, the taste of metallic warmth, a grotesque gurgle and then darkness. Everything was so dark, so immaterial I no longer knew if I was an existence. I didn't even know if I existed. Or what I was. I definitely didn't know where I was. As everything in my life in the present it just happened out of my control and reach.

It was frightening, so different from all the other times I had felt like this. And I knew I did. The fathom feelings were comforting touches in that nothingness. But it was never like this. I didn't know what wasn't like this but this was different, so different so wrong, I wanted to run away screaming. But I couldn't. I just existed on the most basic level, stifled, trapped into nothingness, unable to move. I was merely a presence cast into darkness.

Time lost meaning, and before I knew it I could no longer think or perceive something from within or without.

And just as suddenly, one eternity after, everything changed, at first almost imperceptible, just a feeling of buzzing, an expectancy of sorts. And then it started changing so slowly, and then so fast I couldn't understand. The blackness started receding until painful white invaded my vision, my mind barely keeping up with the change. Pain exploded into my body and I collapsed wanting to scream, but only a rasped breath left my agonizing lips. I was curling into a ball my hands starting to gnaw at my burning when I heard the voice roaring behind me.

"Alethea, you must go!"

And that was when I was dragged back into reality.

Envy stared letting a small sigh leave his lips at the mess of the room. What a damned pity.

He had gone on his assignment as Pride was annoyingly chewing on his tail, and even as he made that all too inquiring bastard Mustang satisfy his need for revenge with the false accusation for that woman, his bastard of a brother still managed to find her and break his toy in the absence. Honestly, he was so irritated and pissed; as if he would have suffered personally if he had left him have his ways. No, instead the shadowy bastard had to act all mighty and kill her in one swipe. It had to be decapitation too, as if normal killing would be too little – in this case it was but he wasn't going to think that.

He had to get rid of the body he knew that. It had been several days already since he had collected the broken pieces and put them together on a table he brought around. It was going to stink. Plus, since Pride told Mother about this, he was to be questioned soon enough. His nose scrunched up in annoyance. Everything was pissing him off, especially Lust with her 'I-told-you' glances she kept sending his way. Oh well, he got plenty of compensation and satisfaction out of seeing that bastard Greed be melt down into ashes into a boiling pit. It seemed fitting considering that was the exact sensation he felt when he was in his nearby every single damned time.

Still, Envy did not get rid of the body. He didn't know what kept him from doing so; after all, she was dead. She wasn't moving, her head lolling to the side awkwardly even after he put it over its neck. It was quite macabre even for him, but he couldn't explain the pull that made him want to come back every day and watch the body, his mind reeling with question he wanted to say as she carved her flesh open, her defiant eyes bearing into his. But now he couldn't do that, there was no fun. But he still came back again and again, a part of him cursing his stupidity. How low had he fallen?

But she had intrigued him. Provoked him in a way that he hadn't felt as inciting in centuries. He wanted to see her break as much as he wanted to see her resist him, all bloodied and defiant so close to the breaking point, screaming in agony. His hands had twitched in anticipation wanting to see how far she could go, how far he could go. He wanted to know what she was, he wanted to know if his question had answers. Or perhaps he really was a sadist as Lust said. He never contemplated the idea but maybe a small – but just small – part of him was. Well, centuries could get quite bleak when he only felt a limited set of emotions, and ordinary human lives were just so boring. Envy had learnt that if he wanted to stay entertained he had to go further.

Because of these reasons he had found himself again in the dark room, the single neon giving away only the smallest of lights. He didn't know what he looked for, what he wanted. He knew he somehow waited for something.

Even so this was a waste of time. Envy breathed in deeply, a defeated sound leaving his lips. This was plain ridiculous he decided, and forcefully he raised himself from the chair, moving aside as to leave it. In the instant he moved his eye caught a slight motion towards the table were the corpse lay. In a second he turned around to watch it, but the girl lay as dead as before.

Just as he was about to sigh and leave the room, his back half turned towards the table, several things happened all at once.

The first thing it registered was Lust barging in, the broken door hitting the concrete wall with a loud thud that resonated painfully in the small space. He wanted to demand what the fuck was going, when the expression on her face, serious and urgent, made him stop and hear her urgent words.

"Envy, stop being a useless piece of shit in this room and come out. We have an emergency."

That piqued his interest. "An emergency?" he asked.

"Mustang's men attacked Gluttony. Blew him out of a window. And now they seem to be headed here," she almost yelled, which from Lust it seemed to be the ultimate level of distress. Still, the news made Envy stop in shock, his brain failing to react momentarily.

"Fuck," he muttered. Lust scrunched up her nose in distaste at his swearing.

"'Fuck', indeed," she spat. "C'mon now, stop staying here being useless we have to stop them. Orders from above."

Despite the urgency of the situation Envy still had trouble understanding how that happened. "But I thought Mustang was all fine and satisfied after burning that girl to a crisp?"

"Apparently not. This has been going on for too long," she demanded in an impatient tone of voice. Envy understood. They had put her in charge of protecting the entries and exists towards the main place, and now it seemed they wanted to breach it. With Pride on a mood he would get all jittery too.

"What do you plan on doing?" he asked taking a few steps towards the door, that in Lust's opinion were too slow as she snapped her fingers in impatience.

"Have you lost your brains down here? We are going to kill them of course," she snapped.

That's when the second thing happened, demanding Envy's immediate attention.

He felt it before the light made him turn around and actually see it; a current of energy making the hairs on his arms stand up with the wrongness of it all. He had only a few seconds to meet Lust's widened eyes before he actually saw it for himself.

There was no explosion of power or anything, but on the table a small speck of white light irradiated from the girl. Envy watched it in shock as it concentrated around her neck, and even from across the room he knew what it could mean. His body was stuck in its place unmoving, but his mind whirled with the possibilities, his heart starting beating faster in his chest. He was surprised to remark that it was a combination of both fear and excitement, the usual anger fuelling him gone. But with that realisation came also his determination to see this through. He knew he hadn't been wrong; that girl had to offer more.

"You go ahead," he said turning to Lust, who watched the displayed in something that could only be painted as horror. "I'll stay behind and deal with this and then join you and start smoothing things with the higher ups around the facility. Damn that bastard Mustang," he swore, but his annoyance wasn't coming from the fact that his previous plan failed. It was all because his fun was just restarting and he wasn't able to enjoy it fully.

Lust looked at him, her violet eyes searching him with a sharp edge. He was prepared for her to protest but then they both felt a tremor pass through the walls, a feeling of wrongness every Homunculus felt when alchemy was used around in their presence. She swore under his breath before her eyes caught his, breaking her usual indifferent attitude.

"Fine. I will go ahead and wait for you to finish this fast. You'd better come, Envy." He waved her off, but she was already turning around and leaving, not deeming his cheekiness worthy of a response. Seeing her gone, Envy dropped the pretence and just moved towards the table, his blood boiling in anticipation with the knowledge that his favourite prey until present was still alive.

The girl wasn't moving yet, but small energy currents played on her skin around her neck. He watched somewhat in bored fascination as the skin and tissue started to bind itself back together, a slow regenerative process not unlike their kind's, but so much weaker in its force. Up close the energy he had felt before was washing over his skin in waves, accompanied with a sense of oddness that surpassed even the normal sensation alchemy brought forth. Of course alchemy felt wrong to them all; Father has said once it had something to do with their cores being Philosopher's Stones. But this was something else entirely, a feeling of gnawing emptiness that made him want to step backwards not to get sucked in, a force that made all his instincts yell a harsh 'back off' in his mind.

Envy decided to listen to them, but moved no further as he waited for the girl to wake up. She had to, the flesh mending together. Soon she was to open her eyes, and after he saw that she did that he would incapacitate her once more before solving Lust's problem. Then he would come back for her and start a new way of questioning. Perhaps he had to thank Pride for showing him the extent of her abilities.

But Envy had no more time to ponder on his thoughts as the girl started stirring, her hands twitching slightly. He moved closer towards the table prepared to bind her wrists, but as he was about to do so he was almost thrown backwards.

The girl jerked awake, the move so sudden he didn't have time to see it. He immediately rebalanced himself and watched as the girl clutched around at her chest, her previous calm breaths gone replaced by a hard wheezing and panting, the breaths reverberating on the walls like the sounds of an animal scratching at the concrete. Her eyes were wild and frantic, unseeing, as they moved around in panic, her body trembling.

Envy moved to catch her wrists but at the contact a shock went through his arm, the current cold and electric burning him deep into his bones. The girl startled at his sudden touch, her eyes finally meeting his, and from her throat a loud croak was heard before she snapped her arm and sent him flying across the room. The hit was so powerful it made him crash into the wall, the hard surface cracking and digging into his flesh cutting it. With a groan Envy jumped to his feet feeling the tingling of his wounds closing, his annoyed eyes meeting the girl's across the room. She was scared and confused, her pupils blown wide as she watched him in confusion. Envy growled, the beginning of a threat, but he never got to finish it as it seemed understanding suddenly dawned in the girl's eyes as they narrowed slowly in rising anger.

"What day is it?" she tried to ask, but apparently whatever magic she had hadn't yet worked on her vocal cords properly since the sounds were nothing more than screeches. Envy snarled. She had woken up from having her head blown off and she was asking about the date?

"Are you an idiot?" he exclaimed. "What does it even matter?" He wanted to mock her further, but was stopped as the girl suddenly moved. At first she was wobbly her motions sluggish as she seemed to try to stand, making Envy feel slightly disgusted and disappointed at her pathetic attempts. And yet, suddenly she disappeared, and there was nothing, only the slightest trace of white currents before she suddenly reappeared in his face, her hand shooting around his neck, and with force that should have been impossible for her small frame, she threw him against the wall.

"How long was I out for?" she rasped out her words nothing but a growl as her fingers dug into his neck painfully. Envy winced surprised at the sudden assault before he moved, and in one try he had her pinned against the wall in his place. He was bubbling with anger, the grip on her so strong he thought he could snap her bones like twigs. That bitch and her nerve…

"And why the fuck do you care? Does it even matter to you? A week, a year; it is the same for you. You're not leaving here, and you're just an entertaining, durable toy. And stupid dolls should stay quiet…"

Whatever wanted to say was lost as a sudden explosion reverberated through the walls, making the old neon slightly illuminating the room flicker dangerously. Envy swore under his breath. What on earth was Lust doing? He did not have time for this.

"Stay put," he spat and started to drag the girl that was still too uncoordinated to fight him properly towards the table once more. "Once I go finish Mustang I'll come back and deal with you too."

The words were uttered more in spite as Envy's eyes were drawn to the door, and his immediate duty he was foregoing, but they apparently sparked something in the girl who snapped out of her dazed state and started fighting him.

"Where is he?" she yelled as she swung towards him, her eyes clearing as hatred brimmed over their edges.

"Stay the fuck put," Envy growled extremely displeased with the situation. The girl hadn't been able to move for weeks how was she now putting up a fight?

Though her hits were vicious, the strength behind them inhuman in its own way not unlike the owner, crushing Envy's bones making him remake them in a daze of red light, the girl was clearly unexperienced with fighting as well as her newfound strength, especially in her current dazed state. Envy grinned as he swung his feet and sent her across the room where she hit the floor with a painful gasp.

"Where is Mustang?" she continued as she struggled to get to her feet, surprising Envy with her resilience and stubbornness. He was confused; why would she care so much or struggle so much for that colonel…

The realisation dawned on Envy making his blood sing in his veins. He knew this look. The face of desperation all humans made in face of the loss of something dear. Well there was some light shed on the mystery of why this girl had been so ardent in saving Hughes in the first place. Envy moved forward minding her hands in case she decided to make a gesture preceding alchemy.

"So that's how it is. You found yourself another person to try to protect? Pitiful. Humans like you are pitiful."

"Where. Is. He," she demanded her eyes still not meeting his. Envy smiled, a sickening pleasure making his heart thrum in ways that centuries of living tended to make it freeze in utter boredom.

"Don't worry about him. Lust is taking care of him. You should be worried more about yourself wouldn't you, girl?"

"Alethea."

"Huh?" Envy asked moving his head to the side.

"My name is Alethea you monster. And I demand you tell me where he is!" As she spoke her voice rose in volume to a yell, her head snapping up to finally meet his gaze. Envy was momentarily stunned, unable to speak as a prickle of oddness made his lips twitch in displeasure. Had her eyes always been so light in their colour, and intense?

"I don't care for the name of measly humans. You were so decided not to tell me before anyway. As for the Colonel… well I guess the situation must have been taken care of by now. Don't worry he was around, snooping. But he is done for. As was your other friend."

Envy watched as horror descended slowly on her face with a sense of satisfaction. Humans were so entertaining, so wildly alive in the way they reacted to the smallest of things. So many emotions passed on her face as the words sunk in and Envy revelled in them because he had felt none of them before.

"Yes," he cooed squatting down to her level. "Your other military friend that you so tried to protect, that made you come in this predicament and state, is finally done for. What did you think?" he asked sweetly. "That because he wasn't here he was saved? Foolish, stupid girl. No wonder you are not made for anything more than to be my toy for as long as you resist. Why do you try to save this other bastard? You will just fail again and again and just come back here. To me…"

As Envy spoke he kept his violet gaze fixed on her blueish eyes. He revelled in the horror and hopelessness he saw reflected in there, the way his words caved in a home in her mind to never leave. Yes, like this it was always like this. Give in.

"Give up," he whispered, his hand extended to grasp her chin in almost a tender touch, by far the most subdued he had been to her until now.

And then something shifted and her eyes were no longer widened and lost, as they narrowed in a furry and rage that rivalled the one his brother always kept in check.

"No," she spat the word, venom enveloping the sound as she snapped his hand away. Envy felt himself react to the provocation, his toy oddly vicious for a broken carcass.

"Stop fighting you little bitch," he yelled as he tackled her on the ground.

"Never," she yelled fought back, her eyes burning with a power that made him uncomfortable. How irritating.

"I will never stop fighting you. I will kill you. I will kill you! I WILL KILL YOU!"

And then he was on his back her face hovering over his, her lips pulled over her teeth in a snarl, her eyes glowing with a white hue. Envy tried to ignore the prickle of fear on the back of his mind, instead trying to snap her arms from her shoulders. But the girl had none of that, both of them caught in a tug-o-war that seemed that neither wanted to end. Envy was prepared to shift at this point and overthrow her through massive force, but then he felt it. A feeling of suction, a pull that was neither physical nor chemical tugging at him, a reaction he had only once felt before and had never forgotten.

The girl seemed to feel it too as her viciousness increased, every part they touched fizzling painfully at the contact, and Envy no longer fought to keep her in place but to throw her away.

Yet the girl was having none of it, and her hands dug into his skin deeper and deeper, until they pierced it, red, warm blood painting her white skin crimson as her eyes burnt into his. At the contact of her skin on his flesh he let a yell, the sensation resembling the coldest of ice burning him.

At his yell she laughed, and her rasped voice didn't sound human, delighted and frightening, enjoying the pain she caused. Envy's mind was frantic, not understanding how she could do this. There was nothing in this world that could touch him like this, make him hurt like this up to his very core, the coldness spreading like tendrils of venom through his body.

"You cannot win against me," she whispered, and then her teeth were tearing at his neck, her arms keeping him in place as he fought and screamed, an ethereal numbness taking over his limbs with every touch coming from her. It was like back then, only worse so much worse and Envy tried to fight the pull that was dragging the very life out of Philosopher's Stone, like claws digging in deep to carve him alive.

He wanted to scream, or he tried to but he felt only searing pain as blood flooded his airways, chocking him alive as teeth dug into flesh. The damage was so extensive that even with the constant healing of his Stone it wasn't enough, and to his horror he felt its light slightly fade away.

At last the girl snapped her head upwards, her face covered in crimson and eyes burning with an inhuman light. Her laugh echoed in the small space as she finally let him go, leaving only cold in her wake. Her skin seemed to glow, all her previous wounds healed, and she was white, blinding white and Envy would have snarled if he could have moved.

She sprung to her feet then, and his eyes followed her with some sort of lazy horror, as she spared him no other glance. She ran her hands on her tattered clothes, her head darting around as if she searched for something invisible to the naked eye. Then slowly she started to fade away, white currents making her disappear in front of his eyes.

Envy watched all this in his paralysed position as the girl – no, Alethea – seemed to vanish in thin air before he felt the pull of darkness claim him.

Al's P.O.V.

The heath was unbearable, the light alchemic wall not enough protection from the burning flames on the other side. Normally, he wouldn't have felt anything, the carcass his body was now making him unresponsive to such changes, but at the sight of the orange inferno raging around, his body crouched to protect Lieutenant Hawkeye, he could have sworn the he felt the lick of flames on his skin.

His mind was whirling with frantic thoughts regarding what had happened before. The first Homunculus they encountered today was more than an eerie phantasm. The other one, the woman – Lust – was clearly a death messenger, and for a second he had also felt the gnawing feeling at the idea that Colonel Mustang. Yet, he was decided to protect Hawkeye to his last dying breath, a thing which would have come much faster if Mustang hadn't showed up, still alive but gravely hurt.

He did not have time to react almost as he had built the wall between them and the onslaught of flames Mustang raged on the other side, and he yet cursed his new Prayer Alchemy that he had not yet mastered since he knew the construction was not as sturdy as he would have wanted. His hands were clenched around Riza Hawkeye that seemed ready to run away towards the flames to greet her superior, his hands almost touching prepared to rebuild the concrete wall should it crumble.

But whatever preparations he made were not needed since soon enough the flames died out. Carefully, they both turned around trying to peak around to see what was happening without the risk of getting burnt. Thankfully enough, it seemed no longer the case. On the other side of the wall were the mangled remains of the beautiful woman who had attacked them only moments before, that only now had screamed in agony as she had burnt again and again.

The smell of charred flesh must've been unbearable and Alphonse was so happy for his new body since the nausea and lightness he was feeling was only psychological shock. On the other side of the room stood Mustang, limping slightly on his right side were the red gash was visible from under his shirt. Al wanted to ask if it was okay to come out now, but Riza beat him to it, wringing herself free of his grasp and dashing across the room to Mustang that seemed to get the cue and start falling forwards.

Hawkeye made in time, her hands coming to catch him, her small frame surprisingly strong enough to sustain both of them. Al watched them for a second before leaving a relieved sigh out, the sound coming out so much hollower from his broken armour. He was prepared to ask something when a slight move to his left made him turn.

He wasn't fast enough, and time seemed to slow down. He wanted to yell but the sound was lost at the events unfolding in front of him. As he turned he had barely time to see Lust rise to her feet, her mangled flesh fizzling with red currents as she began to heal. Her face looked like a vision of death, and Al tried to snap his hands together in time to stop her, but he was slow, far slower than her as she extended her hand and a pierce snapped forward towards Mustang. Mustang seeing the move over Hawkeye's shoulder moved around to shield her, and Al wanted to scream as he knew that she would pierce him directly. He watched in horror as nothing he could do would be fast enough, trying it anyway, but his alchemy was just not fast enough.

And then a fizzle of white crossed through the floor and where there was nothing before suddenly stood Alethea in front of the other two, just in time to get herself pierced for them. Only the momentum kept Al moving after that, his shock far too great, his hands touching the concrete making the floor move and throw the Homunculus across the room, her pierce disgustingly snapping out of his friend with a sound of flesh tearing. Immediately, he turned around prepared for the worse, but as got his first glimpse at his friend his breath if he had any would've hitched.

She was a vision of death, bathed in deep crimson contrasting so harshly against the paleness of her skin. She looked tattered from her clothes to her aspect, the new wound starting to bleed profoundly over the red and maroon already darkening her clothes until it was no longer understandable what colour they had been. If he weren't so surprised he would have run forward to try and catch her, the whole thing reminiscent of the first encounter he had with the girl, but unlike then she didn't fall. She actually didn't react or paid any mind to the wound or anyone in the room at all, her eyes unseeing and harsh concentrated on the body of the Homunculus that finally rose to her feet.

"You…" Lust exclaimed as soon as her eyes caught sight if her from where she stood, her body only half healed, and Al was surprised to see that it wasn't shock lingering in her gaze but fear.

Alethea said nothing to Lust; she just took a step forward, and suddenly a spear of concrete impaled the Homunculus across the room making her scream in agony. Al winced and prepared to say something when other three spears shot from the floor, so sudden that if he weren't watching closely he wouldn't have seen the white currents playing on the surface before their formation.

It was a horrible display of power, and Al felt a prickling sense of fear as she watched the way the girl hurt the Homunculus with eyes set in stone. It wasn't a fight, it was a form of slow torture, as the other creature tried to break free and fight, but the currents healing her were so weak it was clear she was almost done for. It was horrible. The coldness of her actions, the ice behind her eyes. She was different, more than her physical aspect that seemed more faded away already, and Al could find nothing of the sweet friend he had made in this calculated stranger.

He watched stuck in his place as she raised a hand to her chest. A few light sizzles and suddenly the gaping wound was gone, the clear skin visible behind the blood coated material of her ripped shirt. Al wanted to look at Mustang and ask for him to stop her, but his eyes were set on her forms as she took a few steps forward.

"Me," she said, her cold eyes trained on Lust, and the other snarled at her. But it was in vain since Alette rose her right hand and her fingers snapped, and Al watched as an inferno raged from nothing, white flames so strong and powerful, almost like a whirlwind of hell.

When it all stopped the body of the Homunculus was no more, a pile of ash being in that place that slowly seemed to scatter around by an invisible breeze. Silence descended on the room as everyone watched Alette's back as she faced her now dead opponent, her muscle stiff, and her white hair hanging limply over her shoulders.

As she turned around, Al didn't know why but a part of him braced, ready to fight, his red orbs trained over those cold eyes. Alette stood there a few more moments unseeing, her face a mask of stony indifference, stony and undecipherable, as the room held its breath. Then the expression melted away, giving in to a look of sudden worry and dizziness, her eyes moving towards a kneeling Hawkeye sustaining a barely conscious Mustang. A sudden softens and panic appeared on her features, and her mouth wobbled before she rasped out a sigh.

"Thank God I made it in time," she whispered, her hands coming to cover her face. When she let them fall away, cleaning slightly the mess of ash and dirt covering her features, her eyes were glassy, but her mouth was giving in to a small smile. At the sight, Al felt the tension leave his body, along with the fear, and he wanted to speak and say something, anything, but he did not get the chance. As soon as she finished speaking Alette suddenly fell forward like a broken doll with her strings cut, her body giving a loud thud into the empty space.

Mustang yelled something and Hawkeye was struggling to get both of them to their feet, and Al was already running forward to the girl that almost blended with the white floor of the room they were in. Their relief and distress, tension and shock, all of it made them all blind to the fading steps of a figure lingering in the shadows by the door.

A.N. So this is another chapter and finally I can say one of the arcs of the story came to a close with this. Unfortunately, things won't calm down (or maybe they will just for a chapter) as revelations will be presented. Also I need to give a very big apology to everyone reading this story for this late update that can't be considered humane. Honestly, I hadn't planned on going on hiatus after the last chapter, but it happened. It was a combination of things happening in my life as well as being suffocated a little by the story (worst. chapter. to write. ever.) so it did me good to take some time off. My problem is that my life is still hectic af, and the only reason I can update right now and found the time to is because I broke my leg and I might need surgery and I am put to bed rest (yay me). So I can't guarantee when the next update it, but I want to thank everyone for their continuous support and for reading this story. Thank you so much, I cannot tell you how grateful and delighted I am if you found the slightest fun reading this. See you next time.